It could have been a tale crafted by Mary Shelley, as a sort of aviation version of Frankenstein. Imagine half-mad experimenters in a makeshift hangar-lab taking components from various discarded carcasses: a C-82 boom built out as a fuselage and tail section, wings from a Beech C-45, a Pratt & Whitney R-1340 nine-cylinder engine from a T-6, and a wheel from an L-17 Navion used as the tail wheel. When the creation began looking like an airplane — albeit a somewhat monstrous one — chief designer and builder Otto Timm (who had the distinction of being Charles Lindbergh’s first flight instructor and was a fixture around early Hollywood’s aviation scene) used clothesline as a stand-in for the wire bracing supporting the undercarriage. While intentionally made to be flimsy-looking to better fit its ultimate movie role, the aircraft was in reality quite beefy and included crude skids for taking off and landing on desert sand. Its finished length was 45 feet with a wingspan of 42 feet.
When the last stitch was sewn, the beast was inspected and registered with the FAA as the P-1, receiving tail number N93082, and christened The Phoenix.
Just a jolt of electricity, and this thing might even come to life and fly.
In 1965, fly it did. Director and producer Robert Aldrich was working on a film called The Flight of the Phoenix, a gripping, gritty tale of desert survival starring real-life aviator and war hero James Stewart, plus Academy Award winners Richard Attenborough and Peter Finch, with Hardy Krüger as airplane designer Heinrich Dorfmann.
The tale centers on the crew and passengers of a cargo plane, a twin-engine Fairchild C-82 Packet, forced down in the Sahara by a sandstorm. One of the passengers happens to be an airplane designer (spoiler alert: who, in a tense plot twist, explains that he designs model airplanes, to the shock and chagrin of the others) who comes up with the idea of using one of the booms of the twin boom aircraft as the fuselage, removing an undamaged wing and attaching it to the other side of the boom to attempt an aerial escape from their desert prison before their meager food and water rations run out.
Back in the film studio, the question of who would fly The Phoenix was likely a no-brainer.
Tallmantz Aviation
Frank Tallman was hooked on aviation by the age of 5. His father was a World War I aviator and Frank, EAA 75, had his first airplane ride from the vantage point of his father’s lap. He took flying lessons and eventually joined the U.S. Navy as a pilot, remaining on the homefront during the war years. He began collecting vintage aircraft and hoarding surplus warbirds and parts, and in the late 1950s, in addition to flying in air shows, moved his growing air force to Hollywood. He’s best known for his flying in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and Catch-22.
Paul Mantz went to Hollywood after working in commercial aviation. He was attracted by the fame and fortune of movie stunt pilots of the era, although from early on, Paul eschewed the term, saying, “I’m not a stunt pilot. I’m a precision pilot.” Paul’s larger than life aviation exploits are well documented in the Don Dwiggins biography, Hollywood Pilot. His filmography is astounding, as he flew or consulted in such aviation classics as Only Angels Have Wings, Twelve O’Clock High (where he famously crash-landed a B-17 in an early sequence), Captains of the Clouds, and dozens of others.
Together, the intrepid aviators formed Tallmantz Aviation in 1961. The company was the Industrial Light and Magic of its day, providing camera planes and a fleet of antique and historic aircraft — and of course, the pilots to fly them — plus background models of aircraft and other vehicles to support the burgeoning movie and television industry in southern California. Tallmantz (with Otto Timm) built the Phoenix. Who better to fly it?
“And… Action!”
Much of the filming for The Flight of the Phoenix took place in the desert near Yuma, Arizona, in an area known as Buttercup Valley.
Frank was tapped as pilot and flew the P-1 on July 7, 1965, for the director’s first aerial shots. But he had previously injured his leg in a go-kart accident with his young son and required a trip to the hospital. (Eventually, infection spread and most of his leg required amputation. Later, Frank taught himself to fly with one leg, and he regained his medical certificate and continued to fly.)
Paul, who had more than 25,000 hours of flying time, was called in to take over. On the morning of July 8, 1965, the production team placed their cameras at each end of Buttercup Valley to capture the action of the nail-biting desert escape scene. Flying with him was Bobby Rose, a 64-year-old stuntman.
The director asked the duo to fly The Phoenix low near the ground as they approached the first camera position, then pull up gaining altitude as they passed the second camera. Even though it was early morning, the high temperatures were creating some density altitude issues for the cobbled-together P-1, and Paul overshot his first pass.
Still, it was likely good enough to pass movie muster. As they often do, though, second unit director Oscar Rudolph asked for one more “insurance” shot.
As Paul made his next pass, his landing skid appears to clip a patch of sand dune and the aircraft shuddered. The pilot applied full power, but the speed at which the P-1 made contact with the earth — about 90 mph — had already overstressed the aircraft, and it literally snapped the airplane in two just behind the trailing edge of the wings. The Phoenix violently crumbled in a veil of dust. Paul was pinned in the ersatz cockpit — which was shallow and makeshift at best — and Bobby, who stood strapped down behind the pilot, was thrown clear of the crash, breaking his pelvis and shoulder. Paul was killed instantly. He was 61.
The cameras never stopped rolling and the final flight of Paul Mantz and the P-1 were captured on film and can be reviewed and analyzed online by those who wish to do so.
Several factors were identified in the subsequent accident investigation: Paul’s misjudgment of the “pullout” speed of the P-1, which had a nose-heavy configuration, and no flaps or adequate trim to slow the aircraft in its final descent. While inconclusive, investigators also assumed Paul may have been alcohol impaired.
As the closing credits of The Flight of the Phoenix roll, viewers are left with this poignant reminder: “It should be remembered that Paul Mantz, a fine man and brilliant flyer, gave his life in the making of this film.”
An interesting postscript for aviation geeks: Shooting wrapped on August, 13, 1965, but the film still needed to be completed. With the P-1 a pile of wreckage on the desert floor, a North American O-47A on loan from The Air Museum in Claremont, California, was modified as a Phoenix stand-in.
The canopy was removed, undercarriage skids attached, and a ventral fin patched on to the lower empennage. While I didn’t notice this aeronautical anomaly when I first watch the film as a kid, it’s pretty obvious now in the later scenes when the clunky O-47 replacement comes bumbling into view as the desert survivors make their aerial escape.