

A humorous look at the most annoying and common logic flaws and stereotypes found in movies.

Piston-engine airplanes in the movies are unusually subject to engine failure. This failure mode is unique to filmdom – engine coughs, keeps running. Hero doesn’t notice. Then it stutters, catches again. Hero notices, taps gas gauge, turns lever. Then it stutters exactly three times and stops immediately, including propeller. No further efforts are ever made to restart.

In movieland, there’s an abundance of corrupt helicopter pilots. Villains have no problem renting a helicopter complete with pilot who doesn’t mind shooting total strangers, or being shot at.

When a helicopter is hit by a bullet or rocket, it’ll explode immediately if it contains a villain, but if the hero is on board, it will loose power, smoke will come out of the doors, and it’ll just reach the ground in time for the hero to get clear then duck just at the moment it explodes.

When a turbine-powered Bell Jet Ranger helicopter is shot at, it’s engine coughs and sputters, chugs along for a little while as the helo staggers through the air uncertainly, and then crashes using the good/bad pilot algorithm noted above.

People standing outside a running helicopter can always talk in normal or just slightly louder than normal voices.

A pursued hero, with the bad guys just yards behind him, can jump into a shutdown helicopter, run through the twenty-five item startup checklist, engage and spin up the rotors, take off and be out of pistol range before the bad guys catch up.

Every helicopter shutting down emits the chirp-chirp-chirp sound of the rubber drive belts disengaging, in spite of the fact that only the famous Bell 47G (the Mash chopper) actually makes this sound.

Rambo-style pilots can fly with one hand on the cyclic stick while the other fires an automatic weapon out the door. The helicopter automatically knows when to change altititude to fly over obstacles without the pilot worrying about that pesky collective pitch control.

Spaceships always fly perpendicular to the same axis. When two spacecraft encounter each other, they’re always aligned on a plane and never approach at odd angles.