100 Years of the RAF - Channel 5
 

Well, that was all a bit odd.

Yes! Some good photography in places, but not much else really!

Raced through the first 50 years in about 15 minutes ( if you discount break for ads ), so was always going to be a rather ambitious project to cover in one hour.

I thought it was a very unimpressive job, very rushed. The old boy from Hurricanes saying how shameful it was to be shot down by a bomber was good value though!

Agree with all above ... we both thought it was bloody awful, actually. Just a job lot of random film clips, with poor/unbalanced overall structure, overlaid with a drab narrative from Sir whatshisname. She described as being a bit like a school project.

Sounds disappointing. The info said it would show rare WW1/2 clips.

So how would you critics have improved it?

Remember that it was aimed at the genpub, many of whom don't even know what the Battle of Britain was.

At least the V-force bit didn't drone on about OP BLACK BUCK, for once!

And indeed the Falklands War [sorry, Conflict] didn't even get a mention! And the inter-War colonial activity likewise expunged, as usual.

Sadly it was too broad a scope to do justice to 100 years of the RAF in one hour.

I assumed it would be a series........ No credibility when showing Dutch CH47 and SAAF Oryx when discussing RAF platforms, lazy journalism to say the least.

No doubt PC casualties.

At least the Bloodhound and Thor IRBM Boys got a mention for a change, which is very rare. But other than that very dry and loaded with silly mistakes.

Miguel Portijo, whose programme followed, presented a far more interesting Cold War item.

But the NBC suit was hardly a '60s version.

Definitely a highlight ! Would have liked to hear more of his tales.......

Typical Ch 5 "documentary". I've stopped watching them, what with the poor content, the "what's coming up after the adverts", and the "what's happened already" after each ad break, you're lucky to get 30 minutes out of a 1 hour programme.

Hmmm... seemed a mish mash of clips, as said no Falklands or NI, along with other parts of the World missed out and I couldn't understand the largish portion put over to Jon Peters and Co whose only claim to fame was getting shot down.
Nice to see the Javelin getting a mention even though it was a bit of a dog apparently. I couldn't understand the hours of footage they must have on Wessex, why when mentioning its combat use they showed the SAR version, and why pick Harrier scenes that have flies crawling over the window they shot the scene through.

I have long since given up watching television documentaries that have any connection with aviation. They are invariably dire and a waste of time. Grrrr.

By chance , came across the full ( extended ) version on 5Spike (who ?! ) . 2 hours ( including ads ) . Much better . It's available on My 5 catch up .

During RAF100, I gave evening or formal presentations on 'a century of the first independent air force', the B of B and 95 years of RAF helicopters and I also gave several informal talks on things like the Warsaw uprising and the attempts to supply the Polish Army. In every case the main problems were time and how to do justice to the subject in that time. In each case I decided to deal with what I called 'anchor points' and to give the audiences pointers to where they might find out more if they were interested. As the year went on I polished and sharpened up some of my presentations, based on the questions being asked at the end but I never successfully resolved the time issue with what needed to be covered.

Fortunately, all the VAs were genuine and my wine cellar benefited from the bottles of a decent claret, which was my frequent reward! I also got some invitations to 'come again', so I must have got something right!

Old Duffer

PD, thanks for the tip. Streaming here at:-

https://www.my5.tv/100-years-of-the-...ars-of-the-raf

It was the section on AAR which really summed it up. A long diatribe about the most common method being boom while showing extensive clips of good old RAF probe & drogue - the equivalent of not even spellchecking