Red Tail Reborn

Review The program is outstanding and long overdue. These gentlemen are real heroes! I enjoyed every minute of both DVDs! --Frank Borman - Apollo 8 Commander This exceptional new DVD documentary from Adam White, as narrated by Star Trek television star and warbird owner/flyer Michael Dorn, recounts the story of the famed Tuskegee Airmen of WWII s 332nd Fighter Group but with a new, engaging twist. Through period footage and present day interviews with the surviving Black flyers and historians the home-front struggles for acceptance and their triumphs in aerial combat are quickly sketched in as is the group s even quicker postwar dismissal back into the dustbin of historic anonymity. Enter a derelict, weather-beaten P-51C Mustang resurrected from the campus grounds of Montana State university in Bozeman during the mid-1960 s. We follow the razorback fighter s protracted 35-year, $350,000 struggle to regain airworthiness, principally in the hands of the Minnesota wing of the Commemorative Air Force and project leader Don Hinz. When the warbird was finally ready for its first postwar flight in 2001 it is sporting the wartime red tail markings of the Tuskegee Airmen s famed fighter group. Touring the nation from coast to coast the Mustang quickly becomes a symbol and beacon for what the Black airmen of the 332nd had accomplished at home and abroad during the Second Word War. That is until the plane's near total destruction in a 2004 crash in Wisconsin, taking the life of Don Hinz. And now, as a Phoenix rising from the ashes, the Mustang is once again beginning to take shape anew in North Dakota, its mission still incomplete. For anyone, such as this reviewer, who has ever had a hand in the restoration of a warbird, or those who wanted to do so, there is something visceral here, something of an elemental emotion felt as you view this DVD, as skilled technicians and volunteers give over years of their lives to bring back to life something more than a mere flying machine, but a near-living symbol, a metaphor for something heroic, even noble in our evolving, ever maturing social fabric. Disc Two of this remarkable package offers a large number of interviews with surviving Tuskegee fliers, deleted scenes and production stills totaling more than five hours all told. A truly inspiring effort! --Jim Farmer - Flight Journal About the Director Adam White graduated Wright State University's film program in 1995 with a degree in Motion Picture Production. He has won a regional Emmy for his film The Restorers. With 15 years of experience, Adam has worked on most every type of media in many different roles. He now concentrates his time as a director / cinematographer with a specialty in SteadiCam. Adam has been attending and filming air shows for the past 10 years. He now lives in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio