Factual error: The "American" aircraft is really a British design called a Bristol Boxkite.
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.
Other mistake: When Stuart Whitman asks to borrow a monkey wrench from James Fox, Fox hands him a pipe wrench, a very different tool.
Suggested correction: This is not a mistake for two quite plausible reasons. First, the two flyers are the principal rivals in the race and it would be quite in character for one to try to impede the other by substituting a tool inferior to the one requested. Second, the Monkey wrench and the Pipe wrench are similar in appearance and function. The pipe wrench may have worked. Also, Wikipedia says: The term monkey wrench is also sometimes used loosely, usually by non-tradespeople, to refer to the pipe wrench."
