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Piece Of Cake

J

jimskifs

Guest
Piece Of Cake is a TV mini series made for British TV in 1988. I think it is in six parts and I saw a Netflix disc of the first two parts last night. Follows a squadron of British fighter pilots from the first day of the war. As of the second part they are in France in the phony war period. Most of you would enjoy it.

Well, I would expect a mini series to be a soap opera with maybe a bit of flying. But Piece of Cake is really an airshow with maybe a bit of soap opera. Filmed in 1988 before digital fakes, all the flying is quite real and often. All done in Spitfires and I would think with real vintage flying gear. I count five Spits in formation at one time and I assume that was the lot they had to work with. With different camera angles they make it look like 20. Not all are correct for that time of the war but they are indeed real Spits with lots of in air action and closeups. I've got to hand it to the stunt pilots who worked the film. The first part starts with a two ship close formation low level work out. The second part revolves around dare devil flying under a low stone bridge in France. There is no doubt that the stunt was real - a Spit a few feet over the water flying down a deep valley and under the bridge.

As for the countryside - that cfs1 texture guy got it right on the money!

Looking forward to the next two discs.

Jimski
 
Loved the series when i saw it. In fact I found the complete DVD version on the net and gave it to myself for christmas.:jump: It's even better now. The Merlin sounds fantastic through my HIFI speakers.

Morton
 
Indeed a very nice series! The pilot which flew the Spitfire under the bridge was Ray Hanna. In the last episode there is some really nice flying over the white cliffs of Dover.

Huub
 
Loved it, particularly the Spit flying undeneath that bridge. I could not get over the lack of radio codes though. yes, I'm a bit anal.
 
Hey, I got that whole series on DVD for Christmas from my wife. Great stuff! Plus, I received '633 Squadron' as well.
 
Based on the book of the same name by Derek Robinson IIRC. Due to constraints at the time (i.e. not enough of the type airworthy) the Hurricanes of the book were replaced by Spits. It is a damn good read.

He also wrote a sequel set in the Western Desert called 'A Good Clean Fight' where survivors of the original flew Tomahawks and Kittyhawks.
 
A Piece of Cake was an excellent series as far as the flying action and stunts were concerned, it did take a serious bashing from ex W.W.II ground and air crews over the way it portraid the relaitionship between the two in the series. Wether this was from the book or was the directors way of upping the tension for the series I never found out.
 
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