The Flight of the Phoenix (1965 film) The Flight of the Phoenix (1965 film) The Flight of the Phoenix is a 1965 American drama film starring James Stewart, produced and directed by Robert Aldrich, and based on the 1964 novel "The Flight of the Phoenix" by Elleston Trevor. The story describes a small group of men struggling to survive their aircraft's emergency landing in the Sahara Desert, and stars Richard Attenborough, Peter Finch, Hardy Krüger and Ernest Borgnine. The ensemble cast includes Ian Bannen, Ronald Fraser, Christian Marquand, Dan Duryea and George Kennedy as other passengers on the aircraft. Though the film was a failure at the
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