Volume XIX, Issue Vb:The “Flight of the Phoenix Election,”
The Flight of the Phoenix Election
By Bob Kirchman
In the last election, an article appeared comparing the urgency of the election to the situation facing the passengers on flight 93 on September 11, 2001. [1.] It’s then anonymous author, ‘Publicus,’ made a great point. Too often Conservatives approached the dangers facing the republic with not enough of a sense of urgency. The 2016 election was indeed of grave importance. But now it is 2020 and the urgency of the situation has only become more pronounced. After the country seemed to be taking a better course the pandemic and civil unrest threw sand in the engine of recovery. Here we are, much like the cast of Flight of the Phoenix, stuck in a bad place.
In the 1965 film, Jimmy Stewart plays pilot Frank Towns, a good aviator who nonetheless, through a series of events never quite fully elaborated, finds himself flying a Fairchild C-82 for a “fifth rate airline” with a drunken navigator flying passengers and freight from Jaghbub to Benghazi in Lybia. When a sandstorm kills the engines he is forced to crash into the desert and the plane’s occupants are all stranded. Towns is a man haunted by his past failures and shuts down when he needs to lead. The passengers discover that walking out is impossible. They have gone so off course that rescue is unlikely. They have ten days supply of water. They will likely die in the desert.
But one of the passengers is Heinrich Dorfmann, a German engineer, who suggests an audacious plan to build a smaller aircraft from usable parts of the crashed plane and fly out of there. The story is based on an actual incident in which a twin engine plane crashed in the desert during World War II. In that case the flight mechanic was able to construct a one-engine plane from the wreckage that was flown with six men strapped to the wing to an allied base.[2.] Dorfmann and Towns engage in a clash of egos – the whole film can be seen as a lesson in leadership styles – but in the end, Dorfmann’s wild plan gives the men hope to continue. That is what Americans need right now. A congress that mired itself in an attempt to impeach a duly elected President has now moved to an attempt to mismanage a global pandemic that has shut down the engines of commerce worldwide. We need Dorfmann, the outsider with the plan, more than ever right now. We need hope.
America cannot be allowed to die in the desert. There are those who want her to so they can replace her with the failed philosophies of Socialism. This will lead to certain death. Consider the fate of every Socialist experiment. We need hope. We have our Dorfmann. This November we need to work hard to ensure that we will indeed build a way out of the difficult situation we find ourselves in now. This election is about the survival of our way of life!
Aviation in the Nineteenth Century
[click to read]
William Henson and John Stringfellow: Pioneer Aviation Strategists are mentioned by Heinrich Dorfmann in the film Flight of the Phoenix. Here is their story:
Steward, is this the boarding area for the flight across the Channel?’
Yes ma’am. Check your luggage at the gate and proceed up the boarding ramp.’
My daughter and I are so excited! It is safe to fly, isn’t it?’
Absolutely, ma’am. These airplanes incorporate all the latest safety features: high-pressure steam engines, double-walled boilers and the finest canvas propellers. After all, this is 1848.’
International air travel–in the 1840s? No, it’s not a scene from The Twilight Zone. What you’ve just glimpsed, through imaginary dialogue, are the prophetic dreams of Britons William Henson and John Stringfellow, forward-thinking inventors who designed a series of remarkably modern aircraft. They also founded the Aerial Transport Company–the world’s first airline–and began making plans to provide regular air service connecting cities around the world. And to prove their designs could really fly, these 19th-century inventors used the slide valves and steam engines of their day to construct some of the first power-driven flying machines in the world. (read more)
