Jimmy Stewart,the Cartridge starter, flight of the phoenix

agent86 · **Joined:** Sun May 02, 2004 3:57 am **Posts:** 926

all of the recent posts about Mr.Jimmy Stewart,A wildcat cartridge starter(Coffman?) reminded me of my favorite part of the original movie"Flight of the Phoenix" Its where Jimmy is in the "cockpit?" and he is handed the few cartridges remaining to start the engine. he tries 2 and no-dice,then he "cleans out the cylinders" and the engine catches and makes smoke.I was a little kid when I first saw this and was sitting on the edge of my seat.a great movie,a great scene and a great pilot died making it(Paul Mantz)had to ramble,sorry if I am boring you with my past memories.Also remember,model airplanes and real airplanes use the same principles of flight. love that silly movie.Love both Jimmy and Paul too. true heros they dont make anymore

aeroeng · **Posted:** Tue May 24, 2011 6:47 am

Here's a link to a video of Paul's accident.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n82nN_lqn58

aeroeng

robkamm · **Posted:** Tue May 24, 2011 7:06 am

great movie. the remake didnt make the cut for me.

Mudge · **Posted:** Tue May 24, 2011 8:03 am

robkamm wrote:

great movie. the remake didnt make the cut for me.

Nor me. Dennis Quaid puts four guys down with a 1911 from thirty yards. I dunno' 'bout that. And the final "flight" being, not very good, CGI. Oh well.

Mudge the marksman :hide:

Jerry O'Neill · **Posted:** Tue May 24, 2011 8:32 am

I love the original version of the film and that cartridge start scene is a fantastic piece of film tension.

Now I'm not an engine guy, so my question to those who might know is...
would firing a cartridge off like that really "clean out" the engine so it might start better?

just wondering if it has any real world merit or it's only merit is in the Reel World!

Jerry

tom d. friedman · **Posted:** Tue May 24, 2011 8:52 am

the original was awesome!! it has been speculated or perhaps through autopsy reports that mantz was schnockered when the tragedy occured. as for the re-make with dennis quaid it gets a 10 on the lame meter. he might as well have been flying cargo for home depot!! they crash, & pull out a preverbial hardware store to make the phoenix!! :butthead:

Mudge · **Posted:** Tue May 24, 2011 9:14 am

tom d. friedman wrote:

the original was awesome!! it has been speculated or perhaps through autopsy reports that mantz was schnockered when the tragedy occured. as for the re-make with dennis quaid it gets a 10 on the lame meter. he might as well have been flying cargo for home depot!! they crash, & pull out a preverbial hardware store to make the phoenix!! :butthead:

Well...the "hardware store" is no more far fetched than the movies that show each GI firing 5000+ rounds of ammo. They never show you the shot of the 6X, following along behind them, that's carrying all that ammo.

Mudge the "reel" picky :wink:

Speedy · **Posted:** Tue May 24, 2011 9:25 am

tom d. friedman wrote:

the original was awesome!! it has been speculated or perhaps through autopsy reports that mantz was schnockered when the tragedy occured.

One of my favorite movies. They had the 'new' on on AMC last week, and it pissed me off so much I had to put the DVD of the old one in just to soothe my nerves.

I have done a lot of research on the movie accident, and one of the interesting notes I found about the 'intoxicated' story was that they didn't actually do the autopsy/blood-draw until many hours after the crash...and whomever was doing the writing noted that Mantz's body had been sitting out in the boiling sun during much of that time and that it may have done something to the toxicology of his blood chemistry--that he may not have been drunk, that his blood just started fermenting or something like that.

I'm not up to speed on my medical stuff, but it certainly was an interesting take on the story.

The Inspector · **Posted:** Tue May 24, 2011 9:37 am

Would that be in line with the Western heros 58 shot COLT?. In 'Open Range' Costner fires his six shooter 21 or 22 times in the stable confrontation scene with the baddies.

Mudge · **Posted:** Tue May 24, 2011 10:03 am

The Inspector wrote:

Would that be in line with the Western heros 58 shot COLT?. In 'Open Range' Costner fires his six shooter 21 or 22 times in the stable confrontation scene with the baddies.

I counted...14 shots.

Mudge the pedant

Jerry O'Neill · **Posted:** Tue May 24, 2011 11:15 am

There was one thing I liked about the new version...the the actual flying scenes of the real C-119 were very nicely done. After that it was all down hill.
Jerry

TonyM · **Posted:** Tue May 24, 2011 11:32 am

It's too bad about Mantz though.
The accident looks survivable. Unforunately, if you slow it down, you can see the pilot being hurled out of the cockpit.
Was he wearing a harness? And if he was did it fail?

TM

mustangdriver · **Posted:** Tue May 24, 2011 11:46 am

The old one was cooler, but I did not mind the new one. I love the opening scenes that show the C-119 flying around while hearing Johnny Cash.

JohnB · **Posted:** Tue May 24, 2011 11:48 am

TonyM wrote:

Unforunately, if you slow it down, you can see the pilot being hurled out of the cockpit.
Was he wearing a harness? And if he was did it fail?
TM

That was a stunt man, Bobby Rose. He survived with injuries.

I've done research on whether Mantz was drunk, and to make a long story short, finding alcohol in his body may have been the result of the body not being refrigerated immediately after the accident. As has been pointed out, the accident occurred in the summer in Yuma.

More here on Scott Thompson's website.

http://www.aerovintage.com/phoenix2.htm

Kdmoo · **Posted:** Tue May 24, 2011 2:09 pm

My avatar says it all.

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Jimmy Stewart,the Cartridge starter, flight of the phoenix

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