The "Flight of the Phoenix" Revisited

The title of this essay is The “Flight of the Phoenix” Revisited. This title is taken from a 1965 movie.(1) For those who have not seen this rather superb effort, it featured a crash landing of a C-82 in the Sahara Desert in the 1950s. This was caused by a severe dust storm that drove the C-82 far off course. After a few days of waiting, the 11 survivors came to the conclusion that they were not going to be found by an air search. The predicament of the survivors may serve as an analogy to our energy situation today: deeply entrenched opinions, zero tolerance for other views, very little real information, and much confusion. Three options emerged that were equally unattractive, widely disparate, dangerous, and with low odds of success. They were: walk out; ride out in a camel caravan (if one should ever pass), or fly out in a re-created plane.

Two of the survivors died in an attempt to walk out, and two were killed by members of a small caravan. It finally became clear to the remaining seven that their only chance was to rebuild the plane. This was an idea that most initially thought was insane. The C-82, sometimes referred to as the Sky Truck, consisted of two long booms, each with a large engine, bracketing a large central hull. It was owned by an oil company, and its hull was full of oil field equipment: cutting torches, welders, winches, cable and so forth. So the opportunity to rebuild a plane was there, by salvaging the undamaged boom. And much like the legend, The Phoenix did “rise from the dead” and fly again, and seven lives were saved.

For the Phoenix survivors, the critical resource was water, with about 12 days of supply left to complete their reconstruction. For our country, the critical resource is oil. And just as the Phoenix survivors rebuilt their plane, our task is to rebuild our energy system. But the Phoenix survivors mode of transportation was still a plane, just as our energy system will continue to utilize oil.

Whatever the ultimate mix of energy resources turns out to be, this re-creation will be very difficult, and will take time — and at least some failure of the other options — before the activists get on board. One can only hope our country will exhibit the same ingenuity, tenacity and success in solving our energy crisis that the survivors of the Phoenix did.

CO2 Science