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Fredericksburg helicopter pilot helps bring hit movie "Transformers" to the big screen Date published: 7/14/2009
BY LAURA MOYER Geoff Mann had just started his new job as a Black Hawk flight instructor for the Army National Guard when he got an unexpected assignment: Fly up to Pennsylvania and take part in the filming of the second "Transformers" movie. The filmmakers had contracted with the Army National Guard in Richmond to send two Black Hawk helicopters and crew to help film some important nighttime scenes. But they were one pilot short, so Mann, a 35-year-old Fredericksburg native, filled in. Over four days last spring near Bethlehem, Pa., Mann and his colleagues made several flights for the movie, carrying actors Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson and other cast members to a scene in which they do battle with the Transformers of the title. Later Mann talked up the experience, with a healthy dose of exaggeration. "I tried to tell my friends there was a love scene with Megan Fox, but they didn't buy it," Mann recalled. "My wife didn't find it that funny, either." Mann, a 1992 graduate of James Monroe High School, is the son of Jim and Mary Mann of Fredericksburg. He met his wife, Becky, when both were students at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, and they have two children, Jackson, 4, and Josie, 8 months. After college, Mann soon realized his chosen profession as an industrial engineer wasn't a good fit. He enjoyed the work, "but I was too young and too stir-crazy to sit in a cubicle all day," he said. Following his father's footsteps, he joined the National Guard in 2000 and went to flight school in 2003 to learn to fly military helicopters. That has led to a friendly father-son rivalry. The elder Mann, a former associate managing editor of The Free Lance-Star, flew Huey helicopters during the Vietnam War and for many years afterward as a Guardsman. Geoff Mann trained in Hueys but now flies Black Hawks. The two constantly rib each other about which aircraft is superior. Geoff Mann served a 16-month deployment to Iraq, then returned home and eventually landed the flight-instructor job, based in Richmond. He is a chief warrant officer with the National Guard, but as a flight instructor he is a "federal technician," a civilian position.
The Air Force golf courses rock though. The F-22 controversy is just a diversion to keep thier O clubs and golf courses open.
Go Navy.The chair force should stand down.With the Marines backing us up. Can you say "cancel the F-22"
if either of you wanted to fly a superior aircraft then you should have joined the U.S.Air Force. Their equipment rules the skies and is superior to anything in any other country.
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