That's awesome. I always look up the N numbers on these old FAA films, and most of the aircraft are actually still around. Shows how well built these things really were.
N Numbers do get re-assigned to different aircraft, so I'd like to verify it's the same craft. Granted the owner really found this interesting though it's probably it.
My father, Donald Houghten made this film and several others for the FAA back in the day, and did all of the flying. He also designed the Density Altitude "computer" himself! Because he worked for the FAA he was not allowed to take credit for anything, so I'm proud to give him credit now. If he was still living I know he'd be very pleased that his "computer" is still being used by pilots.
That is a fantastic note about such a popular movie! This film gets many favorable reviews even to this day! I am honored that this link has found it's way to you! I first saw this while attending A&P school in the early 1990's and while the story line is somewhat silly today the message is just as important and serious as the day it was made. Years after my A&P school closed I sought out this film to preserve it from being lost or destroyed forever, I transferred it to digital format and posted on RU-vid for everyone to enjoy. I wish you blue skies forever and you should be very proud of your father! I don't know if you saw a remark below but I found "Harry's" airplane and sent a copy of the movie to the current owner of the (now famous) Bonanza! All the best! Dan
@@odie175 back then, during the expansion period, it was really easy to make money, there was plenty about, it was all on credit, and future generations could worry about how it's paid. You listen to a few people's stories from back then, it was totally different. For a start, a single unskilled worker had enough to buy a house, support a wife who didn't have to work and car. Today 2 unskilled workers could not equal that. With money slushing around like that, what you say is true.
@@CameTo I'm not really sure any of that is true. There's a lot of poor immigrants and even poor citizens working back then who didn't have a whole hell of a lot
I thought the airline captain was going to warn him about weight and air density but he just smiled and turned away grinning thinking old Harry is a dead man walking Ahahahahahaahah!
Jenbil - Ha ha! I thought the same thing. Reminiscent of the style of a "Twilight Zone" episode. I half expected a pan to Rod Serling for his analysis of the encounter.
I know--in fact, with the forked-tail doctor killer being the aircraft flown here, I can't believe the FAA even had the gall to suggest that density altitude mattered. It was far too technically advanced to worry about things like that! 😁
You mean passive noise cancelling, right? Like noise insulation materials etc. Active noise cancelling in defined space doesn't work due the physics limitation. Otherwise everyone could have silent home next to noisy neighbour etc. Active noise cancelling works only with headphones.
@@bujablaster it does work in cars, and has been used for some time now. Active noise cancelling works well for low frequencies whereas higher frequencies are taken care of by sound deadening.
As a passenger I once booked a flight into Phoenix, Arizona when the 2 PM temperature was an unbelievable 121 F. All daytime flights were cancelled except emergency and military due to "density altitude." My flight took off at 11 PM.
I LOVE these old FAA video's. Fun to see the styles of the day, the cars, they way people dressed, but the airplanes haven't changed a bit. Airplanes never go out of style :) Harry, 40 years from now there will be a handheld whiz wheel that you can calculate your DA on, file your flight plan, see thunderstorms and call people with it too.
Actually, it was lawsuits that prevented much of General aviation from advancing beyond the 1950 and 60's tech. It's still nowhere close to what it could be.
@@stratocrewzrand that's just sad & exasperating, considering that handheld tablet props in Star Trek: The Next Generation has now been realized as touchscreen smartphones.
Thanks for uploading this. 😊 I've always enjoyed educational films from earlier eras when optimism was in abundance, unlike the dystopia of division & strife we live in today. To think that pilots of today are still flying such antiques, when palm top tablet props from Star Trek: The Next Generation have already been realised as touch screen smartphones, is just wild & exasperating. There hasn't been much general aviation innovation in airframes & powerplants that have been implemented after all these decades.
"Hey pal, don't you know about your density altitude? It's that thing I just learned a couple of hours ago while talking to that old dude back there!" lol
Frightening, especially in a forked tail doctor killer. One of my scout leaders had one when I was a kid. Circling my parents house, I have the yoke, mom out side waving, I let the nose drop a bit, he reaches over, grabs the yoke and admonishes me to rest my arm on the arm rest. Of course it was a swing over yoke, I think he was mostly mad at himself. Around 6500 ft. ABQ, NM summer!
I like that they added that bit as a little incentive to all the dudes watching. "And if you learn about this thing, now *you* can walk around being the know-it-all to everyone else!"
Unbelievable is right, I would not wait a second, forget the Banana! By the way, I think that the Thrush had the Radial and was the Robin's bigger brother.
@@av8rshane491 I may give you that it is a Robin. But I doubt that the fella would fly more than some guy's Canteen of water into that strip. The Thrush would make much sense if trying to haul equipment. But I doubt any of those were in service for any length of time, they were probably ridden too hard.
Irony alert! Helicopter N73913 crashed on Sep 14 1965 in South Fork Colo shortly after this film was made. Contributing factor: High Density Altitude. Coincidence? You be the judge!
interesting fact indeed. movie title above lists '66 as year this vid was made. if copter crashed in '65'....how would that have been possible. must be a typo on 'year this vid was shot. i'm thinking it's older. more like '62 or something?
1966 i was 5 years old. I would never have thought in a million years that years later i would fly myself over the areas mentioned in this film. And live in the UK.
Thank you for posting siedan89. Haven't seen this for 53 years but I remember it like yesterday as a 16-year-old student pilot. I did pay attention and as a midwest flyer,11,000 hours later, glad I did. This film has no doubt saved hundreds of lives. The overacting and music were PERFECT for the times. Thanks again !!!
my GAWD I just Love the 1960's! You didn't have to wear headphones and clutter up the cockpit with all sorts of gadgets, you could just land at any airport, everyone was civilized and friendly and wanted to help you, they were even drinking Coke out of Glass Bottle! That's when Coke had the best taste!
It's been a hundred years I swear the last time I seen this flick. It was one they showed us at ground school and I hiked up to Tunnel Meadows in 1996, the air field is all gone but the cabin was still there at that time. This was Chuck Yeager and Bud Andersens go to place to go fishing. He covers all this in his books, great reads.👍👍👍👍👍❤🇺🇸
Wife: "Harry don't you think that..." Harry: "Power, toots. Power!" Wife: "But Harry!" Harry: "We got gobs of power." Wife: "Har..." Harry: "Power for days! Say, why'd I bring you along anyhows?"
@@datadavis I wish people and life still had the more serene flavor of old days. I hope to achieve this for myself in the not too distant future by moving to a not so happening but beautiful area and limiting total time in front of screens to 25 hrs a week.
Great film. Classic arial beauty shots of the Bonanza. No little irony of landing a Bonanza at Tahoe during the era the Bonanza TV series was airing... Man I sure miss flying now that I'm retired and will never have the $$$ again. One continuity error -- Harry changed from his fishing hat to his Bart Simpson special between 20:30 and 20:33... and back to the fishing hat by 20:45! Quick change artist??? ;)
At 17:07 when he taxied into the ramp at Tahoe, my BN2A is in the background. Flew into there for years. A buddy of mine was hanging out at the Tahoe airport one day, 88 degrees at noon, and a Mooney with four folks and bags landed hopped out and the pilot said "top her off" and we are going to eat. Mike said, "I'm going to stick around and watch this" The pilot said "watch what" Mike said 'you end up in the meadow at the end of the runway in a flaming ball of fire" The pilot's eyes got big and he said "WHAT" Mike said "didn't you learn about density altitude when you learned to fly" The pilot said "sure but what does that have to do with me? Mike said, 'the density altitude today is above the altitude of the aircraft's ability to perform and that meadow has been the final resting ground of many flat landers attempt to fly out of Tahoe on a hot day. " The pilot realized that he was over gross and would have ended up in the meadow just as Mike had said. They decided to not top it off and wait till evening to continue on their journey.
Thank you very much for sharing this insightful piece of history. The appearance of the "disc" (E6B) looks slightly different today but still has the same functionality. Seeing the Bonanza V35 is as iconic as seeing a Jeep Grand Wagoneer pulling an Airstream Trailer. This is a very important infomercial that dually arouses the senses for what used to be a simpler time. Greatly appreciated!
I learned to fly in Colorado and density altitude was drummed into us from day 1. I also did search and rescue. Pilots from low lying states were in for a shock when it came to high density altitudes, especially because they'd vary a lot with the big temperature swings from cool mornings to hot afternoons. And Leadville was a bear regardless of temp. The people who'd enter the mountains (like this guy) without mountain flying training, were playing russian roulette - it was not "if", but when. Many mountain airports are "1 way", and there are no go-arounds, you get it right first time or crash.
In 1966 close friends tried talking my father into going in with them to buy a used V tail Bananza. My father, a WWIi pilot didn’t think we’d use it enough and declined. Shortly thereafter the plane crashed in Mississippi when a wing spar failed killing both parents and their two daughters.
I absolutely love this film! Taught a great lesson without having to be graphic and deadly. It also did it in a friendly way. Still makes me sad in a way because this seems like a golden era for private general aviation that is long gone. How much did Harry’s Beach bonanza cost new in 1966 Compared to a new one today? You look at the numbers there were thousands more recreational private pilots during that era. I’m a private pilot and fly when I can, but I would love to go into a time machine. Going to enjoy more classic FAA movies!
Well, in the airforce, a small propeller plane (SAAB 91) overloaded with golfbags and stuff landed, I asked the pilote how he manage to take off with all that extra weight and he said: "Sooner or later the curvature of earth will make the ground dissapear underneath you"
They never mentioned that he did his abort with the mixture full rich. That "mixture full rich for landing" has got to be one of the most dangerous things ever put into a POH. You don't land with mixture full rich with 13,000' DA. You don't do _anything_ with mixture full rich at 13,000' DA.
One of the advantages I had flying in the Chicago area was the agonic line. I had to remember to compensate for the compass heading when leaving the area.
One of my girl Fiddle students, father purchased this same airplane ...🎵🙏🎶 She now flies it all the time commercially ...!!! I think these are beautiful airplanes....!!❤️👍
if he had been flying atWiggins Airways, Norwood Mass. back then, he would have gotten Ground School from a former USN Flight Instructor, Bruce 'Pops' Pronk- who helped train a certain Theodore Williams in Primary Flight Training back in WW2. Harry would definitely have known about DA, or Pops wouldn't have let him out of the class until he DID :) :)
@@teenagerinsac ahh Wiggins. They have a Beech 99 here in KHYA, Mass that flies mail & cargo to and from the local Islands. I believe they're based out of New Hampshire.
Sounds like Harry needs to get a turbonormalized Bonanza 😎 Excellent video though. Crazy that it's almost 60 years old and just as relevant now as the day it was made!
N4792U, the Cessna 180 who nearly wrecked landing at Tunnel Meadows at the end of the film, was at the Spurwink Fly-In in Cape Elizabeth, Maine recently. I tried to find the pilot to show him this video but I couldn't track him down. The plane looked great.
Ron Johnson ..My dad flew Bonanzas for 30 years...and he was a Dr...we never got into a spot of trouble flying those birds...I guess that when you have common sense and don’t have get there it is...you live longer....
@@paulciprus9582 good for you and your dad.....don’t worry about old Ronny, he learned about the doctor killer anecdote in some flying magazine and just wanted to sound smart. ps. He failed.
Though this video may look a bit dated in a “Leave it to Beaver” sort of way, the information in it is just as relevant today as it was when the video was made. I just read an article in this month’s issue of AOPA Pilot (November 2021) where, in July of this year, the exact same situation happened as what is shown here, with tragic results. A New York (i.e. sea level or close to it, much like Mr. Bliss) based pilot purchased a plane in California and brought a friend with him to fly it back to New York. When they reached Colorado, they attempted to cross the Sawatch Range, just east of Aspen, over a ridge better than 13,000 feet MSL. They didn’t make it. The plane was, you guessed it, a Beech Bonanza.
This reminds me of those videos you'd see in class back in the day. But I paid more attention on this one. Thankfully DA is a bit more emphasized on the oral exam and ground school.
I once had to drive from NYC to San Francisco, and we stopped in Laramie, Wyoming. The altitude of Laramie is about seven thousand feet. We stayed overnight , and woke up with terrible headaches. Things got worse when we got to the Donner Pass (9,000 feet) going into California. But then we got back down to sea level, and everything was fine. I'm not built for mountains.
Thanks for posting this, watched an abbreviated version of this film in flight school back in the day. They stopped the film right as Harry was headed for the rocks and trees after one of his take offs so I assumed he died.
jazzman99000 nope....he squeaked that one by the skin of his teeth...that was a wake up call...he must of had Lady Luck on his side...and then he learned about DA....lucky guy....😁
