Mag Men Alert!

[vintage ATCO]

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, UK CH5 today at 1500. A feet-up-in-front-of-the-box afternoon I think.

VA

[Man-on-the-fence]

Cheers VA

Mag Men and Proone, what an afternoon.

Have lost cound of the number of time I have seen the Shuttleworth Edwardians, anyone know where it was filmed and what/where the other aircraft are now?

[vintage ATCO]

Was only told this morning that in the bit where Sir Percy lands on the train the cooling towers in the distance were the old Bedford Power Station (now demolished). That piece was filmed on the Bedford-to-Hitchin railway line, long since Beechamed, not far from Old Warden. The loco was brought down from oop-north.

[Peter Barron]

MOTF, I think parts of it was also filmed at Booker.
Peter.:ok:

[Man-on-the-fence]

Cheers chaps, what about the curved banking, specialy built for the film?

[BEagle]

Beeching-ed, not Beecham-ed, one thinks.....

Most of the banking would appear to be film 'flats' - just the bit where Gert Frobe takes a dive into the $hit-pit seemed real!

Sarah Miles even makes me think twice about the lovely Susannah Y!

Nice flypast by the Firebirds at the end!

[Batchy]

Apparently the banking was constructed at the end of Booker,s runway to give the impression of the Brooklands finishing straight.

Filming was also carried out at Henlow and at Swingate near Dover and at Skegness.

two books worth reading are;

Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines by Allen Wheeler.

and

Delta Papa by Derek Piggott.

Batchy.

[Man-on-the-fence]

Thanks for that chaps
Think Gert Frobe was excellent

Rule 1. Sit Down.

[QNIM]

Gday
I read Delta Papa by Derek Piggott a couple of months ago, it's that sought of thing you can't put down I recommend it if you can get your hands on it.
Cheers Q

[BEagle]

M-o-t-F - Gert Frobe was indeed one of the best actors in the movie!

"We do it the way we do everything - from the instruction manual!"

How true! A (German) Airbus test pilot once told me:

"If you give a German, a Brit and a Frenchman the rule book, the German will look in the rule book for the rule which tells him what to do; the Brit will check that there's nothing in the book to tell him that he can't do it. The Frenchman won't bother opening the book!"

Ah - the days when it was though of as gentle comedy to parody national stereotypes! Before the days of the huggy-fluffies and the political correctos!

[Airbedane]

Funnily enough..........During my short time with the French Air Force, one bad weather day with nothing better to do, I asked to look at their equivalent of our rule book, then JSP318, or the ANO to our civilian friends. My French colleagues pointed me at several dusty volumes in the corner of the library, each the same size as our JSP. I started scanning them and very soon found that they were officious, contradictory and thus, impossible to operate to.

"How on earth do you operate to these regulations?" I asked.

"We don't. We ignore them!" came the very quick reply.