Factual error: After calculating the amount of water they have available Townes and A.J. announce they will be living on "a pint of water per person per day". One problem - they'll be dead within three days, if they manage to last that long. A GALLON - eight pints - a day is the absolute minimum in conditions of dry, extreme heat such as they are experiencing, and that is for a resting male. Take their strenuous exercise into account and you can push that up to two gallons a day. One pint a day? Forget it.
Flight of the Phoenix (2004)
Plot summary
Directed by: John Moore
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Hugh Laurie, Giovanni Ribisi, Tyrese Gibson, Miranda Otto, Tyrese
Dennis Quaid and Tyrese Gibson(The Fast and Furious 2) run an airline transport company, when they are assigned to transport an oil crew out of a site, to another location. When they are flying out, Quaid runs into a sand storm and it causes the plane to crash into the desert, far away from civilation. They try to survive, but with water and supplies dwendling down, things start getting hard for the crew & passengers, especially when a local sand-people gang, threaten to harm them. Then one of the corky, but arrogant passengers, decides that he can rebuild the plane out of the other spare parts, as so they can fly out to safety. So, they start rebuilding the plane, and in the mean time keeping an eye on the sand people gang while doing so. But then, they all find out something interesting about the person that says that he can rebuild the plane!
More mistakes in Flight of the Phoenix
A.J.: Listen up. We got a major problem. Looks like we have to make an emergency landing. Make sure you're strapped in, and if you believe in God, it's time to call in a favor.
Question: How realistic is Elliot's plan of building a new plane?
Answer: Completely realistic. As explained correctly in the film, the aerodynamic principles involved are valid. Given that the constructed aircraft would have oversized wing surface area and an excess of power available, it should fly. Disruption of the airflow over the top of the wing due to the passengers would be minimal. In the 1930's airshows featured multiple wing walkers atop much smaller and lower powered aircraft.
Answer: Stupidly unrealistic. The plane simply wouldn't fly with people hanging off its wings for a start.
There's a big difference between a single wing walker on a high lift biplane compared to 10 people hanging off the wings.
Search on "multiple wing walkers" and see a 160 hp biplane carrying 5 walkers. So, for the C-119 there is about 2894 square feet of wing area, call it 2000 after cut down. The PW R-4360 produces 3500 hp, but let's use only 30% of that to protect the cobbled airframe. 10 guys on the wings are going to disrupt airflow over about 12 square feet each leaving about 1880 square feet of unobstructed wing being driven by 1000 hp. 30 people on the wings would not stop it from flying.
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Answer: A flying version of the design about 1/2 scale was built and flown for the original 1965 film. It appears in several flying scenes in that movie, but tragically crashed during filming, killing stunt pilot Paul Mantz.