Kid broke his neck when a bird flew through the window of the plane he was in. You can clearly see that the plane was just ABOVE the clouds. I presume it was a condor, since the film showed condor's earlier. My question is, do condor's really fly that high???
Gabriel Krichinsky when he arrives late for the family Thanksgiving dinner: Vy didja cud da TOIKEY?
The part I found silly by today's standards:
"Let's drop the nitro on the condors!"
Yeah, right.
Expensive cargo and we'll kill a few big birds with it.
(Also, the bird that struck Kid was too small of a bird to be a condor.)
*The shape-shifter is in and will take your calls now.
Adult condors are certainly a huge bird - but this one had to come through the nose propellor first before striking the windscreen and then the Kid!!
*Everything happens to me! Now Im shot by a child! (T.Chaney)
condors can fly up to 18,000 feet - three miles! caramba. they can also hit speeds of about 50 M.P.H. they are the most majestic birds in the world.
as it happens, president general enrique peneranda conferred bolivia's highest civilian decoration, "el condor de los andes," upon my grandfather, harold j. roig. senor roig was president of PANAGRA, the first international airline in south america, and a far cry from "baranca airlines."
PANAGRA was awarded air-mail routes by the US not because they were the lowest bidder, but because their first-class reputation and safety record insured that the mail would get through. if you liked the movie, "only angels have wings," i recommend the book, "flying the andes" by capt. william krusen (tampa) and the website panamericangrace.com for some verisimilitude.
these brave aviators flew unpressurized airplanes without radios at unheard of altitudes - many of the airports were located at heights in excess of flying altitudes in the US, and their safety record was unparalleled. they also flew many treacherous and expensive rescue missions after earthquakes and other natural disasters with little rest and never a hint of a bill. their little-known story is truly worthy of a movie.
Interesting post.
There's also a pretty informative write-up about PANAGRA on Wikipedia, for the curious:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panagra
"Definition of an airplane: Thousands of spare parts flying in close formation."
wow. that's high.
Veneration of Mark Twain is one of the roots of our current intellectual stalemate
The film features the "new" Ford Trimotor which was introduced in 1925, so one has to assume this was around the time of the story's setting. Panagra came later, but the story is a good one. The company was founded in 1929 but had it's heyday in the late 1930s. The history of aviation in the 1920s is one of adventure and constant conquest of new records and routes. Consider that Lindberg flew the Atlantic in 1927 and there is no mention of his name in the story.
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