Obligatory Scary Flying Story

Back in 1963, Stanley Kramer made a little film about a batch of crazy treasure-hunters. One of the highlights of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" was the great sub-plot in the middle when Mickey Rooney and Buddy Hackett convince pilot Jim Backus to take them up in his plane so they can beat the others to the treasure.

The result was several of the wildest scary flying sequences ever filmed, all flown by the legendary stunt pilot Frank Tallman. After Thurston Howell the Third gets drunk and then passes out after hitting his head, Buddy and Mickey have to take over flying the plane, a Beechcraft D-18.

They end up flying thru an open airplane hanger (which was actually at the Sonoma County airport in northern California, one of the only scenes not done in the southern part of the state), and also fly thru a billboard, which was in reality made of flimsy styrofoam and balsa wood. However, when Tallman flew the plane thru, the foam and balsa clogged the air intake on one of the engines, and he had to make an emergency landing!
Later in the film, Buddy and Mickey finally land the plane at an airport where the crash fire squad are three guys named Moe, Larry and Curly Joe...

Clicking on the post title will take you to an excellent "Mad World" tribute site, which includes a lot of info about the famous plane, which sadly no longer exists.