Old Aviation Movie "NO HWY IN THE SKY!" on old movie channel.

[Shultzie]

"NO HWY IN THE SKY!"

One old vintage movie that was in our old Wind Tunnel Library that showed up yesterday on Channel 202...was NO HWY IN THE SKY

This entire old B&W movie was about a gifted wanna be Stress Fatigue Aerodynamical Engineer in the early daze days of "The ILL FATED COMET JET LINERS"who tried successfully (just in the nick of time) to convince the Airlines and  aviation industry that a brand new airliner that had been "crashing due to pilot error" was in fact a design flaws that would cause this make believe  "BI-STABBED AIRLINERS " tail feathers WOULD SUDDENLY DESINAGRATE AND PART WAYS IN FLIGHT...DUE TO STRESS CRACKS!!!
Attached are a few shots of the wacky looking new airliner...from the movie  

[Randy Ryan]

I always got a kick out of the name "Reindeer" and the real or imagined (on my part) relation to one of Santa's best! Comet of course.

[Dave Adamisin]

I love this movie. The hero was an ENGINEER!!!! That was "desired" by Marlene Deitrich and Glynnis Johns.......... Fantasy for sure......

[dale gleason]

Do not read until April 1st!

This plane was the prototype for the Vickers "Bi-Slab". A "lost motion device" connected the Captain's yoke to the larger stab, the Co-pilot got the lesser. In case af a disagreement over whether to go up, or down, a "mechanical fuse" separated the two, and the plane went where the Captain pointed it. The Vickers Viscount had only one stab. A banjo song written about the Viscount by a friend of mine, now flown West, was titled "Redcoats' Revenge". I have forgotten the words, but not the movie. Young and old alike lost their hearing flying Viscounts. The loss was permanent and exacerbated by subsequently flying the "Caravelle".

The "dry chemical" toilets on board are another story wherein sensory acuteness suffered......

dg

[Randy Ryan]

I love this movie. The hero was an ENGINEER!!!! That was "desired" by Marlene Deitrich and Glynnis Johns.......... Fantasy for sure......

Doesn't get much better then that.

BTW I just went to Amazon.com to buy this movie and all they had was 1 VHS tape for, get this!!! $129.99!!!!!!!!!!!!! Surely you jest!

[John Harold]

Well you could always read the book.
Neville Shute wrote that story and many, many more. Most of Shute's novels have an aviation theme , not surprising really as he was involved with aircraft design at Airspeed and also I think he had a hand in the R100 airship. His novels number many and are all great and entertaining reading.

[Serge_Krauss]

The movie was on cable recently - TCM, I think. That means that it probably won't cycle through for a while though. Jimmy Stewart played a delightfully "focused" professorial type engineer, unfaized by many things, but just adamant enough to drive us a little crazy some ignorance-imposed circumstances. I do not think that the $130 VHS should tempt anyone, although the internet buying thing sometimes creates "strangeness" than rivals most movies. I still like the original "Flight of the Phoenix", where J.S. is more on the other side of the ledger, but the model plane designer wins out. Stewart himself was indeed a fine champion of aviation though.

SK

[Clancy Arnold]

Can you name any other Hollywood Star that has both an Oscar and a Bendix Trophy?

They are on display in the Jimmy Stewart Museum in Indiana, PA.  About 60 miles north of Brodak's.

His father ran a Hardware Store in Indiana and after showing his trophies in California for a while, Jimmy shipped them to his dad to display in the front window of the store.

Clancy

[Shultzie]

The movie was on cable recently - TCM, I think. That means that it probably won't cycle through for a while though. Jimmy Stewart played a delightfully "focused" professorial type engineer, unfaized by many things, but just adamant enough to drive us a little crazy some ignorance-imposed circumstances. I do not think that the $130 VHS should tempt anyone, although the internet buying thing sometimes creates "strangeness" than rivals most movies. I still like the original "Flight of the Phoenix", where J.S. is more on the other side of the ledger, but the model plane designer wins out. Stewart himself was indeed a fine champion of aviation though.

SK

What a creative mind in those early days of  movie producers of commercial aviation...speaking of creative minds,
 it boggles my britches' just to think about how difficult it must have been to build that airliner for that movie?

[sleepy gomez]

Oldest model aviation movie?  I'll vote for Tailspin Tommy circa. late thirties to mid forties.  Anybody else remember it? 

[Shultzie]

TailSpin Tommy!!
Let's Google it?  

[Dave Adamisin]

Oldest model aviation movie?  I'll vote for Tailspin Tommy circa. late thirties to mid forties.  Anybody else remember it? 

Absolutely. I remember one where they used footage from the blimp aircraft carriers (Macon Akron?). Loved it.

[sleepy gomez]

The Tailspin Tommy movie I remember was where Tommy had been kidnapped.  He was put in a cellar where he found/built or somehow got a free flight power model about 24" span and launched it out the cellar window with a note attached.  Gee that was a long time ago.

[sleepy gomez]

Thanks Shultze. The one I remember is Danger Flight from '39.  Wonderful to see it again.  SLEEPY