Flying in the Amazon, July 13th, 2023

Flying in the Amazon, July 13th, 2023

David Jones was a famous stunt pilot and aerial coordinator in Hollywood. Jones was the aerial coordinator and helicopter pilot for the famous “Song of the Valkyries” scene in the movie “Apocalypse Now”.

Jones hired me over the phone to come to Belem, Brazil to work on the film “At Play in the Fields of the Lord.” I was to be the aircraft mechanic maintaining the Dehavilland Beaver used in the film. I would also put the plane on floats later on.

I met David at the Miami airport and we flew together to Belem. We became good friends. In the evenings we’d sit together on the Verandah Bar at the Belem Hilton and drink while sharing stories.

The airstrip at Madre de Deus was narrow, short, and one way in and one way out. It was just wide and long enough for the Beaver to take off and land. My asshole puckered on every landing and takeoff. If anything went wrong with the plane or the pilot’s flying the plane would crash.

It was over 110F with high, very high humidity in the afternoons. We were just 120 miles south of the equator in the Amazon River Delta. Density altitude must have been 5,000’ or more. Takeoffs and landings weren’t easy in such hot humid air.

One morning Saul Zaentz wanted to go flying from the airstrip. Saul was the movie’s producer. He was a big guy with a white beard. He’d already won Oscars for best picture for “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Amadeus”. Saul’s company also produced all the Credence Clearwater Revival records.

It was about 10 AM and the temperature was already 90F.
David Jones flew pilot in the front left hand seat. Zaentz was in the co-pilot seat. I was sitting behind Jones. Manuele, the liaison guy from Rio sat next to me. His assistant, Andrez, sat behind me.

We took off from the airstrip okay. We had the usual ten feet to spare before slowly climbing up above the river. We went up to about 600 feet. Just enough to clear the tree canopy and look around.

We all had headsets on so that we could talk to each other. The Beaver has a Pratt & Whitney R-985 nine cylinder air cooled radial engine. It sounds like ten loud Harley Davidson motorcycles going by.

David Jones comes over the headset, “Hey, Saul. Look downriver. There’s Hector and the camera crew coming upriver on the boat. Let’s have some fun.”

Jones gets over the boat, pulls back the throttle to idle, and goes into a steep dive. I could see Saul’s face. He had a look of panic. Imagine going down a rollercoaster at 120 mph.

Right above the boat, Jones pulls out of the dive and hits full power. The radial engine roars to life and Jones is laughing his ass off.

Then we have to land on the airstrip. Oh, more ass-pucker time for Saul.

Zaentz never got in the Beaver from the airstrip again. Months later Saul was in the Beaver when it was on floats and crashed in the Rio Guama.

But that’s another story.

TJM

PS: In the David Jones obituary that appeared in the NY Times, Jones was quoted as saying that he considered his work on At Play in the Fields of the Lords some of his best.