A faltering airplane dives out of view with the implication that it crashed. No One Could Survive That!, right? But no, after a few dramatic seconds the aircraft re-emerges triumphantly. You Had Us Worried There, hero.
Usually accomplished by an Ace Pilot. Compare Suicidal "Gotcha!" where the re-surfacing was all planned from the beginning. Can overlap with Belly-Scraping Flight where the character cuts the clearance so close that they're pulling twigs out of their hair or lose some paint on the peak of the mountain.
Examples:
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Films — Animated
- In Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, a plane is launched off a slingshot and into the forest. The plane tumbles below the tree canopy, and a bunch of nervous onlookers edges closer to get a better view. Then the plane reappears, having recovered from the tumble and is now flying perfectly.
- The Rescuers: Orville is introduced flying in towards the runway of Albatross Air, built on top of a building. As Bernard watches, he sees the albatross dip below the ledge, and frantically yells "Pull up, pull up!" at the radio. Orville then reappears and skids into the runway on his face, which doesn't reassure the acrophobic Bernard one bit.
- The climax of The Rescuers Down Under provides a heroic catch from an Inevitable Waterfall. Marahute, a giant eagle, dives after a falling Cody, and both disappear into the mist before soaring out together. Watch the scene here
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Films — Live-Action
- In 1917, a disabled German plane flies out of sight behind a hill, presumably to crash — but then abruptly pulls up and crests the hill, to menace Blake and Schofield.
- In GoldenEye, Bond gets on a failing plane and is struggling at the controls to gain altitude. Cut to an exterior shot of the plane failing, and it descends out of view obscured by a mountain. Did it crash? No! Miraculously the plane comes back into view as it recovers its altitude and flies over the ridge and up and out of the frame again.
- During the climax of The Flight of the Phoenix (2004), the plane falls off a cliff, out of view, and then it flies back up, having achieved enough speed for lift. Roll credits.
- Star Trek:
- Star Trek Into Darkness: The failing USS Enterprise drops out of the sky like a stone into thick clouds despite regaining engine control mid-fall, but then re-emerges from the clouds safely in control. Watch the scene here.
- Star Trek Beyond does the same thing with the Franklin. Because it wasn't designed with atmospheric flight in mind, the ship can't take off from its cliffside perch, and has to fall down said cliff to pick up enough speed for the thrusters to provide lift. Right as it reaches the bottom of the cliff, you see the ship nose-up like it's trying to pull up, but it keeps falling straight down regardless and falls out of view. A few seconds later, the ship races overhead as if atmospheric flight was trivial.
- Star Trek Into Darkness: The failing USS Enterprise drops out of the sky like a stone into thick clouds despite regaining engine control mid-fall, but then re-emerges from the clouds safely in control. Watch the scene here
- In Top Gun: Maverick, Coyote suffers from G-LOC during a training exercise. He regains consciousness just in time to retake control of his plane, but the scene waits a moment for him to reappear from behind a hill to show it.
- Wild Wild West: After West and Gordon take off from the top of a cliff in their bicycle/airplane, the flying machine falls quickly and goes out of sight, only to fly up from the bottom of the screen and continue on its way.
Live-Action TV
- At the end of Red Dwarf episode "Gunmen of the Apocalypse", the ship crash-lands into a sea of lava and disappears, then re-emerges with full thrust and the crew rejoicing.
Music
- Cake's song "Mr. Mastodon Farm" is all about watching through a window as birds pull this maneuver.
"Birds fall from the window ledge above mine, then they flap their wings at the last second. I can see their dead weight, just dropping like stones or small loaves of bread, past my window all the time. But unless I get up, and walk across the room, and peer down below, I don't see their last-second curves towards a horizontal flight."
Video Games
- Civilization VI uses this during the intro's Time-Passes Montage; as the rickity bi-plane build by the Wright brothers gets launched over a cliff and falls offscreen, only to have a World War II-era plane soar upward into a dogfight in its place.
- When returning to Pillar of Autumn in Halo: Combat Evolved the Master Chief is flying a barely-functioning Banshee. Cortana warns him to pull up, Chief assures her that the Banshee will hold together, only for it to drop off the bottom of the screen and crash.
Cortana: You did that on purpose, didn't you?
- At the climax of Amy's route in Sonic Adventure, the bird she's been protecting all game is suddenly swatted out of the sky by ZERO. After defeating ZERO, Amy rushes over to check on the bird. It seems to be okay, and flies off, only to suddenly dip out of sight. A few seconds later, it soars back into view — with its family in tow.
Western Animation
- In the pilot of Donkey Kong Country, Funky Kong's plane nosedives after it falls off of the boardwalk road thing, only to come back up after it falls offscreen.
