Goofs for
Flyboys (2006) More at IMDbPro »

• Continuity: Lucienne's chinstrap during her first plane ride.
  
  
• Continuity: The streamers on the wing struts of Rawlings' plane (the ones from Cassidy's plane he put on there following his death) disappear when Rawlings takes off to pursue the Black Falcon following the successful ammo depot mission.
  
  
• Factual errors: Fokker DR-1 triplanes were never used in the great quantities seen in the film. The filmmakers used them because they were easily distinguished from the allied biplanes, and didn't want to leave viewers unsure as to who was on what side during these sequences.
  
  

• Factual errors: The movie takes place in late 1916 and early 1917. The Fokker Dr.I triplane didn't appear until September 1917. Likewise, the Bristol Fighter and SE5a weren't available until after the time period depicted in the movie. Also, the paint schemes shown on the Dr.I triplanes are wrong. The crosses weren't painted on the upper surfaces of the lower wing and the all-red paint scheme was only used on Manfred von Richtofen's (the Red Baron's) plane; however many of the planes in his unit were partly red. Correct German fighter planes for the time frame of the movie would have been the Albatros DI,DII,and DIII, and the Halberstadt DII.
  
  
• Continuity: When the German soldier is drinking outside Lucienne's farmhouse, his bottle in the long shots is a squat white one like those the soldiers find in the cupboard, while the bottle in close shots is a tapered cognac bottle.
  
  
• Factual errors: The German column marching through the fields near Lucienne's farm includes several tanks. The German Army built only a handful of tanks during the course of the war, the first time they were used in action was on the 21st March 1918. The majority of tanks used by the Germans during World War One were captured French and British ones.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The Black Falcon and the Gotha bomber bear the straight-edged Balkan Cross of 1918 instead of the Iron Cross of 1914-17.
  
  
• Factual errors: Both the Nieuport 17 and the Fokker DrI triplane were equipped with rotary engines. This meant that the cylinders were fixed to the propeller and actually rotated around a fixed central shaft. In several close-ups of the aircraft in flight, the engine cylinders are shown stationary. This would be how they should appear if they were the more modern radial engine instead of the older rotary engine.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the opening series of scenes from a train station in Lincoln, Nebraska clearly show the name "Union Pacific". Union Pacific never served or went through Lincoln, Nebraska during World War One. In addition the locomotive, passenger car, and goods wagon are of British origin.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Captain Thenault's scar on left cheek moves to the right cheek in one close-up revealing flipped film to make him look the other direction.
  
  
• Factual errors: Aquitania, the ship Lowry takes to Europe, ceased North Atlantic passenger service upon the outbreak of war in August 1914. She was ordered into service with the Royal Navy, serving as an armed merchant, a troop ship (though not again on the North Atlantic run until 1918), and a hospital ship. She did not return to civilian passenger service until 1920.
  
  
• Factual errors: The German airship has the tactical sign "L 32". L 32 had been produced by "Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH" with the internal number "LZ 74" (LZ for "Luftschiff Zeppelin" = Airship Zeppelin). The tactical sign beginning with "L" tells us, that it had been an airship from the German marine and not from the army. "L 32" was built on 4th of August 1916 and carried out one reconnaissance mission for a naval attack against Sunderland and three bombing missions against England. Only one and a half month later - on 24th of September, British fighters shot it down. So there was never a mission performed against Paris or even France!
  
  
• Factual errors: The anti aircraft artillery shown in use by the Germans was not of any type used by any side in the First World War, nor was anti aircraft fire nearly as effective or accurate as shown. Were any of the portrayed shell bursts as close as they appeared in the film, they would have instantly destroyed the aircraft with the combination of the explosive power, fire, and shrapnel.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Cassidy is in a head-on attack against the black triplane during the Zeppelin battle he is firing both a Lewis, mounted on top of the top wing, and a Vickers machine gun. A real Lewis gun has a drum magazine which rotates as the gun fires and the bullets advance against an internal spiral guide. When Cassidy's Lewis fires the drum is motionless.
  
  
• Factual errors: WWI biplanes were not capable of the aerodynamic maneuvers shown in the movie. They would have stalled or crashed had they attempted those maneuvers in real life. The aerobatics shown would be tough even for modern fighter planes to accomplish.
  
  
• Factual errors: In one scene Cassidy is being chased by a German fighter plane. He pulls up on the stick and gains altitude and slows way down so the German plane flies past him under him. WWI fighter planes were incapable of doing such a maneuver, they simply could not go fast enough and would stall.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Blaine rescues Lucienne from her farmhouse invaded by German soldiers he takes off across a field. For some reason, two very unintelligent German soldiers run into the flight line of the plane and start shooting at the plane head on. They would have been much better off trying to shoot the plane from the side and would not have been in the firing line of the main machine gun on the plane.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Blaine takes off after rescuing Lucienne from the German soldiers at her farmhouse two German soldiers run in front of the plane and start shooting at him while he is taking off. One soldier is kneeling and one is standing. Blaine shoots them with the machine gun on his plane. Both soldiers die, even though the bullets should be well over their head, coming from a machine gun mounted 7-8 feet off the ground, especially since one of the soldiers is kneeling. To shoot them with the machine gun, Blaine would have had to nose dive the plane into the dirt to get the proper angle of attack.
  
  
• Continuity: The gun turret atop the Zeppelin, as well as the gunner, are nowhere to be seen in the distance shots. They only appear in the close-ups.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): A British flag appears in the "killers" bar. The Escadrille consisted of American pilots and was run by the French. It had no connection to the British (apart from them being an ally in World War I), so it's unlikely their flag would be on Escadrille property.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Lowry shares a bottle of cognac with Skinner he claims it's 'a hundred year old bottle of Louis XV'. In fact, there is no such thing. The bottle he is holding up is a bottle of Louis XIII.
  
  
• Factual errors: Beagle describes the new "Spandau" machine guns the Germans have as being in 9mm. No German machine gun was ever produced in 9mm, but rather 8mm. This was the standard bullet diameter (.323) not only for German guns (both machine and rifles) but for the French as well.
  
  
• Continuity: In the scene where Rawlings and Lucienne say their final good-byes and Lucienne is on the wagon riding away, an older man with a white beard passes Rawlings on his left and looks at him. When the movie cuts to a shot behind Rawlings, you can make out the same older man except he has not yet passed Rawlings.
  
  
• Anachronisms: In the scenes where the pilot crashes into no-mans-land, the Germans soldiers are shown wearing spiked helmets. The Germans abandoned these helmets in favor of the familiar trench helmets in mid-1915. They would not have been in use during the time portrayed in this film.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In many of the takes of the computer generated aircraft flying through thick smoke from the battlefield, the smoke is apparently not affected by the passing of the airplanes. Real airplanes flying through real smoke will leave a very visible turbulence behind.
  
  

Related Links