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.
The Right Stuff (1983)
Directed by: Philip Kaufman
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Ed Harris, Sam Shepard, Scott Glenn
Factual error: After Shepard lifts off the pad on his Redstone rocket, most of the stock footage actually shows an Atlas rocket.
Factual error: In the Vostok launch clip, it shows Yuri Gagarin lifting off at night. The actual liftoff occurred during the day, at 9:07 AM (Moscow Time). Plus the rocket shown in the launch clip isn't even a Vostok rocket, it's a later variant used by the current Soyuz spacecraft. (Evident by the color, and on the top of the rocket is a Soyuz escape system). (01:43:50)
Trivia: The bar man in Pancho's Happy Bottom Riding Club called Fed is in fact Chuck Yeager. He was on set as an adviser and was given a cameo role.
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.
Jack Ridley: Put the spurs to her, Chuck.
Dwight D. Eisenhower: The first American into space is not going to be a chimpanzee. I want test pilots.
Liaison Man: You mean for this "space race", you don't want our best pilots?
Recruiter: I didn't say that. We want the best pilots that we can get.
