| Title | Thunderball |
| Studio | United Artists |
| Date Released | December 29, 1965 |
| Director | Terence Young |
| Actors | Sean Connery |
| B-17 Film Guys | Unknown; presumably an Intermountain aircrew |
| B-17 Filming Locations | Somewhere near the Bahamas |
B-17s Utilized
B-17G 44-85531 (N809Z) (also quoted as 44-83785)
The Movie...
The fourth of the major 007 films in the 1960s, what can you say? The plot is good guys vs. bad guys and some women who fall all over James Bond. This one has some underwater stuff. Other aviation interests: the film has the bad guys stealing a pair of nuclear weapons off an RAF Vulcan bomber underwater.
Its major claim to fame in the B-17 world is that it demonstrated the Fulton Skyhook recovery system using the Intermountain B-17, N809Z. The film concludes with Bond and his main squeeze in the water, seemingly abandoned, when what to their wonderous eyes should appear is a B-17G swooping low over the water, dropping a package. That package, as James so aptly knows, provides the inflatable helium balloon and harnasses. James, or Jimmy as his good friends call him, assembles the whole deal and soon enough, the pair are whisked into the heavens when the B-17 comes back and snags their line. Happy ending. It appears to have been shot in the open ocean, possibly off the Bahamas or somewhere similar.
Wanted: specifics on the date and location of said filming, and/or the pilots and crew who flew the B-17 that shot the film. If anyone has and has more information about this, please let me know.
Anecdotal
- The Fulton Skyhook was not widely publicized as it was a technique used both by U.S. Naval Intelligence and also the C.I.A. It had been used successfully to recover intelligence agents dropped into an abandoned Soviet arctic ice station (using the B-17) and was also earmarked for the escape of a C.I.A. B-26 pilot from an Indonesian prison, a plan that was set aside with the release of the pilot.
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Links
Acknowledgements
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N809Z drops the Fulton Skyhook gear to James and his "Bond Girl" in this screen shot.
The B-17 comes in to snag the helium balloon a few minutes later.
N809Z has captured the line and have snagged the line, hauling James Bond and company aloft to be recovered in to the B-17. One suspects that Sean Connery was actually a thousand miles away having a martini, neat, when this scene was shot, don'tcha thing?