.
That's about all that's impressive in that movie! So much was sacrificed to make it dramatic!

Remember the movie, 'Flight Of The Phoenix'? One of the survivors in the desert crash of a cargo aircraft, Dorfman, convinces the others to convert the wreckage into a smaller plane and escape, as no rescue seems eminent. The new aircraft nearly completed, Dorfman comments to the Pilot, Captain Townsend, that he is a professional model aircraft designer; not a designer of the 'real thing' all had assumed him to be. The flight is almost canceled as the exasperated Pilot bitterly dismisses Dorfman as only a 'toy airplanes' designer - convinced the flight to come will end in another tragedy!

Well, the story has a happy ending (the same can not be said of the stunt pilot who died flying the airplane in the movie) as Dorfman's creation takes wing and carries everyone to safety

Paul Mantz (died 8 July 1965)
This aviation pioneer and legendary movie stunt pilot died in Yuma, Arizona, during the filming of The Flight Of The Phoenix. As three motion picture cameras ground away, his plane hit a small sand dune, overturned and disintegrated. Though semi-retired from stunt work, Mantz was covering for his partner, Frank Tallman, who'd six weeks earlier broken his leg pushing his son's go-cart.

There is a sad note on " The Flight of The Phoenix"....there were apparently deaths occured in the making of that movie, and as far as I remember about it, it was in a flying sequence............will search it back now

What I just found in a movie review.......

Also this report about the situation.......
Although these quotes don't mention it, I am not sure if the pilot (Mantz) was the only occupant of the A/C

Christopher Plummer, Michael Caine, Lawrence Olivier (as the boss), Trevor Howard, Robert Shaw, Susannah York and Kurt Jurgens (as your archetypical Kraut - as usual).

Thanks Rifle,

P.S. Rifle, the info you found has a small error. The Pilot portrayed in the film was named "Towns".
Also, I'm pretty sure .........  rest of the men had to ride on the wings, laying flat with perspex screens in front of their faces.
 

Movie Pilot
Paul Mantz got his start in Hollywood by flying a scene that the veteran stunt pilot, Frank Clark, refused—zoom a biplane through an open hangar. The scene, for the movie Air Mail (1932), earned him $100 and a reputation as a precision flier. In the years that followed, Mantz made a name for himself not only as a stuntman, but also as an accomplished air racer, technological advisor to Amelia Earhart, aviation scene director, and operator of a highly profitable charter service for the big names in Hollywood. Mantz also owned a fleet of aircraft, including two Boeing Model 100s. Tragically, Mantz was killed in a plane crash while filming Flight of the Phoenix in 1965.

I'm surprised the older rotorheads haven't coughed up Blue Thunder or Airwolf yet! Both had a movie before the TV series...

Ozzy

I remember about the men riding the wings, but the man named Mantz was not a character or star in the movie, he was a stuntman pilot.......I am pretty sure that is the correct name of the actual man who died in this sad situation...........will check further....

This quote is from Museum of Flight, which can be found here       http://www.museumofflight.org/collections/craftdisplay.html?ID=13

The line chief awakened me before daylight and told me to go out and preflight a P-38 with the squadron identifier LMT. He said I would now be crewing for John Eiland. My pilot had been transferred out to another outfit when we left England. LMT was a new P-38 ferried over the southern Atlantic route from the Lockheed factory and had arrived at Tafarouri the previous day. I can remember the following as if it happened yesterday. I finally located LMT with my flashlight. I tried to start the engines for the preflight but the battery was dead. My first thoughts were not pleasant nor was I confident, at that early hour, that my beginning as a crew chief for Big John, who was second in command, was getting off to a good start. I knew Big John would be out to take off at the break of dawn, and I needed to get moving although I was all by myself. I sat down in the cockpit and primed the left engine with fuel, set the throttles, set the mixture controls, set the parking brakes and put wheel chocks in front of the wheels. The plane still had the belly tanks on from its last flight, I thought if I was successful in getting the engine inertia starter up to speed by hand cranking the starter by myself, I would be able to get the left engine started. I could jump on the belly tank, make one leap onto the wing, another leap into the cockpit and hit the starter switch before the inertia starter lost speed to turn the engine over. I believe the adrenaline jolt I was having, would enable me to make the first vault onto the belly tank and the rest would be a race against time. I hand cranked the inertia starter until I knew, from the high pitch whine, it wasn't going to go any faster so I dropped the crank and made my first leap. Every thing went as planned and the engine started at the first rotation of the propeller. I then started the right engine by using the generator on the left engine and continued on with the pre-flight. http://www.1stfighter.org/warstories/duncan.html

Phil. It's a while since I saw the film but I think you'll find the aircraft was a Fairchild C-82 Packet. http://afmuseum.com/aircraft/c82.html
I agree with what you say but this is a work of fiction. Where's your imagination?  
I believe the aircraft they flew was actually created from a C-82. It did fly but as was previously mentioned the pilot was unfortunately killed. That's why there was no foootage of the actual landing & the film ended abrubtly.

PS. I didn't get it quite right. Here's the full story with photos. http://stripe.colorado.edu/~steinerd/Phoenix.html

The ones with authentic footage are always interesting to see. However, having seen so many History Channel Doco's containing the same footage over and over, I don't think there's much around that's not been used in films or doco's that I haven't seen.
I know that to 99% of people a film is a means of entertainment and it's only we buffs that are picky about things, but if I see that shot of an F6F on a carrier hitting the island and breaking in half, revealing the bulkhead behind the cockpit one more time, I'll scream.
Christ, isn't the poor bugger embarrassed enough yet..............lol.
As I said in my post, they don't seem too particular about getting the sequences correct in terms of time and place etc. For instance, the shot I mention above was shown in the Battle of Midway movie. Of course there were no F6F's. There were also many other shots which were glaring errors. But as I said, for most the entertainment value is there.
I could go to a movie about something I don't know much about and not be concerned with similar oversights.

As for Ronald's character having difficulty recognising Zeros. The Dauntless was very similar in shape and at a distance, especially in poor light, many mistakes were made. I read that Joe Foss (pretty sure it was him) was flying and spotted a group of Dauntlesses and thought he'd give them an escort. He ended up in the middle of a flight of Zeros. So it happened to the best.  

how many Spits and Hurri's did they have available during the production in '68?

The Final Countdown

I'm surprised to find that there was such a lack of Hurricanes, considering the number produced and available at wars end. Also, I imagine they would be a much cheaper proposition to restore, given the simpler construction etc.

P.S. I once heard that at the end of the war a complete "crated" Spitfire" could be bought in England (from the RAF or whatever Dept. involved) for 1,000 pounds. Is there any truth to this.