Gula divisionen

This movie gives a good view of the everyday life of a Swedish Air Force aviator in the early 1950's. It shows several interesting aspects, ranging from flying practice to live fire practice, and even emergency situations (seeing that magnificent Catalina gives me goose-pimples). A large part of the movie also focuses on the personal life of the aviators. This also has interesting elements, such as the surprising level of equality between the sexes, keeping in mind that this is a 1950's movie.

To sum it up, it's a must-see for all of you with a genuine interest in aviation and Swedish military history! The quality of the J 29 Tunnan footage is excellent. And if that isn't enough, you also get to see some truly death-defying stunts being pulled off by a SAAB Safir.

As a background: In the 50:es the Swedish Air Force was the third biggest in the world. The "J29 SAAB Tunnan" was as good as the best US (Sabre) and Soviet (Mig15) air fighters. Tunnan held for a time the world speed record at the distance of 500 km. Tunnan was in UN Service in Kongo, and made a substantial contribution to the UN victory.

The plot is not the best, but one has to consider that general Nordenskjöld, commander of the Swedish Air Force at the time, demanded several changes in the script if the Air Force was to cooperate. The flying sequences are very well executed for a Swedish film of that time. There is some flaws in editing. For example, the aircraft for the most time are marked with an "8" (for F8, the fighter-wing at Barkarby where most of the film was made) but, without explanation, they sometimes have other markings. Also, a segment shows a squadron of J29 fighters on a training mission. When they arrive at their target, they have transformed into A29's, the ground attack version of J29, and fire air to ground- rockets they didn't carry in previous shots. All in all, I enjoyed the movie because of the flying, and because I did my military training in the Swedish Air Force.

You wouldn't expect a film from 1954 to contain these many aircrafts and shots up in the air. Especially not if it's a swedish film from 1954. Some effects like explosions are not as thrustworthy as others, and when an aircraft (SAAB Tunnan) crashes, after having to little fuel to make it to the strip, they use some kind of wooden model to replace the aircraft in the scenes. The real aircraft has a smooth shape while the model is edgy and uneven. This made me laugh a bit until i made myself realize it was made almost a half decade ago.

Anyway, the plot is not one of the best, but if you're an aircraft fanatic this is a funny picture to watch.