Fort Irwin Behind the Scenes

The Desert Dispatch has posted an interesting article covering Fort Irwin, CA's involvement in shooting Transformers including the pilots flying the US Army, UH-60 Blackhawks in the film. The source that sent the link also provided some pics (see below) not in the article and pointed out that the NTC Aviation Company from Irwin where the ones that flew them in downtown LA through the "Valley of Skyscrapers" at the finale of the film.

The pilot for the film was Chief Warrant Officer (CW2) Eric Metcalf. He is in the same productions still pic with Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel and Michael Bay, wearing the gray colored NTC AVCO UH-60 Platoon Hat. Thanks for the information.

The article:

Fort Irwin’s Blackhawks transform into movie stars
Blackhawks transform into movie stars
‘Transformers’ stars NTC helicopters
By AARON AUPPERLEE Staff Writer

DAGGETT — When Hollywood director Michael Bay needed helicopters that could buzz through the streets of downtown Los Angeles and hover between skyscrapers for his summer movie, “Transformers,” he turned to the Blackhawks lined up on an asphalt strip at the Barstow-Daggett Airport.

Two of the National Training Center Aviation Company’s helicopters and several pilots from the base star in the movie alongside Optimus Prime, Megatron, Josh Duhamel, Shia LaBeouf and Jon Voight. Chief Warrant Officer Eric Metcalf, a pilot with the aviation company who flew in the movie, said the movie was one of the most intense experiences ever but also one of the coolest.

“I’ve flown about 500 hours of combat in Afghanistan and that was way cooler than that,” Metcalf, a Transformer fan as a child, said. “Instead of dodging bullets, I was dodging radio antennas and wires.”

Much of the action for Metcalf and the other pilots involved — Maj. Richard Campbell, Chief Warrant Officer Michael Carilo, Sgt. Sean Smeldly, Chief Warrant Officer Angel Rodriguez, Chief Warrant Officer Matthew Wagstaff and Spc. David Ayala — was through alleys in LA. The helicopters took off and landed in an abandoned Sears parking lot, flew over Dodgers Stadium and hovered above roof-tops. Metcalf said he would round a corner in his helicopter to find a pole or a wire in his way and change course.

“It was basically advance tactical skills,” he said about the flying through the streets. “The level of concentration was pretty intense.”

During one scene, Metcalf had to hold the large military helicopter steady while bouncing it up and down like a yo-yo between skyscrapers. He said the buildings were about 50 feet away from his rudders.

Although Metcalf could not give away much of the movie, which is scheduled to open in theaters on July 4, he said the helicopters were called into assist with the evacuation of a certain person and recovery of a certain piece of equipment. The mission, he said, was a bit different from the company’s normal routine of supporting training operations at Fort Irwin, shuttling military officers around California and standing ready to fly medical crews to Edwards Air Force Base if the space shuttle decides to touch down there.

The company received the request to participate in the project in July 2006 and spent two weekends on the set in August. Metcalf estimates it cost Paramount Pictures more than $60,000 to borrow the two helicopters and crew for the two weekends.

Metcalf flew many special operations in Afghanistan from March 2004 to April 2005 before coming to Fort Irwin, often times seeing the enemy eye to eye. However, in “Transformers,” Metcalf never saw the robots on set.

The computer generated Transformers in the movie were really guys with long poles on the set, Metcalf said. The poles had balls placed at the Transformer’s eye level so the actors knew where to look, but the rest of the machine body was added later. Metcalf said he has not seen a final cut of the movie.

“It wasn’t really the flying portion, it was being on set and seeing the whole process,” he said.