OLD AND FORGOTTEN FIGHTER AIRCRAFTS USED IN MOVIES

I appreciate viewing historical movies and reading books about the content dealt with in the books and the movies: A thrilling past time activity of mine. When I notice that aircrafts and military equipments are used in historical movies in a wrong context, I get a feeling that the movies are of less importance as sources for further research and studies .Sorry. When I viewed an old movie about the Battle of Sutjeska  located in the former Yugoslavia, I noticed that German fighters  were attacking the partisans led by  Marshal Josip Broz Tito. The German fighters were not German fighters, I noticed. After having done some research about military aircrafts used by the Yugoslav Air Force, I found the correct name of the used aircraft: Soko 522 Ikaros. The movie I viewed was not a good one, I think. The famous British actor, Richard Burton, was portraying the Yugoslav partisan commandor Marshal Tito.

The title of the film is: “ Battle of Sutjeska”. The original title is: “ Sutjeska”. The film was released in 1973. The story is about the Axis attempt to capture Marshal Tito and to destroy the partisan groups fighting for Marshal Tito. The fighting scenes are made in a realistic way. But we do not get to know the famous partisan commandor Tito whose name was Josip Broz Tito. He was an active communist before the Second World War. The German fighters which were used during the battle of Sutjeska were portrayed as Focke-Wolf Fw 190t.

But the correct aircrafts used in the movie are Soko 522 Ikaros. The aircraft was a Yugoslav military trainer and light attack aircraft which was built in 1955. From 1958 to 1961 110 aircrafts were produced. Sokos served with the Yugoslav Air Force until 1977.

Many flying clubs in Yugoslavia and abroad bought the aircraft for private use. Some aircrafts were sold to civilian foreign customers in United States and France.