''Flight of the Red Tail'' is a 2009 historical

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

by Adam White about the Red Tail Project's successful return to flight of a

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 ...

P-51 Mustang. The plane had been originally flown by the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part ...

332d Fighter Group as a

bomber escort The escort fighter was a concept for a fighter aircraft designed to escort bombers to and from their targets. An escort fighter needed range long enough to reach the target, loiter over it for the duration of the raid to defend the bombers, and ...

for the Allied Forces in the

European Theatre of World War II The European theatre of World War II was one of the two main theatres of combat during World War II. It saw heavy fighting across Europe for almost six years, starting with Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and ending with the ...

and serves as a travelling and flying tribute to the

Tuskegee Airmen The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of primarily African American military pilots (fighter and bomber) and airmen who fought in World War II. They formed the 332d Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group (Medium) of the United States Army ...

. It had become inoperable during a 2004 crash after having been restored for exhibition flying once before in 2001. The Red Tail Project is a part of the

Commemorative Air Force The Commemorative Air Force (CAF), formerly known as the Confederate Air Force, is an American non-profit organization based in Dallas, Texas, that preserves and shows historical aircraft at airshows, primarily in the U.S. and Canada. The CAF h ...

. The film is a sequel to '' Red Tail Reborn'' which brought attention to the attempt to relaunch of the plane after the 2004 crash.

Details

The film was released in

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

format on November 27, 2009. The film, which was produced in NTSC

Dolby 5.1 Dolby Digital, originally synonymous with Dolby AC-3, is the name for what has now become a family of audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories. Formerly named Dolby Stereo Digital until 1995, the audio compression is lossy ...

format, had a running time of 12 minutes. It is contained on a single disc. This film chronicles the reconstruction by picking up where ''Red Tail Reborn'' left off in 2007. It is described as a companion piece to its predecessor, but White says it is only part of a continuing story. The five-year restoration occurred at Tri-State Aviation in Wahpeton, North Dakota from 2004 to 2009. In 2007 Gerry Beck, one of the primary restorers was in an aviation collision of a P-51A and a P-51D during

AirVenture EAA AirVenture Oshkosh (formerly the EAA Annual Convention and Fly-In), or just Oshkosh, is an annual air show and gathering of aviation enthusiasts held each summer at Wittman Regional Airport and adjacent Pioneer Airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsi ...

2007. Nonetheless, the rebuilding continued with the mounting of the engine in 2008 and the mating of the wing in 2009. On July 22, 2009, four days before AirVenture 2009 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin the plane had its first flight. Then, it was flown to Wisconsin for its public debut. After the show it returned to Minnesota with a 6 AT-6 escort.CAF, p. unnumbered

References

;Bibliography *

External links

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2009 Homecoming photoessay
{{DEFAULTSORT:Flight Of The Red Tail 2009 films 2009 documentary films Documentary films about African Americans American aviation films American documentary television films Films set in North Dakota Films shot in North Dakota Films shot in Minnesota Historic preservation in the United States Tuskegee Airmen World War II aircraft of the United States Wahpeton, North Dakota 2000s English-language films 2000s American films