Flight of the Phoenix

Corrected entry: The crew crashes into the Gobi Desert, which is in Northern China. Yet the people are speaking Cantonese, which is the local dialect for Southern China (Quangzhou/Hong Kong area), instead of Mandarin (the official language) or any of the Northern dialects.

Correction: What people? They're in the middle of an empty desert. If you're talking about the nomads: well... they're nomads. That means they're from all over. They could speak any language, Chinese or not. Just because they currently live in the Gobi doesn't mean they're originally "from that area."

Phixius ★

Corrected entry: After the lightning hit the plane, A.J. comes running to see if the captain and Elliot are okay. When he is under the wing, he touches it. But after lightning has hit this wing, he never could have touched it, his fingers would have melted.

Correction: Like all metal framed aircraft the C119 is designed to survive lightning strikes by conducting the electricity through the main spar and out of the wingtips. Not being earthed, a lightning strike on an aircraft is nothing serious and this film hugely exaggerates the damage for dramatic effect. There might be a flicker of the instruments and a pretty impressive bang, but the temperature of the aluminium skin would definitely not increase.

One of the biggest misconceptions about electricity melting metal is that metal has to earthed for electricity to melt it. This is simply not true. Electricity can, and does melt unearthed metal.

First, metal doesn't have to be earthed, or grounded for electricity to melt it. That's just a common belief. Electricity can and does melt unearthed, and ungrounded metal objects. Second, the metal aircrafts are made of don't offer complete protection against lightning even though it's built to survive lightning strikes. They are built to survive lightning strikes by conducting electricity through the main spar, and their wingtips but their metal frame is not perfect.

Actually lightning can heat up metal objects whether their earthed or not contrary to the common belief that they have to be earthed for lightning to heat them up. Also while metal framed aircraft are designed to survive lightning strikes their not perfected. Lightning can and does damage or destroy them.

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Mistakes

Character mistake: It's all very heroic and manly but the effort put into dragging the Phoenix into its takeoff position once the engine is started is totally wasted. Townes and A.J. are both experienced pilots and Elliott is supposedly a genius aeronautical engineer - they must surely be aware that the engine power required to taxi an aircraft is trivial compared to that required to lift it into the air. Even taking into account the drag of the skids and wheels, if that engine cannot propel the aircraft at a few kilometers an hour on the ground it cannot propel it to take off speed, nor keep it up once airborne. They are not there to steer the aircraft - they are taking the strain of the whole weight of the air-frame, dragging it into place, and the energy input of eight exhausted, underfed people would add nothing to the contribution of a 2500 bhp aircraft engine in moving the Phoenix. They are not trying conserve fuel - they had enough fuel for an extended flight with both engines at full throttle, so they have easily enough to run one engine throttled back to reduce stress on the air-frame, which they say they are going to do.

More mistakes in Flight of the Phoenix

Quotes

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.

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Questions

Question: What's the name of the song that plays on the radio while they're fixing the plane? Not the Mexican song, the pop one.

Answer: "Hey Ya" by Outkast.

MoonFaery ★

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