Flight Angels

Ace commercial airline pilot Chick Farber, Dennis Morgan, finds himself grounded after a routine flight physical reveals his eyesight is failing. Flight Superintendent Bill Graves, Ralph Bellamy, steps in and convinces Chick to take a steadier route by becoming a teacher in the school for stewardesses. While he remains with the airline, he teams up with engineer Artie Dixon, Wayne Morris, and works secretly on a bold new design he calls the “stratosphere ship”, a machine that could transform commercial aviation by flying far faster and higher than anything in use at the time.

As Chick’s life unfolds, he and Mary Norvell, Virginia Bruce, a stewardess, marry, and her friend Nan Hudson, Jane Wyman, becomes a trusted companion in their world. Yet teaching proves too restrictive for Chick’s restless ambitions, and the allure of his hidden project grows stronger. When he learns the US Army Air Corps plans to test the aircraft, he seeks permission to pilot the first flight, only to be denied because of his waning eyesight. Undeterred, he sneaks in after hours and pushes the stratosphere ship through a dangerous high-altitude test.

In flight, windows blow in and Chick fights to regain control, slipping into a near-unconscious dive before he can crash land back at his base. The harrowing experience pushes him to give up his pilot’s license, and he makes a painful choice: he leaves his wife and heads toward a distant fantasy, joining the newly formed Chinese mercenary air force fighting Japan. The dream of flight clashes with reality, and his path serendipitously intersects with the US military once more when Army Air Corps officers intercept him in San Francisco and urge him back to active duty to safeguard the secret of the stratosphere ship for the United States.

Back in the fold, Graves reorganizes Mary’s schedule, sending her to San Antonio where she encounters Chick’s reinvigorated career: he is now a flight instructor at Randolph Field and has earned the title of Captain. The two are reunited, and their bond steadies as they confront the twists of fate that kept them apart. The movie closes on a hopeful note, with the couple each finding a measure of peace in the balance between duty to country and devotion to one another, as their shared belief in a brighter future for aviation steadies their personal lives.

Overall, the story traces a pilot’s struggle between personal passion and professional duty, the allure and peril of pioneering technology, and the enduring pull of home and family even as a man fights to redefine the horizon of flight.

Last Updated: October 07, 2025 at 08:46