Flight of the Phoenix

When there is a wing, it can fly if wind is working the wing. To put an engine on it with a propeller can work also. Putting everything together to make it a controlled flight needs a lot of main provisions: to name few.

-attaching the motor on the wing, connections of fuel, controls, power.

-balancing the weight, all the controls

-rudder when YOU want to decide where to fly.

The end product plane in that movie was probably a modified existing model.

But technically it can be done. The Piaggo Piggy has over dimensioned wings too and it is still used for acrobatics (built between 1940-50)

The rudder does not steer the aircraft, the wings turn the aircraft. Many people also think a rudder turns a boat, but that is also not true.

The rudder keeps the aircraft yaw axis true with respect to its track.

A rudder (along with the elevator for pitch control) is an essential component of the aircraft to maintain stability.

Modern aircraft without a rudder maintain stability by virtue of computer control of the wing surface. This is simply is not possible by manual human control alone.

I haven't seen the movie, but Hollywood is notorious for not being grounded in reality.

Paul Mantz, one of the test pilots that did a short takeoff and landing of the aircraft died on the second filming attempt when the aircraft's skid hit a dune and cartwheeled.

Repeated you. Should have read more carefully.

I have to weigh in here just a bit. Rudder is for yaw, it is also used to turn the aircraft along with the ailerons which are mounted on the wings. Using each of these produces a coordinated turn. One with out the other produces adverse yaw. The wright flier is a good example of this as they used wing warping and the effect was a reverse truing motion before the turn began in the direction intended.

Making an aircraft and making it a safe aircraft is not an easy task. I have built several and have flown several hundred different makes all having something just a bit different in the way they handle. But, if you put enough power on it, any thing can fly, even a rock. Look at some of the things that came out of the 50's and 60's that killed many a good test pilots.

My 2 Cents

Fixitorelse

Well you have me curious now.

What does turn the boat when I move the rudder?

The hull.

So what turns the hull? The rudder.

Correct. But if you follow your logic, isn't it the person holding the wheel or tiller?

The rudder simply changes the boat's orientation relative to its yaw axis. The hull is responsible for the actual turn.

I have to vote with A H on this one, as most turns in flying do not actually require much if any rudder input, since strictly aileron turns are done by banking, and using lift. Coordinated turns require some rudder, but the turn wastes a whole lot of the plane's energy (speed) while executing such a turn.

"Most modern aircraft" I can assume only to mean something that at first glance doesn't look like it "should" fly. Examples: wings without fuelage, door stops (F-111A), and on the list goes. Not every "modern" airplane has to be flown by computer, just the ones that rely on new technology.

The "coordinated turn" uses the least energy and presents the least drag.

As a sailplane pilot we are taught to watch the "yaw string" on the canopy to guide our rudder input. Drag is something that sailplane pilots take very seriously since increased drag adversely impacts the glide ratio and you also rely heavily on turns when using most thermals to gain altitude.

And coordinated, or "two minute" turns don't allow rapid direction changes. They do make your fligh instructor happy though.

Rapid changes are made by pointing the top of the plane in the direction you want to go and hauling back on the stick.

At least we agree on something: turns require energy, thus slowing the plane, or causing a reduction in altitude. For your exception, you are using a turn to hold a pattern in a thermal to gain altitude.

Something I have never quite learned is how to not "oversteer" a turn by applying too much rudder.

Again, the rudder just puts the pane's yaw axis in line with the air is moving over the aircraft.

The amount of turn is a product of bank angle and how much the stick is pulled back.

With an airplane, it's the wings.

Well,in the movie, the designer of the phoenix, was an engineer........ Of models. She he did calculations. Wether it can be done, well, I do not know if it could be done with the engineers coming out of college today. Because, if you take away their software ....... And just give them, a handheld calculator in Lu of a slide rule, it would be a stretch. In reality............... No comment. But one can be surprise what ones ability is when your back is against the wall.

Thanks for the research on the topic. I never saw the latest version of the film and the memory of the original version is a bit foggy, so I don't recall what it really looked like. I'm sure if an aeronautical company built the model, they could make it fly, but I doubt if a model airplane maker could build something that would really work out in the desert and with whatever tools were available. Sounds pretty far fetched to me.

There were 2 versions of the story made. I saw the 1965 version with Jimmy Stewart, many years ago. It was very good. It was implausible, but not outrageously so. As I recall the rebuilt plane had a more-or-less conventional planform. This movie was dedicated to the stunt pilot who crashed in the plane during the final stages of filming.

I never saw the 2004 remake.

the engineer was really a toy maker! silly story

Attach a heavy duty air bag to the bottom of the aircraft.

Only using Hollywood science. For controlled flight, you need a horizontal stabilizer and elevators to control the wing's angle of attack and the balance of an airplane is critical. The center of gravity must be slightly ahead of the center of lift. It is extremely unlikely that you could build anything flyable from parts left over from a crash, but it makes good escape fiction if you can suspend belief long enough.

Of course its possible, they actually filmed it twice using two different aircraft!!!!

This movie is FAR MORE BELIEVABLE than the junk you see at the movies today. There's at least some plausibility in the plot.

Could the stranded crew have performed this metamorphosis with the equipment on hand? No way.

I will grant that it would be difficult to do in the desert. For example, how would one splice and terminate control cables? Would one have appropriate tools and bolts to make wing attachment fittings? However, it would not need an engineering degree to design and make do. Any member of the EAA, Experimental Aircraft Association, can point to dozens of flyable aircraft (and a few duds) built by people with no formal engineering training. Until the FAA put in the 51% rule (51% must be "home built"), many folks would take the wings from one aircraft and parts from others to assemble a "new" design. Building models is a good way to understand weight and balance, stability, and such. The Phoenix builders didn't need stress analysis, etc., because they were using factory parts and had little choice. Presumably, parts from a transport would be overly robust for a "light" aircraft with little payload. Consider, if you will, the world of ultralights, thousands flying, with almost all designed and built by amateurs, especially in the pioneering years. The Wright brothers were self-taught. Even as late as WW-1, with Focker, Bleriot, Sopwith, et al, there were no formally trained aeronautical engineers, as no such courses existed.

I DON"T know aircraft engineeerting, but the one thing that makes the story plausible was that they were carrying a load of steel shapes and fasteners for an oil rig. Not saying it's really doable but----

It's a MOVIE (called cinematic license)...and, in my best Bugs Bunny voice, "...th-h-hat's entertainment!"