Lord of the Flies movie mystery photo.

[Graeme]

I don't think it's the Princess, again based on the engine spacing. I'm thinking it fake or altered just like the 6-engine Comet and those Sabres that aren't Sabres.
Would they have worried about liability and law suits from an aircraft manufacturer in 1963?

 

[vikingBerserker]

It almost looks like the Spruce Goose with a pair of engines removed and the remaining ones moved closer.

 

[dogsbody]

A Messerschmitt Me323?


Chris

 

[Wurger]

Rather no.

 

[GrauGeist]

Guys...something I might point out.

In the story, the kids were aboard an aircraft that was transporting them to another destination (land to land) and the story was written in the 1950's.

So it's entirely possible that the aircraft pictured is a jet powered type and it may be either a heavy transport or a type intended to be a commercial craft. I honestly don't believe that it's a flying boat type and that tailplane structure has a high-mounted horizontal stabilizer, much like a C-5.

It seems to me that I have seen this photo before, of an aircraft at altitude, and the variations in the background of the photo are of a coastline several thousand feet below.

 

[fubar57]

Went that way as well Dave on Google Image. I'm thinking its supposed to be British and The Princess is the closest right down to the location of the out-riggers(?) though they aren't quite right either. Still leaning to a fictional aircraft

 

[herman1rg]

The film was released in 1963

 

[GrauGeist]

The book was published in 1954

The boys were involved in a wartime evacuation and the aircraft they were riding in crashes near an island in the Pacific.

So the 1963 movie is based on that book.

 

[XBe02Drvr]

I'm with the fake aircraft theory. I remember my 1950s elementary school textbooks and workbooks were decorated with stylized artistic renditions of futuristic versions of everyday objects: glass dome enclosed cities, cars with transparent bubble bodies, Disneyland style monorails, steam locomotives with 15 drive axles, "Super Stratocruisers" with 6 engines, "Spruce Geese" with no water hull and B-19 style landing gear, etc.
In my 7-year-old technocratic arrogance, I had nothing but loud and outspoken contempt for such fanciful distortions of reality. I KNEW what the REAL stuff was, Damn it!!
Y'all have fun now, hear?
Wes

 

[CapKarlper]

I think from memory is a french big passenger seaplane maybe the Lionell de Marmier , with six engines. After the war made some trips to South America. I will look to my books.

 

[A4K]

Good call Geo...certainly looks close (bar the angle on the tailplanes as discussed).

We read the book in school, and I was always trying to work out what aircraft has a pressurized passenger cabin that serves as an escape pod ( apparently the reason the boys survived the undisclosed disaster and ended up on the island). Still don't know...

 

[XBe02Drvr]

Stratocruiser!

 

[dogsbody]

I think from memory is a french big passenger seaplane maybe the Lionell de Marmier , with six engines. After the war made some trips to South America. I will look to my books.

The Latécoère 631?

https://www.aviafrance.com/image.php?im=5566


Chris

 

[Old Wizard]

 

[GrauGeist]

The Latécoère 631?

https://www.aviafrance.com/image.php?im=5566


Chris

While that's a good guess, the tail structure is wrong. The 631 had dual vertical stabilizers, the mystery aircraft has a single vert. stab. with the horizontal stabilizer mounted high on the structure.