Flight of the Phoenix (2004 film) Flight of the Phoenix (2004 film) Flight of the Phoenix is a 2004 American survival drama film and a remake of a 1965 film of the same name, both based on the 1964 novel "The Flight of the Phoenix", by Elleston Trevor, about a group of people who survive an aircraft crash in the Gobi Desert and must build a new aircraft out of the old one to escape. The film stars Dennis Quaid and Giovanni Ribisi. "Flight of the Phoenix" opened in the U.S. on December 17, 2004. The film was a box-office failure, and received generally mixed reviews;
Aircrew survival equipmentman changed to its present title of aircrew survival equipmentman in December, 1965. The reason for changing the title from parachute rigger to aircrew survival equipmentman was to provide a more realistic description of the types of duties performed by PRs. However, aircrew survival equipmentmen maintained their official abbreviated title of "PR" after the 1965 name change. Following a fatal training accident in the 1980s, students are no longer required to complete the basic parachute jump to earn their rating badge. United States Navy parachute riggers are now trained at Naval Air Station Pensacola during a twelve-week (55 training days) school