My first attempt at photoshop, the USS Manhattan

[proditor]

Has someone ever built that plane from the movie?

The only thing I've seen was in Fine Scale Modeller, September 2003, which was a step by step guide to making a better show quality display piece out of the toy.  

[Jschmus]

I did some diggin around online, and found this production sketch by Ron Cobb.  The aircraft in the film is much simplified from this (likely due to costs), but you can see where they were going with the design.  The prop from the movie hardly seems airworthy, while this certainly looks like it could go the distance.  I decided to link it because the image is so large:

Indy Flying Wing

Here's a photo of the actual model used in miniatures shots from the film:



and the full-scale prop:



From the Raiders of the Lost Ark Collectors Album:

"The futuristic Flying Wing was chosen by director Steven Spielberg to represent the ominous and advanced state of aeronautics in Hitler's Germany Production designer Norman Reynolds used a Northrop Corporation prototype of the Flying Wing and drawings by Ron Cobb to design for Raiders of the Lost Ark this strange plane that has no tail and no fuselage. The plane was built in England by Vickers Aircraft Company and painted at EMI Elstree Studios in London. In order to ship the elaborate prop to Tunisia for filming, it had to be disassembled and sent in parts, then rebuilt on location. In the film the Flying Wing is in Egypt (the Tunisian location) for the top secret mission of transporting the sacred Ark of the Covenant. But before the Ark is even aboard the plane, a series of dramatic events results in the fiery destruction of the Flying Wing."

Cobb did some really neat sketches for things that were never used in the movie, including an A-10 like fighter with twin tails and podded engines, that looked to have been based on the Bf-109.  I used to have that sketch somewhere.  I'll have to see if I can find it again.

[proditor]

I can link to that at least, I remember that pic in my searching for wing pics.

http://www.indianajones.de/pictures.php?pi...d_sketch_04.jpg

It is very cool...

And this page links to concept pics for the wing: http://www.indianajones.de/indy1/texte/pic...ures_matte.php#

[Joe C-P]

One thing I've always wondered about that is where they were planning to store the crate. There's no space large enough in that design that would fit the crate!

As a professor once told me, these are known as "refrigerator thoughts", as they occur to you when watching the movie on TV and go to the fridge during the commercial break.

JoeP