Flight of the Phoenix

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!

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

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.

More quotes from Flight of the Phoenix

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

More questions & answers from Flight of the Phoenix

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