I don't doubt it for a moment.Just not sure TV is the best medium for him.

Met Ewans brother as he used to drive one of my old lots SAAB 2Ks. Believe he now works for Robbie Lowe, someone else with BBC airtime (Enjoyed a fine evening talking to him and his delightful wife last year.)

Bet there will be no current RAF participation, all US based warbirds..

Have never ever had a problem - always perfectly understood!

Curiously enough the French Marine Nationale is known familiarly simply as "La Royale"

Jack

Talking about the Chinook, " the Chinook has already been in service with the RAF for 50 years " ........right that will be an in service date of 1968 then...does no one proof read the scripts ?

Aside from the Chinook incident I thought it was very good.

Yep, and only four "iconics" uttered in the whole show.

Maritime got forgotten again (though not having a maritime aircraft to exhibit in any shape or form was most likely the reason). Other than that (and the Chinook cock up on dates) not bad.

Well, if the original order for the Chinook hadn't been cancelled, it might have entered service in 1968... :hmm:

Not a single mention of the Red Arrows!

A thoroughly enjoyable programme. At least we got a Hurricane fly-by during the bit on The Battle of Britain.


No two seaters about for dogfighting purposes of course.


A large Duxford representation on screen too, which was most pleasing.

Yep, people are unaware that the RAF did order 30 odd in the mid 1960's and the order was cancelled at around about the same time as the F111K (shortage of dollars in the piggy bank was a big thing back then in weapons procurement for whoever was in power). Labour did however make up for it next time they were in office (thanks to an under-spend if memory serves).

Approaching the Voyager for refuelling would have been an ideal time to include a few clips of Valiant, Victor and VC-10 tankers and the AD types (Javelin, Lightning, Tornado) they supported in the air defence Cold War.

But it's easy to criticise and there must have been a few sighs of relief among the RAF community (there was one here) when the credits rolled.

Given the available time, the scope of the programme and the fact that it was clearly aimed at the genpub, I thought it was pretty good really.

Great segment with Dave Linney and WW1 re-enactment boys. I thought both brothers were excellent and to end with both flying (in) the Typhoon was a wonderful moment for their Family albums.
Well done ( I too did some sums re the 50 years of Chinook)!!.

I fully concur with BEagles comments.. It showed the Royal Air Force as the organisation that Trenchard envisaged IMHO and the people that made the organisation. A SE5A, Spitfire, Lancaster, Vulcan, Chinnok, Typhoon are inanimate objects without the people.

Love those Chinnoks!

Very disappointed they didn't mention NMS, the fitness test, 6442 writing , OJARS, Beagle, SAR etc etc and 25 years + of air ops over Iraq, seems the last 30-40 years were a little light on content

Very glad the Chinook was mentioned though

Amazed at the 2 ATA Ladies and the number of types flown though, wow!

Inevitably it was more about the McGregor brothers than the Royal Air Force, but enjoyable anyway.

Yep, it did come across as a McGreggor family show.
And, being an ex-Loadie, I was disappointed that there wasn't anything much on Transport Command other than the Berlin airlift. What about the mighty Hercules and the A400M?