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2 unusual facts about Fairchild C-82 Packet


Fairchild C-82 Packet

The Skytruck brand-name was allegedly the inspiration for Elleston Trevor's Skytruck in the 1964 novel, The Flight of the Phoenix.

Based on the novel by Elleston Trevor, the story centers around a C-82A Packet operated by the fictional Arabco Oil Company.


1955 Altensteig mid-air collision

The Altensteig mid-air collision was on the 11 August 1955 when two United States Air Force Fairchild C-119G Flying Boxcars collided and crashed three miles from Altensteig in West Germany.

The two Fairchild C-119G Flying Boxcars were twin-engined military transport aircraft from the 60th Troop-Carrier Wing based at Rhein-Main airfield in West Germany.

Frank Tallman

Mantz was killed in 1965 while flying a cobbled-together aircraft, the Tallmantz Phoenix P-1, designed with the assistance of Otto Timm, representing the fictional type built by oil explorers of pieces of their crashed Fairchild C-82 Packet downed in the North African desert in The Flight of the Phoenix.

Joseph J. Brandemuehl

He has accumulated more than 3,000 flying hours in a Cessna T-41 Mescalero, Cessna T-37 Tweet, Northrop T-38 Talon, the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II, Fairchild C-26 Metroliner, and the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon.


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