MovieChat Forums > Sky Riders (1976) Discussion > Hilarious bit of Sky Riders trivia

Hilarious bit of Sky Riders trivia


At one point in the film, one of the pilots gets shot during the rescue and eventually crashes into the side of a mountain. In order to film this sequence, they stuck an appropriately-weighted dummy into a prone harness, hooked him in and just tossed the glider and dummy off the edge of one of the cliffs (they positioned the center of gravity a little forward, so the thing would really pick up speed and slam into the ground nicely.) It flew where it wanted - no remote control or anything - and eventually crashed most pleasingly.

While shooting this scene they had to stop traffic on a nearby highway, so there were a lot of stopped vehicles and folks who were watching the action. After the glider hit the ground, the film crew just wrapped up their gear and left, to go shoot the next scene. Apparently several of the onlookers were absolutely horrified that nobody bothered to go and "rescue" the poor guy who'd just crashed in front of them, and was probably lying there on the hillside bleeding.

Even funnier than that, apparently there was a French couple among the onlookers who didn't see anything unusual at all. They were actually surprised to learn that the glider had 'crashed.' "Back home, that's the way they all land," they said.

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