Spit or Swallow?
 

Following his earlier enthusiastic programme about creating and building a 1:1 'Airfix' Spitfire, James May followed it up with an excellent programme last night on BBC-TV about scaling up a model Swallow glider to cross an equivalent distance to a Dover-Calais channel crossing.

The programme will be repeated at 0-dark-00 on BBC1 on Saturday morning and is also available on the BBC iPlayer.

Apart from some rather childish moments deliberately allowing both a £40 toy helicopter and a styrofoam Piper Cub to crash, the programme was, I thought, very good indeed. In fact better than the Spit programme was.

So which programme do other PPRuNers think was better - the Spit or the Swallow?

Swallow, great program. Now he has done spit and swallow it will be interesting to see if he does gargle or paint.:ok:

Ivor

I only viewed part of it last night - unfortunately, I would prefer both programmes to be without that particular presenter (or any programmes, for my money).

I absolutely loved the aerial filming which was of fantastic quality. I'm OK with Capt Slow and can forgive him for much in return for some good ol' boys adventures.

The U2 (TR2?) edge of space has up to yesterday been my favourite but now replaced.

I vote Swallow.:ok:

SGC

Found it OK. Typical the the French would ruin the programme because of some stupid rules.

Commented on another thread when the guy said this is the control board with the gyros. Board about 3 inches big. Gyros were bigger than that when I worked on them.

Spit or Swallow
 

The James May item was just what I'd expect from a medium infested with arts and history graduates given a programme to produce on what was essentially a technology topic. Never did we hear anything of the kit on board controlling what was essentially a normal model aircraft (not a 'toy', please, though that seems to be how May regarded it), with some sort of GPS auto heading system in it. It was certainly not free flight in the sense that the FAI defines it, and I suspect radio control was involved in the Lundy landing.

But most of all it wasn't a record; have a look at the Telegraph's obit of Maynard Hill here: Maynard Hill - Telegraph. Hill's model aircraft flew the Atlantic in 2003, with a radio-controlled start and landing, but with an autonomous control system for most of the 3020 km from Newfoundland to the west coast of Ireland.

It seems to me that if radio and TV in the UK treated engineering and science with something like the same amount of enthusiasm and reverence that they devote to the endless ramblings of people who get paid handsomely for pretending to be someone else then we'd all be in a far healthier state as a nation.

Rant mode off. Time for a nice lie down...

That is a long glide what altitude did they release the glider from :)

I thought the 'Swallow' programme was excellent - better than the Spit one where I was jealous that he'd got the Beeb to pay for him to get to fly the real thing.

I very much approve of Mr May - he's a pilot, a motorcycle fanatic, a musician, a real ale fan, and a technology enthusiast. Unlike the other two on Top Gear I'd love to have a pint and a chat with James in the pub.

I was dissapointed that there was little explanation of the on board electronics; things have certainly moved on since I last built an RC glider back in the '70s.

And did you know that the 'filming' helicopter was flown by ex-TV presenter Mike Smith who now runs a helicopter TV news filming business with G-PIXX?

Some nice 'real' aeroplanes in the background of some shots as well. Two Chippys (:ok:), a Stampe, Jungman, Yak, Stearman and a few others.

He frequents the Cross Keys on Blacklion Lane, W6. It's a Fullers pub for whom he advertises their beers -which are made just on the other side of the A4.
Dave M

Very droll Beagle, very droll . . .

Happy Christmas

Would have been better if they'd done an aero tow behind the Chipmunk :ok:

Opened in error :E

:):):):):):):):):):)

I enjoyed that, much better than the Spitfire one and up there with the model train one they did... I like his style of presenting, far better than the other two Top Gear muppets, at least he seems more down to earth.

There was also a DB5 in the background.....niiiice.

Sorry, all those donkeys that work with the loudmouth and produce this type of dumbed-down programme will not get my viewing.
Edited for harshnesshttp://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...lies/smile.gif

Many good comments - some harsh even! Good X-mas spirit. Considering it being "Military Aircrew". Seasons Greetings PJ

Mr Laser,
The gyros are probably of the MEMS (MicroElectroMechanical Systems) type which you can find in most smart phones. They fall short of military standards but provide a reasonable short term solution.

MT

A link for anyone outside UK? :confused::)

[QUOTE]All the electronics in the project seemed to come from the diydrones.com community.[/QUOTE

I thought the content, presentation and script came from diy drones too.

Superficial, trivial, juvenile and a total waste of time. imho nothing but a contrived vehicle for an over-indulged presenter to have a good play in helicopters at licence payer's expense, not that this is a precedent on the BBC - the crew indulging in an extended and expensive junket seems to be the main point of an awful lot of TV these days. The shoddy, content free and overly extended programme is just the excuse they use to cover the fun.

James MAy could do this sort of thing so well if it wasn't dumbed down for attention-disorder eight year olds.

0/10