90 Years of the RAF - BBC2
 

Civilian here, will delete thread if necessary after flak.
BBC2 (Scotland- 11/12/08) 2000-2130 History of the RAF
What was it about? Comments?
Or was it just me?

Suprised they managed an hour and a half.......:O

It's on BBC2 (rest of the world) Friday 12 Dec 2100.

airsound

Jockistan calling then Airsound, unless you've had a preview don't hold your breath. I'll keep the thread open for comments.

I didn't like it - not enough content and too much wasted time.

Re the previous poster, couldn't agree more - tosh, and underlying fluffy/huggy bits as well. A badly made programme all round, and I make 'em. (not bad ones!) Look forward to the comments tonight. Don't forget the chance to complain officially....

A very poor programme.

Not enough about the 'RAF at 90', which was the title after all. Most of it was history, with random speaking clock recordings over modern film of Docklands, long pauses whilst veterans wandered around an old airfield and looked over the railings of a cross channel ferry. Only the last 5 minutes or so covered modern overseas ops and gave a false impression due to the way the film was put together. I don't think JP had any sort of prepared script, judging by the number of pauses, repetition and umm....errs.....

Some of the most interesting clips showed the Cup Final when the zeppelin appeared low overhead.

And to think the programme had official blessing :ugh:

You're right - It wasn't the RAF at 90, neither was it a comprehensive history of the RAF. I think the "snapshots" they gave were the thinking behind the development of Air Power and the effect those developments had on crews. If that was the aim then the programme probably succeeded, although there was no comparison between how a modern "bomber" force operates and the WW2 bomber raids given such a lot of coverage. They (whoever "they" are) could, however, have made several far better programmes. How about a history which included technology - changes in airframes, radar, jet engines, AAR, VSTOL.....etc or a portrait of the RAF today featuring not just pilots?
An interesting documentary, perhaps, but all in all a missed opportunity.

Can you "do" the history of the RAF in 90 mins? Were they trying to? The RAF at 90---- must have missed that bit, unless it was Typhoon at Cottesmore. All,in all a very poor attempt totally lacking direction, control and meaning, meandering into poorly edited sound bites, seemingly thrown together, in a hurry, at the last minute, in fact very much a labour government production! (:E sorry for that)

I thought JP came across ok. At least it was him and not the loud mouth 'I am an aviation expert now' that used to sit behind him!

Wiretensioner

I haven't got a problem with John Nichol - to be fair, he is a good a candidate as any to host TV programmes about planes, surely? Better than Ross Kemp and the Army, for example...

I think that by the time we reach the 100 years of the RAF, the service may well have been consigned to history. Certainly so if Torpy's 'strong' leadership is anything to go by.

And I'm not sure that many outside of Typhoon-land will give much of a stuff... :(

Scrappy programme - some good stuff in there but it could have been so much better with a decent production team.

What a wasted opportunity :(

I loved it! Told me some stuff that I didn't know about the RAF, and some of the scenes (graduating IOT, captured Tornado pilot) was especially hard-hitting.

Given that this was supposed to be about the 'RAF at 90' the scope seemed rather narrow and failed to mentioned some of the most important aspects of the RAF. The first 70 minutes of 90 were devoted to the first 27 years of the RAF, juxtaposed with some current fast jet skygods. About 15 minutes were devoted to cold war fast jet skygods and about 5 minutes to Gulf War 2 fast jet skygods.

Not a whisper of the SH force who have, after all, been doing most of the shooting (and getting shot at) for the last 10 years, not a mention of Black Buck, not even a mention of Aden, Suez, Malaya, The Stan etc etc.

This program should probably have been called 'FJ heroes and their predecessors at 90'. I should have gone to the mess and got smashed instead.

And a quick edit before I'm misunderstood, this is not a dig at the FJ force but with many mates on the SH force earning DFCs like they're going out of fashion, I thought it might warrant at least a single mention in a program claiming to present the history of 90 years of the RAF.

Honest debrief
 

Oft reading, infrequently posting and was touched by JP's comments - thus felt duty bound to put down the red wine and type........

Mate, I wouldn't of swapped my place for yours....you didn't fail and there but for the grace of god went I.....seeing the pictures of you from 91 brought back very strong memories and the elation of seeing you alive then, and still now, still brings back goose bumps...your pain was felt by all of us at Dhahran.......your unassuming commentary raised an average proggy above the norm.

mustpost:

Quote:

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What was it about? Comments?

