TITLE: Sky Carnival: Flying with Jack & Mavis
AUTHOR: Cindy J. Weigand
Tulsa, Oklahoma
cjweigand0110@gmail.com
512.818.0472
GENRE: Drama, Period piece with aviation theme.
Based on a true story.
ESTIMATED BUDGET: $60-80 million
LOGLINE: A dashing pilot is living the high life in the Roaring Twenties. When his brother is killed in a plane crash he must come to terms with his desire to return to the flying life he loves and the reality of its dangers.
High Road to China (1983) meets The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)
Confident of his aerobatic skills, JACK ASHCRAFT joins the Gates Flying Circus, the World’s Greatest Exhibition Aviator in the Roaring Twenties. Soon, he becomes their star performer. Newspapers feature his picture with accompanying articles wherever they fly. He is dubbed “Big” Jack, Cowboy Aviator. The circus travels up and down the east coast giving exhibitions. One notable exhibition is a simulated aerial attack on New York City in 1925.
MAVIS PERKINS is living a life that is the envy of her friends. She’s earned her pilot’s license, and the newspaper she started is doing well. Working during the week, she goes flying evenings and weekends. The two are worlds apart—a society girl from New York and a vagabond of the air from a small town. But that combination proves to be part of the intrigue.
The two become romantically involved. Their relationship makes for a wild and thrilling ride that touches both their lives in ways neither could have expected. However, the relationship isn’t sustainable due to his nomadic and dangerous lifestyle and her society status. When Jack leaves the circus, they part ways but remain friends. Mavis is there for Jack when his brother and best friend are killed in a tragic plane crash. He could always talk to her for understanding when he couldn’t with his male comrades.
Jack recovers from the loss somewhat and puts his life back together. Soon, he yearns to see his name in the papers again. A year after his brother’s death, he undertakes an endurance flight over Long Island with a friend of Mavis’s. He insists on being in charge. When their refueling plane is unable to make contact due to fog, they must make an emergency landing. Flying low with Jack at the controls, the tail of the plane snags on a hickory tree and they crash. Jack is killed instantly. His copilot is severely injured but survives.
Mavis is devastated. Afraid she will lose her nerve to fly again; she heads to the airfield and takes off. When she lands, her friends and family are there waiting for her.
The story is told from the point of view of a newspaper man who traveled with the circus and Mavis’s.