Revealing mistake: In the scene in which Alan Shepard is about to land his jet on the aircraft carrier, the plane seen from the outside is a single-seat A-4 attack plane. But inside the cockpit actor Scott Glenn lowers his sunshade, and reflected on the shade can be seen the wings of a two-seat jet trainer, the T-33A.
The Right Stuff (1983)
1 revealing mistake
Directed by: Philip Kaufman
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Ed Harris, Sam Shepard, Scott Glenn
Factual error: Chuck Yeager's sidekick, Jack Ridley, appears in many key events which occurred after 1957, including the climactic 1963 test flight of the NF-104 plane that Yeager ejects from and is picked up by Ridley. Jack Ridley actually died in 1957, when the aircraft he was co-piloting crashed into a mountain in Japan.
Dwight D. Eisenhower: The first American into space is not going to be a chimpanzee. I want test pilots.
Trivia: An obvious reference to the news media being an annoying swarm by the sounds of swarming locusts in the background whenever the media shows up.