Clash of Wings

Country

United States

How it feels

This 15 episode documentary series from 1998 covers World War II aircraft and aerial combat. It uses gun camera footage and color film of surviving planes to show how these aircraft operated.

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What happens

Clash of Wings is a 15-episode documentary television series which originally aired in 1998 on the Discovery Channel. The hour-long episodes were some of the initial shows of Discovery Network's 1999 launch of the Discovery Wings and later the 2005 launch of the Military Channel. Based on the Clash of Wings (1994) reference book by air historian Walter J. Boyne, the programs were produced in 1998 and aired the next year appearing as some of the initial original content in the launch of the new Discovery Wings cable channel (before its name change in 2005 to the Military Channel). The programs were hosted and partially narrated and written by Boyne, (also credited as associate producer) together with director-producer John Honey, and presented by executive producer Phillip Osborn. The effort adapted his encyclopedic work of the same name. Like many World War II documentaries involving aircraft, the displayed content uses many scenes from gun camera footage and other military films now in the public domain. The series also interspersed color film of surviving combat aircraft types from multiple camera angles and in a variety of operations modes. Unlike many documentaries about the era, the series makes no effort to present on-camera interviews, instead focusing on an overarching narrative appropriate to that episode's specific title. Boyne is not the sole narrator, but uses multiple narrators to describe details while Boyne ties the segments together as host. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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