Question: Can anyone explain what happened to Stackhouse when he ejected? I understand that he injured his leg. How did that happen? Is it actually possible?
Answer: It is possible that he has done of one two things. Banged his leg on something inside the cockpit causing it to break, or landed too hard on his way down. It is common for people to break limbs when parachuting/sky diving. It is possible that his bones were just not up to withstanding the force which he incurred.
Or a piece of shrapnel from the jet breaking apart cut his leg.
Question: Rather than leaving Stackhouse behind in the area where the Serbians could find him, wouldn't it have made more sense for Burnette to pick Stackhouse up, and help him get up the hill?
Answer: Because in escape and evasion, as opposed to combat, you are taught to get away from where you have landed as fast as possible. And Stackhouse probably believed his pilot would be treated humanely under the Geneva Convention.
Answer: Stackhouse is badly hurt. Burnett would have known better than to move him. Plus, with the way he speaks to Stackhouse it's clear they weren't expecting company so quickly.
So what if Stackhouse has an injured leg, why not just help in him walk? Soldiers in combat help their follow soldiers walk when they have injured legs.
Question: The SAM missiles continuously chases the fighter jet for a few minutes. In reality, don't SAM missiles only contain enough fuel to fly for about 5 to 10 seconds?
Answer: Surface-to-air missiles come in 3 ranges (long range, medium, and short). Long range missile have a range of 100-150 km (there are some very long ranged missiles that can go up to 400 km). Short range missiles go about 3 km. SAM's are faster than Air-to-Air missiles and can travel around Mach 3 and up to Mach 8, with some that can go faster (so about 1 - 2.7 km/s) I don't know what kind of SAM was used, but long range SAM's are fired from a fixed or semi-movable position and medium ranged SAM's can be fired from vehicle mounted systems.
A behind enemy lines goof from IMDb, says that no missile is capable of chasing the F/A-18 as it is portrayed in the movie. A missiles rocket motor only holds enough fuel for one pass at a target. I don't know if you agree with it or not.
I would disagree with the statement that it wouldn't have enough fuel. However, even after a missile runs out of fuel it can still glide to its target at supersonic speeds for a time. I do think the portrayal of the chase scene is overly dramatic in Hollywood fashion though, particularly for the first SAM fired.
According to the trivia of the film the missile used was a 9m37m missile.
In that case the scene is completely Hollywood and unrealistic. The 9m37m is a short range missile, even though it's vehicle mounted, and has a max range of 5 km and doesn't even reach Mach 2. When the 2nd missile is fired we hear one of the pilots say "3 miles and closing", meaning the SAM shouldn't have been able to catch up to them or chase them down. The film makers probably wanted something cool looking without considering (or caring) what they had or may not have access to a midrange SAM system and pretended it was one.
But don't long range missiles lack the ability to turn fast enough to follow and chase a jet due to the weight of the amount of fuel they carry?
Question: Why did heat seeking missiles go after the fireball created by fuel instead of the fighter jet? I thought heat seeking missiles went after specific infrared frequencies, and specific temperatures.
Answer: Modern heat seekers are indeed designed to go after certain frequencies in order to better bypass countermeasures. It is still a pretty common Hollywood convention that heat seekers go after the hottest heat source in the area. Part of this is due to audience expectation, as the average viewer might not be aware of modern missile technology and would wonder the opposite of your question: why a heat seeker wouldn't go after a huge explosion that is hotter than a jet. It must also be noted that no system is perfect and in real world situations heat seeking missiles are still prone to be pulled off course by countermeasures, so it isn't entirely unrealistic.
Question: Who was the real commander of the Serbian army when O'Grady was stranded behind enemy lines?
Answer: "Lokar" might be based on real-life Željko "Arkan" Ražnatović, commander of Serb Volunteer Guard.
Question: How would the United States charge Lokar for his crimes even if he was exposed? He's not an American citizen.
Answer: He would be charged as an International War Criminal. Bosnian war criminals were charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, a body of the United Nations.
Question: Why does Reigart take orders from Piquet? He would have the right to not take orders from him, even in NATO since they are both from different navies.
Answer: If the task force is joint and under certain conditions then the command structure is set. Overruling an order would require removing the senior officer from the task force and replacing them with another who would be reissued the order. For many situations this is too cumbersome and political.
Answer: It doesn't matter if they're in different navies. If their military are officially allied in some way, as in NATO then Piquet is the ranking officer and Reigart is obligated to obey.
Even so ranking officers in NATO who are not from the US only have limited authority over admirals who are from the US navy. For example, in NATO a foreign three star admiral can give orders to a two star American admiral but a three star American admiral can overrule those orders.
In NATO, Reigart is not required by law to obey Piquet If Piquet is from another navy. In order for Reigart required by law to obey, Piquet has to be a member of the US navy, and he's not.
Question: I've noticed a correction that says Burnett and Stack-house didn't expect any troops to find them. Why? They would have known that if the bad guys fired a missile, they would be watching the missile and the jet to see if they ejected in case the missile successfully hit it. They also would have known that in case that the bad guys would watch to see if they parachuted, and then track them if did their parachutes were successfully deployed, shoot at them while they went down, and then check to see where they landed to make sure their dead. So why didn't Burnett and Stack-house expect the enemy troops to find them?
Answer: Because they were being chased by the missile all over the place, so it would have been difficult for the Serbs to keep track of the missile and the jet. Plus they were so busy being chased by the missile they probably didn't where they were when the missile hit them.
I meant why didn't they expect anything or anybody to find them?
Answer: The two seats collided in midair before their chutes opened and Stackhouse yelled, "ow!" Not realistic because in the 5 seconds it took for the second pilot to eject they would have been far apart.
But you see his leg get injured before his leaves the jet. I think the original question refers to how did that happen.
Ssiscool ★
The injury to Stackhouse's leg was from a pen attached to his knee pad. When watched in slow motion, you see it disintegrate and somehow throw shrapnel into his leg. It makes little sense, I believe it was merely a plot point to make Stackhouse unable to travel out of harm's way. This prompted Burnett to leave him unattended for the bad guys to find him as he went to higher ground to get better reception on the PRC-90.