Frank Tallman
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Frank Gifford Tallman (born 17 April 1919 in Orange, New Jersey – died April 15, 1978, Santiago Peak, Trabuco Canyon, CA, he was a stunt pilot in Hollywood in the 1960s and 1970s.
[edit] Tallmantz Aviation
Tallman formed a company with legendary pilot Paul Mantz named Tallmantz Aviation in 1961 based at Orange County Airport (now John Wayne Airport) in Southern California. They provided pilots, camera planes, and a small fleet of antique and historic aircraft, as well as background models of aircraft and ships, for movie and television productions. Mantz was killed in 1965 while flying a cobbled-together aircraft that represented the rebuilt Fairchild C-82 Packet reconstructed by oil explorers downed in the North African desert in The Flight of the Phoenix. On what was supposed to be his retirement job, Mantz hooked a skid on a sand dune and was thrown from the tumbling, disintegrating airframe.
Shortly after Mantz's death, Tallman injured his leg in a go-cart accident and ended up in the hospital. Infection set in, costing him most of the leg. He taught himself to fly with one leg, preferring to fly in some planes without the prosthetic he used for walking. He was the first amputee to hold all FAA licenses. Tallman was killed in a flying accident in 1978, and the company was wound up.
[edit] Film Credits
Tallman did the stunt flying in the 1963 chase movie It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, including the notable flight through a Coca-Cola billboard. He also contributed to The Carpetbaggers (1964), as well as The Wrecking Crew, a Dean Martin Matt Helm spy movie, and The Thousand Plane Raid, both in 1969.
He served as the flying supervisor for Catch-22 in 1970 and Tallmantz Aviation was integrally involved in rounding up the eighteen or so flyable B-25s that appeared in the film. Tallman himself flew the vertigo-inducing night shots of the Milo Minderbinder Air Force B-25 bombing its own base just over the heads of actors Jon Voight and Martin Sheen.
In 1971 Tallman flew a Grumman Duck amphibian in Murphy's War. In 1973 flew for the cameras in Ace Eli and Rodger of the Skies and piloted a Stearman cropduster in Charley Varrick as well as the television pilots Death Race and San Francisco International. He was aerial supervisor for The Great Waldo Pepper, performing the barnstorming stunts for the film, and flew in Lucky Lady, both in 1975. Tallman also served as aerial coordinator and pilot for Baa Baa Black Sheep and flew in Amelia Earhart, both television projects in 1976.
In 1973, he recounted his experiences in rebuilding and flying vintage aircraft in the book Flying the Old Planes.
His last film projects were The Cat From Outer Space and Capricorn One, both in 1978, and 1941 released in 1979 after Tallman's death in an accident.
[edit] Death
On Saturday April 15, 1978, Tallman was making a routine ferry flight of a Piper PA-23 N5641Y from Santa Monica Airport, California to Phoenix, Arizona under visual flight rules. He continued the flight into deteriorating weather of a lowering ceiling and rain. The aircraft struck the side of Santiago Peak in the Santa Ana Mountains near Trabuco Canyon in a cruise attitude killing the pilot.
Following Tallman's death, the historic collection of movie warbirds and camera planes were sold off. Many were purchased by entrepreneur Kermit Weeks and are on display at his Fantasy of Flight museum in Polk City, Florida. A ship's model was donated to the Los Angeles Maritime Museum.
