Waller Gunnery Trainer
The Waller Gunnery Trainer was a simulator for training World War II aerial gunners using multiple film projectors. Its inventor, Fred Waller, later invented the Cinerama film format. See also * First Motion Picture Unit The 18th AAF Base Unit (Motion Picture Unit), originally known as the First Motion Picture Unit, Army Air Forces, was the primary film production unit of the U.S. Army Air Forces (AAF) during World War II, and was the first military unit mad ... References Flight training Projectors {{military-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fred Waller
Frederic Waller (1886 – May 18, 1954) was an American inventor and film pioneer. Career Waller is most known for his contributions to film special effects while working at Paramount Pictures, for his creation of the Waller Flexible Gunnery Trainer, and for inventing Cinerama, the immersive experience of a curved film screen that extends to the viewer's peripheral vision for which he received an Academy Award. Waller, a snow skiing and boating enthusiast, is also credited with obtaining the first patent for a water ski in 1925. He produced and directed 200 one-reel shorts for Paramount, including ''Cab Calloway's Hi-De-Ho'' and Duke Ellington's ''Symphony in Black''. He patented several pieces of photographic equipment, including a camera that could take a 360-degree still photo. As the special projects director for the 1939 New York World's Fair, he collaborated on the fair centerpiece attraction called the Perisphere, the Eastman Kodak Hall of Color, and he developed the Time a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cinerama
Cinerama is a widescreen process that originally projected images simultaneously from three synchronized 35mm projectors onto a huge, deeply curved screen, subtending 146° of arc. The trademarked process was marketed by the Cinerama corporation. It was the first of a number of novel processes introduced during the 1950s, when the movie industry was reacting to competition from television. Cinerama was presented to the public as a theatrical event, with reserved seating and printed programs, and audience members often dressed in their best attire for the evening. The Cinerama projection screen, rather than being a continuous surface like most screens, is made of hundreds of individual vertical strips of standard perforated screen material, each about inch (~22 mm) wide, with each strip angled to face the audience, so as to prevent light scattered from one end of the deeply curved screen from reflecting across the screen and washing out the image on the opposite end. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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First Motion Picture Unit
The 18th AAF Base Unit (Motion Picture Unit), originally known as the First Motion Picture Unit, Army Air Forces, was the primary film production unit of the U.S. Army Air Forces (AAF) during World War II, and was the first military unit made up entirely of professionals from the film industry. It produced more than 400 propaganda and training films, which were notable for being informative as well as entertaining. Films for which the unit is known include ''Resisting Enemy Interrogation'', '' Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress'' and '' The Last Bomb''—all of which were released in theatres. Veteran actors such as Clark Gable, William Holden, Clayton Moore, Ronald Reagan, and DeForest Kelley, and directors such as John Sturges served with the 18th AAF Base Unit. The unit also produced training films and trained combat cameramen. ''First Motion Picture Unit'' is also the eponymous title of a 1943 self-produced documentary about the unit narrated by radio and televis ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Flight Training
Flight training is a course of study used when learning to pilot an aircraft. The overall purpose of primary and intermediate flight training is the acquisition and honing of basic airmanship skills. Flight training can be conducted under a structured accredited syllabus with a flight instructor at a flight school or as private lessons with no syllabus with a flight instructor as long as all experience requirements for the desired pilot certificate/license are met. Typically flight training consists of a combination of two parts: * ''Flight Lessons'' given in the aircraft or in a certified Flight Training Device . * ''Ground School'' primarily given as a classroom lecture or lesson by a flight instructor where aeronautical theory is learned in preparation for the student's written, oral, and flight pilot certification/licensing examinations. Although there are various types of aircraft, many of the principles of piloting them have common techniques, especially those aircraft ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |