Aero Vintage Books

I've heard that story around Chino Airport ...of Paul Mantz flying through the entire original Chino hangar row in "Keep 'em Flying" (1941)

QUOTE: Don Dwiggins "Hollywood Pilot" (p-81). "When Mantz set out to duplicate his hangar-flying stunt in 'Air Mail' for an Abbot and Costello comedy 'Keep 'em flying',..not only did he buzz his P-12 through one hanger, he continued down the line threading through five hangars in a row on one pass."

SCENARIO: Abbot & Costello "accidently" start a PT-13 inside a hangar...The Stearman exits the hangar "with them in it", makes a U-turn, (transforms into Mantz's Boeing 100), and proceeds down the line passing thru all the hangars in the row, and flying away...

... So what really happened ?

A photo in a LIFE magazine story on Cal-Aero Academy, Ontario Calif., Oct 13, 1941 shows a row of four hangars, not five, (..which still exist today..). I guess nobody ever heard of Chino in those days ..1940 census pop. was 4,200.

Also, one of the AeroSport guys who worked at Cal-Aero in 1941 (Rick Sepe), told me ..it wasn't Mantz....it was Robert Scott in Mantz's Boeing 100 (P-12). (Maj. Robert L. Scott, the military commander at the civilian contractor Cal-Aero Academy, and later of "God is my Copilot" fame).

Screen grabs from "Keep 'em Flying" show the Boeing 100 ..taxiing with the tail up into Hangar 'E' (east end of row), ..out of 'C', ..out of 'B' (west end of row), ..lifting off and flying away.

.... So, that's what really happened ! ...

. JD

J.D., that's some good material. It would be interesting to know if it was Mantz or Scott. It makes more sense for it to be Mantz but Bruce Orriss notes in his 1984 When Hollywood Ruled the Skies that "even school commander, Major Robert Lee Scott, got into the act by assisting Mantz in a number of stunts for the film." Perhaps Bruce has updated material in his new series of books on aviation films. I'll make an inquiry to Bruce to see if he has any information to add.

Even as kid, I found Hollywood Pilot to be quite lacking in reliable information. I think it might have started as an autobiography but morphed into the issued book after Mantz was killed. Other aviation books of that era suffer from a similar approach to aviation history; witness the success of Martin Caidin as an aviation non-fiction author.

From my own research, I think it would be possible with diligent research to create an excellent biography of Mantz for the aviation minded. It would take years and a substantial financial investment. And, it probably would not sell more than a few thousand copies.

As an aside, it was (is) my intent to gather as much about Mantz and Tallman and Tallmantz on my Tallmantz pages in lieu of such a book, but have not had the available time to push it forward in the past few years. Perhaps it will still come....

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I'm confident it was Scott doing the take-off run though the hangars. The source I quoted, Rick Sepe was actually there during the filming at Cal-Aero in 1941, and he stated to me it was Scott.

Anouther "Keep 'em Flying" stunt...the Stearman PT-13 which Abbot and Costello started the engine in...which transformed into the Boeing 100, then became a Stearman C-3 which "crashed" into the top of a hangar, breaking the wheels off, which resulted in a belly landing...

...How Chino Airport started...LIFE magazine story on Cal-Aero Academy Oct 13, 1941

"Cal-Aero civilian school trains 4,000 army fliers a year"

http://books.google.com/books?id=uk4EAA ... &q&f=false

. JD
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Bruce Orriss, an excellent source on these films, confirms with this information:

...it was Maj. Scott who did the flying in that scene...although never really publicized as he could have gotten into trouble for doing so. As a result Mantz was happy to take the credit. Also I seem to remember reading that Scott taxied at high speed through one hangar...then another and finally flew out of the last hangar to make it look like he actually flew thru all three...

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The beginning of that sequence shows an actual PT-13 taxing out of the hangar, making a U-turn,...then the Boeing 100 heading back into the hangar as seen in the first post above...

. JD
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...So I guess that definitively answers the question:
...Did Paul Mantz really fly through the hangars at Chino ?

answer:
It wasn't Mantz...it was Scott...
It wasn't a "fly-through",...it was a take-off run...

. JD

No. He flew it thru the hanger at Sonoma County Airport: See the following link in what was Picasa Web Albums, but now in Google photos:
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipP ... 0S?key=YVE

Flying thru the billboard is found at this link:
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipP ... -C?key=YVE

Feel free to go thru the whole movie and see camera and scene locations. ron@kawal.net

iammmmw wrote:No. He flew it thru the hanger at Sonoma County Airport: See the following link in what was Picasa Web Albums, but now in Google photos:
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipP ... 0S?key=YVE

Flying thru the billboard is found at this link:
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipP ... -C?key=YVE

Feel free to go thru the whole movie and see camera and scene locations. ron@kawal.net

Links don't seem to work and are you referring to "Keep 'Em Flying" (1941) or Mad Mad World (which was not part of the original discussion)?

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( 2016 version of the story )

"Double Ace: The Life of Robert Lee Scott Jr., Pilot, Hero, and Teller of tall tales" - Robert Coram (2016)

" In late 1941, Universal Studios filmed a movie called 'Keep 'em Flying' at Cal-Aero, starring the zany comedy team of Bud Abbot and Lou Costello...

Scott was not only the military consultant to the movie, he took an active role in the filming and the flying.

The script called for an aircraft to be flown through four open aircraft hangars. The dangerous maneuver was to be flown by Paul Mantz, a famed stunt pilot, who was paid $500 per minute for his flying time. But the Air Forces saw a liability problem in letting a civilian pilot fly through Cal-Aero's hangars, and it denied Mantz permission.

'Hey, Paul,' Scott said. 'I'll fly through the hangars for you.'

And he did...In gratitude, Mantz gave Scott a set of expensive golf clubs. "

(ED ..as seen above, the Boeing 100 was actually taxiing with the tail up through the hangars, then lifted off emerging from the fourth and last hangar.

JD

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