MovieChat Forums > No Highway in the Sky (1951) Discussion > What is the airplane used in the movie?

What is the airplane used in the movie?

posted 16 years ago by Christopher-Peznola
10 replies | jump to latest

I am wondering if anyone knows what type of aircraft was used in this movie? The engineer mentioned that it was a piston aircraft, in a line of dialogue, which makes sense given the vintage, although it sounded like a turboprop when it started... The interior of the aircraft was enormous, and the cockpit was larger than my apartment. I am curious as to whether such a plane ever flew? If anyone out there knows, please reply.

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[–] elvin315 16 years ago

I don't know enough about British commercial airliners to say which was the basis for the "Rutland Reindeer" but here are all the pictures I could find of the plane.

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/attachment.php?s=ad97d80d28ea0aac149b 81ed60f0a82f&attachmentid=159750&d=1200084094
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/attachment.php?s=ad97d80d28ea0aac149b 81ed60f0a82f&attachmentid=159757&d=1200132094
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/attachment.php?s=ad97d80d28ea0aac149b 81ed60f0a82f&attachmentid=159758&d=1200132094
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/attachment.php?s=ad97d80d28ea0aac149b 81ed60f0a82f&attachmentid=159762&d=1200154346
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/attachment.php?s=ad97d80d28ea0aac149b 81ed60f0a82f&attachmentid=159763&d=1200154346

[–] dcbill-1 16 years ago

all of the photo's the airplane appears to full scale mockup of some one's imagination or just movie plane, not based on any known aircraft that flew!

[–] RickSkyboy 16 years ago

The Rutland Reindeer was an entirely fictional aircraft...that tail was DESIGNED to fall apart, the way it was cobbled together.

Odd, though, how the story of the Reindeer seems to be echoed by the Lockheed Electra in the early '60's, though. Just no Jimmy Stewert around to raise the gear of planes on the ramp when he saw the light, and nobody else did.

The Price of Freedom is Eternal Vigilance

[–] patriotx29 16 years ago

The Reindeer was a ficticious aircraft but the incidents in the movie were notorious at the time because they seemed to be prescient of what happened to the DH106 Comet starting a year or two later. The Comet was one of the first jet airliners, designed in the late '40s. It suffered a number of accidents in development and early service due to metal fatigue. The accidents continued until the mid-'50s when it was extensively redesigned. The Comet design was also later modified into the highly successful Nimrod Antisubmarine aircraft that is still used by the Royal Air Force.

[–] steve-purchase 16 years ago

The Rutland Reindeer was fictitious but the aircraft seen in the film was a heavily re-modelled Handley Page Halifax bomber that had been converted for civilian use and was sitting redundant at Blackbushe Airport near Yateley after having returned from the Berlin Airlift.

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] jd-276 8 years ago

I doubt if it was a Halifax, with all due respect. The Reindeer had tricycle undercarriage whereas the Halifax as a tail dragger. I suspect it would have been too difficult to convert. Just MHO.

[–] Johneme 13 years ago

It was probably loosely based on the Bristol Brabazon, a huge piston engined aircraft that first flew a few years before this movie. The nose section was very similar to the Reindeer, but I don't think there was anything that looked like the Reindeer's tail.
-John

[–] Zipper69 13 years ago

I think a more likely candidate is the Vickers Vanguard

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQmwC8yXCGfAZ1tjtDbtbAwPAoH8GgF5y5TKYLemf2nG9RidL1hAg

The engine configuration, the line of windows (although made ridiculously large in the movie) and the "chin" of the nose - the oversize and ridiculous glasshouse used was clearly for improved camera access.

The tail is a total mockup, aerodynamically impossible and an engineering nightmare!

Come on lads, bags of swank!

[–] rickyturner505 9 years ago

I think they went out of their way to make the Reindeer look like nothing that was currently operating or in planning. Best to avoid problems of unnecessarily defaming an actual aircraft.