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It was about 90 years of the RAF, or more particularly Strategic Aerial Bombing, for which it was formed. Known in the trade as "Frightfulness" or later "Armageddon" it has always been a particular preoccupation of the chattering classes from which the BBC draws its recruits. This was a complete hatchet job done, oh so obliquely, that you weren't quite sure if you'd got the point or not. Of course it wasn't all dark, the forces of light were there too, the "knights of the air", the "cavalry of the clouds", both past and present, with talk of pride at defending our skies from the Hun (what? are they? oh, sorry!). Which brings us to Luke Torpy. Why do I get the suspicion that he was personally involved in giving this the RAF seal of approval? All publicity is good publicity, especially when much of it is filmed at Coningsby. Strong the Force in that one is, think I!

Was a little confused by it all. Came across as trying to show off the glamour of the fighter pilots in previous years. But then every few minutes would come on with someone telling you how your shooting a man not a plane. Which is true, but why did they keep repeating it every few minutes. As other posters stated, I couldn't tell whether it was a hard-hitting insight into the morality of war, or a recruitment drive. With all the pictures of spitfires men running across grass, airshows etc.:confused:

Some fascinating library footage, but overall, it missed the "target" implied in the title IMHO.

As a record of some individuals' experiences, again, fascinating. I thought John did ok and it was interesting to hear his thoughts on the cold war's potential for mutual destruction. Should not the point have been made that this awful scenario was the deterrent to crossing the wire after a period of conventional air fighting? I don't blame John for this, who knows what was left on the cutting room floor?

It was great to see Geoffrey "boy" Wellum whose own experiences are brilliantly told in his book "First Light".

Overall, a missed opportunity.

According to the producers of the programme my 37 years spent in ground communications counts for nothing!

90 minutes devoted mainly to extolling how wonderful fighter jockeys are and sod the rest of us. No real mention of ground crews, or the countless other trades without whom the pilot and aircraft would never get airborne.

90 Years of the RAF....more like The RAF consists of pilots and aeroplanes. Cack production that should be consigned to the shredder :mad:

Chug
 

Oh I got the point all right, I make films, and teach documentary film technique. Hence my original call for comments and my subsequent remark about "huggy/fluffy" AKA revisionism/apologistas.
Thank you for putting it into a service perspective.:D Your analysis is entirely correct.

Disappointing. Having now watched it, despite a mention of the Berlin Air Lift i don't remember seeing any air transport or helicopters in the film. These are surely the mainstay of the modern RAF and very disappointing not to see them mentioned fully as they are what is keeping the RAF afloat (sic).

I thought it was pretty good, I wasn't expecting much after reading some of those comments, but I thought it was......pleasantly surprising. There were times when I thought they captured the moment very well.

A do have one request :) Could anyone name some of the pieces of music being played in the background? Predominantly, I would really like to know the name of the reoccurring piece featuring a very high pitched violin and strings accommpanying. I have definitely heard it before, the name has just left me :confused:

What a weak and shallow Production, It focused on a minority in the RAF and badly at that..

No disrespect intended, BUT why do these programmes seem to rotate around people who's only claim to fame seems to be they got shot down?

There is so much more to the RAF than a bunch of fighter pilots berating their own prowess like a bunch of prepubescent schoolboys with an urge to rub themselves up against something.... fine they do a job and a good one at that, but the RAF is more than that and always has been, they would be lost without the engineering, logistical, admin and catering divisions etc, these are the backbone of the RAF that work 24 hours a day 360 days of the year to enable the "few" to do what they do.... additionally there are more dangerous flying jobs in the RAF such as the support Helicopter fleet, (my hat's off to you guys) and these never got a look in, neither really did the likes of the Transport guys..such a lost opportunity to show the RAF at it's finest and severely stretched.....


I suppose that is one reason I have been watching the Combat Chef series is it doesn't allude itself to this myopic view of the Army that this programme presented of the RAF........

90 years crammed into nearly 90 minutes was never going to be a success, but this never even came close to it..........

mustpost:
You may well say that (and so do I), but others it seems would beg to differ, suggesting that it was indeed about the RAF, just not the bit that they are interested in! This was classic "Hampstead Thinker" stuff people, brought to you by the pudding basin haircut/ open toe sandled brigade. I have an awful feeling that we may have to brace ourselves for even more of this Goebel-esque theatre of truth. A retrospective on Cannon Collins, an appreciation of Sir Stafford Cripps? Plenty of room there to shoehorn in yet more "thoughts" on the Bombing Campaign. The programme thoughtfully reminded us that there is no National Memorial to the 55,573 brave young (so young) men of Bomber Command who gave their lives in that long bloody fight for Victory. It did not mention that there is now an active campaign to at last correct that national disgrace. Could it be that is what motivated this production? We shall know soon enough I fear. At least the Old Lags (so old now) that survived are excused the obligation to fund this trash. My real contempt though is for the RAF higher command that went along with this. No interest in defending the honour and traditions of a proud service, refusing to reinstate the reputations of two junior officers improperly scapegoated by their seniors, they shouldn't be in charge of a whelk stall let alone the Royal Air Force.
It's a civilian perspective now, mustpost, like you. Those with service perspectives would not wish to post such incendiary stuff. I'm sad that I feel compelled to.

