Can anyone explain . . . (spoilers, but duh!)
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — The Flight of the Phoenix
jgroub — 19 years ago(July 29, 2006 12:32 PM)
. . . how the plane got moving under its own power when it takes off? Obviously, if the plane could move under its own power, then why were they pulling it? I ask because it didn't look like there was any transition from where they were to that flat land that Dorfmann had pointed out to them.
(BTW, I wrote spoilers, but the movie is 40 years old, and the title is "The Flight of the Phoenix", not "The Failure to Take Off of the Phoenix", so there really isn't anything to spoil.)
I asked the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well. -
andy-1394 — 19 years ago(August 09, 2006 01:52 PM)
the people didn't pull the plane, the power to move it came from the engine.
without enough airflow over the rudder there was not enough force to turn the bird. remember, it had some rudimentary skids and no steerable gear.
so what the people did was not so much "pull it" but to use force to turn the bird into the right direction, and in part make sure friction of the skids wouldn't cause it to fall on it's nose.
i could be wrong but i'm not -
darryl-tahirali — 11 years ago(February 16, 2015 09:58 AM)
so what the people did was not so much "pull it" but to use force to turn the bird into the right direction, and in part make sure friction of the skids wouldn't cause it to fall on it's nose. - andy-1394
Yes. Dorfmann states this explicitly, that the men are just steering the Phoenix to the flat valley for take-off and not actually pulling it, as the engine does the actual locomotion. This is after Towns challenges him by saying that, at this point, the men barely have the strength to carry themselves.
Those are the headlines. Now for the rumors behind the news. - Firesign Theatre -
stevechallenger150 — 11 years ago(January 28, 2015 06:43 AM)
Although the aircraft had enough raw power to get into the air via its skids, it would have been a very difficult craft to taxi to its take off point. It had no wheels, which in any case may have bogged down in the sand. The usual method of steering an aircraft on the ground is by using the brakes individually - not possible as there were no wheels to brake, varying the power on each engine but again not possible as there is only one, or using the rudder, which can only be done when the craft is moving at some speed. Taxiing would have also used a great deal of fuel.