There aren’t a lot of movies about aviation. Sure, there are airplanes in a lot of films, but rarely are they main characters. The responsibility (and occasional danger) that revolves around flying makes for a good subject, on occasion, and it’s interesting to see how directors treat the topic.

Often, the effort is laughable. Flightplan, that Jodie Foster ‘thriller’ that came out last year, for example. Taking place on a hypothetical superjumbo much like the A380, the premise was your typical crazy trying to blow stuff up. All of the scenes involving the jumbo itself made me cringe – huge overhead spaces, cargo holds with space to crawl over containers, and a nose section that had to be the size of a small garage. The main flight computer was a free-standing monolith that looked a lot like the Cray from 1993’s Jurassic Park. The set designers clearly haven’t spent any time around actual aircraft.

Airport, from 1970, is another story. You’ve probably watched Airplane!, the classic spoof – well, Airport is what it’s spoofing. It’s likewise a thriller – some have actually called it the first disaster movie – revolving around a winter storm and (surprise!) a crazy trying to blow stuff up. The difference here is that the technical advisors were actually listened to. Just about everything, including the dialogue’s jargon, seemed fairly accurate.

The scenes involving the radar centers were all quite good – particularly the PAR approach towards the end. The pacing was goofy, but it’s from the ‘70s – we’re used to a different kind of movie these days. I’ve seen several other pretty decent movies about aviation, but I’d like to grab some more from Netflix. What are the better ones you’ve seen?