My opinion is that it lost it's way at several points, very curates egg.
I was neither nowt nor summat.
Had an anti-German slant too that was unnecessary IMO . . .
What type of aircraft would John Peters have been flying capable of delivering instant sunshine to the Eastern Bloc territories? I presume it would have been a 'bomber jet' rather than a 'fighter jet'? Did the Tonka have nuclear capability?
Oh! and my telly kept lapsing into black and white - must get it fixed!

Yeah waste of TV time , Trying to preach to a new generation of people the RAFs ideals and what its like to be fighter command pilot many years back. Nobody cares but a few pilots that share that time , for many people serving its another program/film that ensures pilots were the heroes that saved the day even though they would have done bugger all if it had not been from the support of a nation. The RAF were just the final adding touch that done the job and gained the glory. The air force gives us leaflets and **** to remind us dont loose the ethos and values, we live in the past and fail to move forward to what we really should be doing

Overall pretty poor.

A lot of well-known library shots plus some bits out of 'Battle of Britain' (degraded to look 'period'), and recent Typhoon, Hawk and Cranwell clips. With some 'instant traditions' at Cranwell nowadays, it seems....

90 years in 90 minutes - that's a decade every 9 minutes. That simply wasn't delivered.

No real research (why not show relative sizes of personnel, aircraft and aerodromes every 10 years, for example?).

No wonder it was 'officially approved'......

The violin music used was The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

@Beamish Boy - cheers, I was going to ask the same question.

As for the programme, I was not impressed, with way too much time devoted to the second world war, then after that five minutes of a Valient, and then skipping onto JP (the best part IMHO) and the Tornado. The production team succesfully managed to blot out any combat between 1945 and 1991, let alone the rather more exotic places the SH and AT fleet have been over the past 50 years or so. Added to the mish-mash of archive film, modern scenes of the RAF and bloody Blackpool pier, it really was a production mess. And what was with the bloody speaking clock every 5 minutes!?
To end, did anyone else crack up in the introduction when the narrator was rabbiting on about how we are "no longer an island" and are suspect to air attack etc. and a seagull appeared with dramatic music?!!

Didn't show the Q boys playing Xbox either did it!

Good:D The semiotics weren't lost on you either..If you check as I have done, said bird was enhanced just in case you might have missed it..:rolleyes:

Indeed, the semiotics weren't lost on me, however I was merely stating that it was a tad ironic, you would at least expect an eagle or something with that musical underscore...:)

Overall, a bit of a poor mish-mash.

Peters spoke well and honestly.

The Bomber Command piece hinted at the what has sometimes been viewed as controversial approach of Harris, without actually mentioning it.

Good though was the mention of the huge Bomber Command casualties from WW2, and that there is no Memorial to them, other than the one in Holland.

There were many more "highlights" of RAF history, eg, the post Op Corporate air-bridge (would have brought AT in, who didn't figure at all), Black-Buck, Op Bushell (for the humanitarian side), I could go on....

And to not even mention current/past SH efforts, well....

I know it was only 90 mins, but there was too much "fluff" and not enough of the above content.

I missed the first 20 min as I had read yesterday that it wasn't much good. What I did see confirmed the opinion although there was some good bits along the way.

I am a bit of a"spotter" and the programme fell into the common trap of showing the standard clip of a pilot in a Spitfire Mk5 firing his guns, cutting to the cannon of a Hurricane Mk 2C shooting then cutting back to a German camera gun showing a Spitfire Mk9 getting shot down. I always hope that somebody making a film about the RAF will get this right and use another clip or remix it to show a German aircraft going down but it is trotted out again and again.

By the way Beags, 90 years in 90 min gives a decade every 10 min according to my school boy maths. Perhaps things were different in your day, so happy to bow to your superior knowledge.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the programme, JP needs to leave the guilt behind and move on. He has nothing to feel guilty about...sh1t happens.

Let it go mate.

What a disappointment. Although I enjoyed the historic footage, the sequence was rambling, massively skewed towards WWII, precious little (or no) mention of the subsequent conflicts/peacekeeping/humanitarian roles. You'd never know we had a transport & RW ac history too. Nothing to speak of about any of the other specialisations, nothing about the RAF in its joint role with the other services, nothing about latest technology. If the series had an RAF advisor, they must have keep their mouth firmly shut.

What a terrible waste of a prime time 11/2 hour slot.What could have been and should have been a celebration of the full 90 years turned into a shallow, predictable coffee table piece.Great shame.

SF