Goofs

There are many scenes in the film where the sunlight is not correct. Often the planes are seen fighting on completely overcast days, when suddenly there is a few seconds where the sky is blue in every direction and the sun is shining on the pilot or plane. In one scene on the ground, several pilots are discussing the death of one of their peers. They are in the shade of a wing, then standing in the sun without moving.

From the sky, Major Boelke's airplane is shown flying straight for a heavily wooded area, but from the ground, the airplane crashes into an open area (with power lines in the background).

Hermann Goering was not assigned to the Flying Circus until he took over as its commander several months after Manfred von Richthofen's death. Also, his later reputation notwithstanding, there is no evidence that Goering ever machine-gunned civilians or committed other atrocities as a World War One fighter pilot.

Use of an "interrupter gear" cam mechanism to allow fuselage-mounted machine guns to fire through propellers without shooting them off by stopping the gun whenever the propeller was in the way caused a far slower rate of fire than shown in the film. (The British SE-5 simply avoided the problem by mounting a machine gun to the plane's upper wing and firing over the top of the propeller.)

The national anthem, you can hear during the German empire scenes, is the republican anthem, introduced after the revolution 1918. Funny enough the German anthem during the Kaiserreich had same melody like UK anthem 'God Save the King'.

The German ace Oswald Boelcke was not killed when his plane collided with Von Richthofen's plane. Instead, Boelcke was killed when the undercarriage of Erwin Böhme's plane crashed into his plane, causing the upper wing to fall away. Böhme's plane survived the mid-air collision and Böhme later became an ace himself.

In the film, Von Richthofen was shot and wounded on the skull while fighting against British single-seater scouts. In fact, on July 6, 1917, he was shot on the skull and seriously wounded by a bullet fired by the observer's gun of a British F.E. 2 two-seater.

In the final dogfight, when Brown kills Richtofen, first Richtofen is chasing Brown down a river, then suddenly Richtofen turns around and runs back the way he came, allowing Brown to turn back and follow and kill him. This is impossible, no flying ace would just do a U-turn while pursuing an enemy and allow the enemy to gain the advantage like that.

In the close-ups, when Major Boelke's rudder is hit by Richthofen's landing gear, the braces holding the wheels are not attached to an airplane.

Von Richthofen is flying a Fokker D.VII when introduced to the "new" Dr.I. In fact the Dr.I was being removed from service as obsolescent before the D.VII was introduced.

Both the German and British troops fighting to recover the Baron are armed with British SMLE's. The Germans should have been using Gewehr 98's. The notable difference being the SMLE has a protruding box magazine.

In the second dogfight scene (about 14 minutes into the movie) a radio antenna is visible behind the pilot of a German fighter. WWI airplanes would not have had radios (if there where in fact any, the close-ups of the airplanes on the ground show no antennas).

When Von Richthofen's DR1 is landing the last time after he is shot by Brown, it is obvious the engine is a radial and the propeller is a Sensenich Metal prop. The DR1 used an Oberursel Ur.II rotary engine and a wooden propeller.

The Australian troops .303 SMLE rifles are no. 4 Mk 1's which were not even tested be the British until the 1930's.

When the Baron crashes after being shot, the trapeze wire that suspends the plane for the shot can be clearly seen.