Factual error: The "American" aircraft is really a British design called a Bristol Boxkite.
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965)
Ending / spoiler
Directed by: Ken Annakin
Starring: James Fox, Sarah Miles, Stuart Whitman, Alberto Sordi
English hero John Mays wins the race but only because the American hero Orvil Newton performs a daring mid air rescue of the Italian pilot, Pierre Dubois in front of the Eifel Tower.Mays agrees to share the prize and it seems Orvil and Mays share the girl too.
AQ
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Suggested correction: Why is this an error? The "American" aircraft was fictional (there was no such thing as the "Phoenix Flyer") so they could have used anything to represent it. The design they used was known to work and was safe. The original Boxkite was actually a British version of The Farman and was similar in appearance the the American Curtiss.
The American pilot, while talking to the movie's heroine, states that his plane is a Curtiss. Check the scene in the restaurant, the night before he saves the German plane with the damaged tail. I tend to think the "Phoenix Flyer" was the name of that individual plane, and not the model of aircraft. That would mean that the pilot of the plane indirectly said that his plane was of American manufacture, as Curtiss was an American company.
Another interesting note is that in the scene with the runaway German plane, Orville Newton's plane is being wheeled out of the hangar, which has a "Bristol Company" sign over the doors. They "just happen" to be borrowing space in the hangar owned by the company that made the original Bristol Boxkites! It's a meaningless detail, but fun that they arranged it that way.
Sir Percy Ware-Armitage: And I've arranged for the Frenchman to be detained by a lovely young lady.
Courtney: Ho, ho, guvnor, I'll bet she's a bit of all right.
Sir Percy Ware-Armitage: You should know, Courtney, she's your daughter.
Courtney: But guvnor, she's an innocent young girl.
Sir Percy Ware-Armitage: Not is, Courtney, WAS.
Trivia: In the beginning of the movie there is a reference to a Frenchman who had crossed the Channel by plane in the previous year (1909). The man meant is Louis Blériot, who flew from Calais to Dover in his famous craft 'Blériot XI' in 37 minutes. Again it was a competition race, for a 1000 Pounds set by the London Daily Mail.
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