Customer Reviews

Wings of Glory: The Air Force Story

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The title of this series is a little misleading, since it only goes through the Korean War, which started a couple of years after the USAF became a separate branch of service.
It starts with the Wright Bros. and most of the episodes, which are about 10 or 15 minutes each, cover WWII operations.
The value of the series is in the outstanding footage of some extremely interesting aircraft, particularly from WWI and between-the-wars. The narration typically leans toward propaganda, and always paints every event in the best light, sometimes side-stepping historical facts regarding failures. An example of this is the valiant effort by AAF B-17s in attacking the Japanese at Midway (even though they didn't actually hit anything). Some of the footage is misplaced (such as showing aircraft with ETO markings supposedly operating in the Pacific). It's a little hokey and rah-rah, but you can pick up this set in discount stores for $4.00.
If you take it with a grain of salt, and realize the time period it's from, it's well worth the money just for the footage of rare and little-documented aircraft.

The Air Force Story is a wonderful series, but some portions of this DVD look absolutely awful. They say at the beginning of the show that things may be a bit dodgy, but that's being kind. If you don't mind watching a lot of blown-out footage, and pixels the size of small dogs, this is for you. Oh and p.s., the bonus feature, "Test Pilots Pushing the Envelope" is only four minutes long, and about a million times more boring than you would think from the title.