This silent film from the vault of North American Aviation was used as a teaser at a convention of test pilots, aircraft engineers and supervisors, etc. The film is an epic compilation of aviation fails from WWI to the 1960s and features airplane crashes, missiles exploding, etc. It uses some documentary footage and quite a bit of Hollywood material. The film starts at :17 with a WWI biplane slamming into a house, and shows Navy biplanes colliding at :24. At :41 a WWI barrage balloon is shot down while at :55 a WWI airplane crashes into the ground and flips over. At 1:50 a biplane does a “ground loop” and concerned bystanders rush over. At 3:00 the Zeppelin Hindenburg explodes in flames at Lakehurst. At 4:42, WWII Navy airplanes are shown crashing into an aircraft carrier. At 8:03 the X-10 Navajo cruise missile is shown exploding during a test run. At 9:00 a double rocket / missile payload goes out of control and is self-destructed. At 9:58 a jet being launched by JATO rocket is shown. At 10:20 the bottle did not detach so the pilot ejects from the aircraft. At 10:35 aircraft debris are shown at what might be Edwards Air Force Base as a fire crew puts them out. At 10:56 a rocket engine test stand is shown. At 11:00 a massive fireball erupts from the stand. At 11:20 an F-101 Starfighter goes out of control on the runway after a fuel tank separates, causing it to crash on the ground. At 11:46 a test aircraft spins on the runway. At 12:02 the prototype B-57 Hustler is seen on its first test flight, suffering a blown tire. At 12:48 crews at Edwards shower the runway with fire retardant so the plane can be brought in safely at 13:05. At 14:29 a rocket or jet firing stand suffers a complete destructive blowout. At 15:10 an X-15 rocket plane flown by Neil Armstrong lands at Edwards AFB and suffers catastrophic fuselage damage. At 16:11 an ejection seat firing is shown. At 16:37 the reel ends with an atomic bomb blast just for fun!

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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com