The Virtual Album of Hollywood Fluid Motion

Welcome to the Virtual Album of Hollywood Fluid Motion!

Under contruction!

“Die Hard 2”

Near the end of the movie “Die Hard 2”, a plane flies through a cloud of black smoke (Bruce Willis had just blown up the bad guys). The smoke creates a stunning visualization of a trailing wingtip vortex.

The Video

This video clip is 14 seconds long. This is by far the better of the two clips—if you only download one, make it this one. It is available in the following formats:

Large (704×304, higher quality) -- 2.2 MiB MPEG-2 video with mp2 audio.
Large (704×304, more compatible) -- 2.1 MiB MPEG-1 video with mp2 audio.
Small (512×220) -- 1.1 MiB MPEG-1 video with mp2 audio.
Experimental (no cropping, has black boxes, maybe more compatible):
- higher quality -- 2.8 MiB MPEG-1 video with mp2 audio.
- low quality -- 1.8 MiB MPEG-1 video with mp2 audio.
- highest quality -- 12 MiB MJPEG in QuickTime container. PCM Audio. This mjpeg format does not correctly maintain the aspect ratio.
- highest quality -- 12 MiB MJPEG in .avi container. PCM Audio.

Another, less dramatic, clip:

Large (704×304, higher quality) -- 2.5 MiB MPEG-2 video with mp2 audio.
Large (704×304, more compatible) -- 1.9 MiB MPEG-1 video with mp2 audio.
Small (512×220) -- 1.3 MiB MPEG-1 video with mp2 audio.

Still Images

Scene from Die Hard 2 with a Wingtip Vortex

“Air Force One”

At the very end of “Air Force One”, we are shown this beautiful sunset shot of the perturbations in the cloud cover caused by the twin wingtip vortices of a C-130.

Video Clips

This video clip is 22 seconds long. It is available in the following formats:

TV (4:3) aspect ratio:
- higher quality -- 5.5 MiB MPEG-2 video, no audio.
- low quality -- 2.6 MiB MPEG-1 video, no audio.
- highest quality -- 15 MiB MJPEG in QuickTime container. No Audio. This mjpeg format does not correctly maintain the aspect ratio.
- highest quality -- 15 MiB MJPEG in .avi container. No Audio.
Widescreen (16:9) aspect ratio (partially anamorphic):
- higher quality -- 4.6 MiB MPEG-2 video, no audio.
- lower quality -- 2.7 MiB MPEG-1 video, no audio.

Still Images

Scene from Air Force One with Wingtip Vortices

Related Images

See the painting “High Flight” by Dru Blair:

The films on this page are copyrighted by the original creators. I believe this site should be considered “fair use”.
The Hollywood title image was made from a public domain image found on Wikipedia.
This webpage itself is copyright © 2004 Colin Macdonald.
Verbatim copying and distribution of parts © Colin Macdonald is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.