[Sherman Logan]

Interesting movie. Problem is that it would NOT work.

The pilot for the version they built (in a real airplane workshop) crashed it and died.

[CrazyIvan]

I always figured it was pretty much fantasy. It did bother me that the passengers were on the wing where they would kill a lot of lift.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***he pilot for the version they built (in a real airplane workshop) crashed it and died.***

I remember a magazine publishing pictures of that crash.

[SES1066]

Problem is that it would NOT work. The pilot for the version they built (in a real airplane workshop) crashed it and died.

That pilot was a very experienced one, Paul Mantz, co-owner of Tallmantz Aviation, one of Hollywood's premier aviation shops of the time, 1965. I would dispute that "it would NOT work", as it did work for much of the movie. The crash came from a too-low pass that dragged on the ground and over-stressed the specially designed movie-use airplane so that it structurally failed when Mantz tried to power up for altitude afterwards.