John Stringfellow flight achievement was referenced in the movie "The Flight of the Phoenix" (1965). The character Heinrich Dorfmann (Hardy Kruger), a German airplane designer, explains that it was a model airplane that made the first powered flight in 1848 and that though his own experience with airplane design is with building models, the principles are the same. His design for an airplane to be built from the scraps of their crashed plane will fly them out of the desert to safety. John Stringfellow John Stringfellow (1799 – 13 December 1883) was born in Sheffield, England and is known for his work
Lost in the Desert by Uncle Pete, who partway into the flight has a heart attack and partially loses control of the plane. Thanks to his struggles to land safely in the desert even while suffering the heart attack, the crash is not as serious as it might have been otherwise, and, while Pete himself dies, Dirkie and his small pet dog survive, and the bulk of the story follows Dirkie's various adventures while he struggles to survive the harsh desert conditions, including an encounter with Kalahari Desert Bushmen, who give him help, but abandon him after an unfortunate misunderstanding concerning Dirkie's dog. The