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
The Sons of the Desert social organizations. Stan Laurel endorsed and humorously revised the document; he suggested that members might wear a fez or blazer patch with the motto "Two Minds Without a Single Thought." Founding member Kilgore created a logo with the motto in Latin (in the spirit of Laurel’s dictum that the organization should have “a half-assed dignity” about it) as "Duae tabulae rasae in quibus nihil scriptum est" (literally: "Two blank slates on which nothing has been written"). The first public Sons of the Desert meeting was held in New York City in 1965, shortly after Stan Laurel's death. McCabe's group quickly