Why did he decide to land the plane? He opens and then closes the window as he flies over the troops down on the beach.
shareIt would have been easier to set down near where troops were still being evacuated from the beach. Rather than to risk a bail out which could land him in the water or a sitting duck for the enemy.
The landing gear foul up caused him to land way further down the beach than he intended. He wound up outside the perimeter.
I thought that was an overly dramatized scene just to amp up the suspense for his character and give Tom Hardy a big, self-sacrificing moment.
A beach--especially one that is completely sandy--would be about the most ideal spot to belly-land a plane. He didn't need to fly on for miles trying to crank down his wheels...he could have put his plane down right after he flew past the last group of soldiers. And then been evacuated safely.
But the film had already had his flying mate get rescued by the boat, so Hardy's character had to become a noble symbol of sacrifice.
Trying to ditch without knowing if the carriage was already partially down or what had happened would have been extremely dangerous.
When the gear started to come down it was land with gear down and locked or nothing.
It was just to add drama. He could have bailed out into the sea. All the men on the beach were looking at him at that moment and he would have been saved for sure.
shareHe was wanting to be crashing this plane...with no survivors.
We all know he nipped out with Doctor Pavel and got carried off by that other plane.
He was too low.
That wasn't the worst part- gliding down the beach like that at that angle of attack (nose pointed up) would slow him dramatically, and cause the plane to stall. At that altitude, it was too low to recover from the stall, and would have crashed.
Also, he had his flaps down. Again a no-no.
Finally, he must have had some sort of super Spitfire- it had more ammo (at least twice as much) as any Spit in history.
..Joe