Paul Mantz

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Paul Albert Mantz (c. 1903 – July 8, 1965) was a leading stunt and racing pilot of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.

Determined to fly, he applied to the United States Army flight school at March Field, CA but was informed that he needed at least two years of college to be considered. That was out of the question for Paul due to his limited finances, so by means of a ruse involving official Stanford University stationery, the source of which has never been fully explained, he passed the admissions board and went on to become the outstanding cadet in his training cohort.

Just before graduation at March Field, Paul was up solo over the Coachella Valley and spotted a train heading west over the empty desert floor up the long grade from Indio. In a moment of supreme recklessness never to be repeated in his career of calculated, precision flying, he rolled over into a dive, leveled off a few feet above the track, and flew head-on toward the train as the engineer blasted the whistle repeatedly trying to prevent the apparently inevitable collision - it would not have harmed the huge locomotive, but would have shredded Paul's aircraft. At the last moment, of course, Paul pulled up and zoomed away. This sort of lunacy was not uncommon in the early unregulated days of flying and right up to World War 2 - it scared lots of people, but it rarely resulted in damage, let alone fatalities. In Paul's case, the train was carrying some ranking officers coming to March Field to participate in the graduation ceremonies, and they wanted his scalp. At the inquiry, he could have claimed that he nearly lost control of his aircraft while diving to read the sign on the depot at Whitewater Station near where the incident occurred. In those days, buzzing a train station to read the sign was an accepted way for a lost pilot to find his location, and he might have gotten off with a reprimand, but he told the truth, and he was dismissed from the Army. Nevertheless, his instructor made it clear to Paul that he had the makings of a great pilot, and encouraged him to continue in a flying career. It's interesting to speculate how different the movies would probably have been if Paul had not been cashiered out of military flying just as he was getting started.

Paul headed the short distance west to Hollywood and the big money he'd heard was being made by movie stunt pilots. It proved exceedingly difficult to break into this game, but Paul got his chance when a job came up that no one else wanted to do. He flew a Stearman biplane through a hangar with less than five feet of clearance off each wingtip for the 1932 film Air Mail. This was dangerous, but to Paul it was an issue of precision aircraft handling and thorough planning - traits that set him apart from most of the pilots then flying stunts for the movies. A non-pilot will think nothing of parallel-parking an expensive new car with inches to spare, but considers airplane stunt flying to be just short of insanity. There is no difference except the speed involved and the necessary skills. You can't do much about the speed, but you can hone your skills, and you can plan every move.

Air Mail was a hit, and work started to come to Paul after word got around about his success in getting through the hangar unscathed. His ideas of putting movie flying on something like a professional footing caught on with the studios now that they took the time to listen. United Air Services, Paul's fledgling company at United Airport in Burbank, offered quick availabilty of planes and pilots, standardized rates, and insurance to protect producers from the accidents and downtime that stunt flying could cause. This became very popular with the studios, who were making film after film involving aircraft in order to capitalize on the public's growing fascination with flying, and Paul started to move up in the world. He had found his calling.

Mantz's air charter service also flourished, and became a favorite of Hollywood stars, many of whom became friends. He tutored Amelia Earhart in long-distance flying and navigation before her attempted round-the-world flight in 1937, and won the Bendix Trophy three consecutive years (1946-1948) in a converted war-surplus P-51.

His longest single flying role was in the late 1950s. when he did the flying scenes for the TV series Sky King.

Mantz's career as a movie stunt pilot continued into the late 1950s, when he joined forces with fellow pilot Frank Tallman to form Tallmantz Aviation in 1961. The company supplied airplanes, as well as the services of its two founders, to movie directors who wanted to film flying sequences. Mantz piloted by himself a Boeing B-17 for the belly-landing scenes in Twelve O'Clock High, a scene that have been reused in several other movies. Mantz died on July 8, 1965, while working on the movie The Flight of the Phoenix. Flying a plane built for the film, with skids instead of conventional landing gear, Mantz struck a small hillock while skimming over a desert site in Arizona for a second take - this encounter with the hillock necessitated putting the throttle to its maximum; the over-stressed aircraft broke in two and nosed over, killing Mantz instantly (and injuring his co-pilot). His skill in movie stunt flying may not have been equaled until Art Scholl succeeded him.

Aviation writer Don Dwiggins published a biography of Mantz, Hollywood Pilot, in 1967.