India Golf Niner Niner

One of the best animated scenes, period. What's interesting is that she correctly says "abort" three times at the end, which means the writers probably intentionally made her mess up the abort and Mayday signals earlier to convey her stress and desperation. And I really like that detail

Helen's use of radio protocol while flying is exceptionally accurate for a movie. In the director's commentary Brad Bird tells that Holly Hunter insisted on learning the lingo and its meaning. The terminology used hints that Elastigirl has had military flight training. "VFR on top" means she is flying in the regime of Visual Flight Rules 'on top' of a cloud cover. She requests "vectors to the initial", directions how to get to the initial landing approach. "Angels 10" is her altitude call, ten thousand feet. This is a military term. Civilian flights use the term "flight level". "Track east" is her direction of travel. "Buddy spike(d)" is a U.S. military brevity code meaning "friendly anti-aircraft radar has locked on to me, (please don't shoot)". "Transmitting in the Blind Guard" is a call on the emergency frequency where two-way communication has not been established. "Abort" is also a military brevity code, a directive meaning "stop the action/mission/attack"

This scene is heart wrenching. The casual carefree initial contact, the confusion when they don’t respond, then the pure fear and panic as she tries to survive. The fact she messes up a couple transmissions adds to that feeling of fear and panic. Being correct is probably not a priority. She’s more focused on her children.

The part that gets me is that she’s a literal superhero and she’s faced with complete helplessness and desperation to save her children. It’s so well acted that, being a parent myself it makes me well up every single time.

This scene gives me chills EVERY time it's so well made

"India golf niner niner is buddy spiked" Syndrome: "MY NAME IS NOT BUDDY! Sorry, that was, uh, reflex."

literally everything about this scene is perfection. The music, the voice acting, the research behind the terminology, the emotional turmoil, the cinematography, every shot, every angle. could not make it any better than this.

I always found it so cool how Helen made the split second decision to potentially sacrifice her life at 1:17 to save Dash and Violet from the missile strike. Of course, she survived the explosion without a scratch, but there's no way she knew for sure that she would.

Fun Fact: When she says "Maday, mayday, India Gulf Niner Niner is buddy-spiked" she's saying she's under friendly fire as buddy-spiked is the Air Force equivalent of fratricide/friendly fire.

This is so satisfying for pilots

When she rips the headset off, I literally got chills. I thought they were dead as a child

Fun Fact: The callsign "India Golf niner niner" ,IG99, is actually a reference to one of Brad Bird's (the director of The Incredibles) earliest movies, The Iron Giant. Which came out in 1999. IG99.

0:27 That bass tho

Niner niner we need backup We're sending a chopper!

Another nice little detail is the missiles going supersonic with the plane as they dive at 0:27.

India Golf Niner Niner is also a reference to Brad Bird’s earlier film The Iron Giant

funny how if edna didnt take the extra step to make elastagirls suit indestructible they would have died. it really worked well!

The fact that Syndrome’s technology was so advanced that his missiles were able to completely ignore the plane’s flares and still strike their intended target

Fun fact: either Brad Bird or the voice of Helen did some research on what the plane communications were in the 1960s, where the movie takes place.

After allll this time, I see where they got the feautures from. The F-104 Starfighter. The intakes, the jet pipe, the tail, the wing tanks.