Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with pilots

Series of books about WWI pilots

nushustu — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:55:20 -0800

I once heard about a series of novels about WWI pilots in the vein of the Aubrey-Maturin series, or Flashman. Might have had "Hell" in the title. It was basically about a bunch of crazy guys who knew that they had a good chance of dying. IIRC, the commander of the group had to justify buying silk scarves for the pilots to keep their necks from chafing. Any ideas?

The Player TV show... ? And other shows that never made it past the pilot stage.

You Should See the Other Guy — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 15:40:35 -0800

So I just watched the (terrible) pilot for the 2003 tv show L.A. Confidential. I've also heard Michael Tolkin talk about the tv show for The Player, which I've never been able to find. My questions are: where can I find The Player tv show and what other films have had failed tv shows not make it past the pilot stage?

How can I watch more TV pilots?

chudmonkey — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 06:02:33 -0800

How can I watch cancelled/never-aired TV shows? I've recently been able to watch a few pilot TV shows that were never picked up as recurring series, specifically Heat Vision & Jack, which starred Jack Black and Owen Wilson as a super-smart astronaut and his melded former-roommate/motorcycle, and Lookwell!, which featured Adam West as a faded detective-show star still obseesed with solving crimes in real life, and the much-viewed Global Frequency pilot.

I was also able to use P2P to find episodes of cancelled shows like Life on a Stick, Eyes and Threshold that aired in different countries like New Zealand after the shows' American cancellation.

I'd love to be able to watch more pilots, either of shows that have been rejected in the past, or of shows that are being developed right now. And "missing" episodes of cancelled series would be a treat as well.

One specific abandoned pilot I'd really be interested in seeing is a show that Matthew Perry did shortly before being cast in Friends - he played a baggage handler in a futuristic "space airport" of some kind in a sci-fi/comedy whose title I can't recall.

Any leads or advice on finding shows along these lines?

Happiness would be a private G4

Keith Talent — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 09:18:49 -0800

Over the holidays while waiting at the airport watching the private jets come and go, my wife and I began a conversation surrounding the logistics of being a private pilot. What does the pilot do while the passengers/plane owners holiday? Wait at a hotel? Catch a commercial flight home?

What do pilots do during long flights?

LongDrive — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 20:54:06 -0800

What do pilots do in the cockpit during extremely long flights? Its bad enough being in economy when you have plenty of distractions, but for 16-24 hour flights, like to and from Australia, what the hell do they do? Is there some sort of sofa or entertainment? Just wondering

Up, up...

o2b — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 13:11:12 -0800

I'm looking for blogs written by pilots of (or about) planes, helicoptors, blimps, etc. Got any links?

Why are the first few episodes of cartoons usually the worst?

skallas — Thu, 04 Nov 2004 14:17:48 -0800

Why are the first few episodes of cartoons usually the worst? Ignoring the pilot which might have had a different production team, there seems to be some magic rule that the first three episodes of any new cartoon series are going to be pretty lackluster. I’ve been watching some Futurama reruns and have noticed that there are less jokes per minute, the voices and timing are really off, and the animation in some parts is sub-par. I’ve noticed this in other series too. Is there some kind of review the production team goes through after episode three? Perhaps they don’t get to see the first couple of episodes until they are working on the fifth? Does the voice talent just ‘gel’ after a few episodes?

How does skywriting work?

mrben — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 04:48:52 -0800

how is skywriting achieved ?, is there some sort of GPS or computer assistance .. or just pilots with a sixth sense ?.