On the maiden flight of the first hypersonic commercial plane which can make the flight from New York City to London in four hours, a minor disaster occurs resulting in the plane actually ... See full summary »
The movie is loosely based on the novel "Orbit" by Thomas H. Block, from 1982. In the novel, a hypersonic plane on a cruise from New York City to Sydney exceeds its cruise altitude, due to sabotage by a revenge-seeking company engineer.
Joe Pedowski:
You're gonna try to fly this thing back?
Captain Cody Briggs:
Joe, did you ever skip a flat rock across a lake and watch it skim and bounce along the surface? I wanna give reentry that kind of shot.
Joe Pedowski:
I have skipped a few rocks on a few lakes in my time and I never saw yet ...
The outside footage of Columbia preparing for its second launch is not of Columbia, but rather of the test orbiter Enterprise mounted in launch configuration during fit-check procedures in 1979. Columbia's distinctive black wing chines and other markings on the forward fuselage and vertical stabilizer are missing. The footage after launch is again Columbia, as Enterprise was never actually launched into space.
While the credits list the character played by Herbert Jefferson Jr. as 'Kenny', at 1:31:57 Capt Cody Briggs (Lee Majors) addresses the character as 'Benny', in conjunction with the subtitles. At 1:32:07 the character, and the subtitles clearly note the characters name as 'Benny'
English