Sir David Jason meets the BBMF
 

DJ arrives at the BBMF HQ and is met by the OC: “Welcome Sir David, I’m Sqn Ldr Discombe and this is my Senior Engineering Officer, Mandy”.

Are one of those that has to highlight when someone doesn't say exactly the right thing? Do you do it to highlight yourself, virtue signalling I think they call it?

Really? Who gives a stuff? Get a life.

Hear hear.

Sorry, straight over my head.

Well you guys say that as two (and I admit am making a presumption) chaps of a certain generation but my wife - who is by no means a zealot in these matters - was watching and picked up on it straight away, and made a quite amusing comment about them not just maintaining the aircraft but keeping it authentic by retaining the 1940s attitude to women!

My nostrils also twitched when I heard the introduction mentioned by the OP.

However ... a decent programme, with Sir David letting BBMF tell the story instead of putting himself centre stage.

Quite, and also using a professional airborne camera set-up to get some very good in flight film of the Spitfire and Hurricane. Would have liked to see some similar film of the Lancaster as well though.....

It may be just me but was this a reference to Round the Horne 'I 'm Julian and this my friend Sandy' Maybe they're now the Bona of Britain Flight. Hat, coat etc.....

Good prog I thought. So where / when was the “Dowding “ display performed to the public?

I’m Mandy...... fly me.

I rather missed the point of the Dowding formation, centred as it was around the Lancaster. I wonder why the BBMF doesn't call it the Harris formation, now why wouldn't they do that? :E

In reality I suppose it was to put the Hurricane front and centre, being as there is only one of them and to put it at the rear would cause much muttering amongst the natives. It creates a real problem for the Lanc pilot of course, formating on a much smaller aircraft in front of him. I suspect the Lanc is rather more responsive than the Hastings was but even so, well done indeed!

Was there some Reds thing about the display wear? AoC attends final display rehearsal, gives the go ahead, team reassembles in black (as against red) flying suits etc. Is that SOP now for RAF display teams? Is it because these final fly offs are invariably now on a TV programme and form part of the cliff hanger moments required of the media? Will the AoC give the go ahead? Will the team get to wear their red/black flying suits (omit as reqd), will Flash rescue Dale from the clutches of the Merciless Ming?

Oh, good prog BTW, well done Trotter!

Well he would say that wouldn't he? :p

Which programme was this and is it to be repeated?

Flying for Britain with David Jason

Catch up on the ITV Hub

Marking the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, this documentary follows national treasure David Jason as he meets the RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.

I thought it a good programme too, but would have preferred to have seen more of the Lancaster as well; especially the inside. The Great British Public is highly uneducated on the conditions pertaining inside a Brit Heavy Bomber of WWII vintage and this was a missed opportunity to demonstrate the conditions the Bomber Boys had to endure; the other thing is that SWC's "Never in the field of human conflict" speech was equally directed at Bomber Command crews as well, so yesterday's transmission on BoB day was entirely appropriate.

What happened to Men A, B and C?

Thank you Spekesoftly!

You are very welcome. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I watched both programmes last night and expected the Beeb one with the McGregor brothers to be better, but then realised it was a repeat (and was also shortened from the original I think).

Good to see Sir David doing this (and not making it all about him) being that he is a RIAT ambassador and all that (visiting over many years in his R44 as I recall)

Tenuous link - I also remember being part of the team that helped to send the Trotters Reliant Robin to the sandpit from Brize post-GW1!

Disco did a very good job. Came across very well. Hasn’t changed whatsoever in the 31 years I’ve known him.

I would say the focus was deliberately away from the Lanc, as it’s all about the Battle of Britain and the anniversary.
Had seen the McGregor one before so avoided it as it felt like a self promotion.

The programme I watched was the first of the new HS2 archeology series, fascinating digging up 60000 Victorian graves with the wooden coffins Surving and the plates too so you knew who they were.

Good point about formation flying the Lancaster. Looked stunning but is this wise? Suddenly flying the old gal In formation isn’t going to help her last longer. All that jostling for position must be more punishing than the last few decades have been for her. After all wasn’t the Lancaster designed and built before long before the lessons of metal fatigue we’re learnt with the comet? Or does that just apply to windows?

Or pressurised airframes perhaps ?

Why would you want to see the Lancaster? Wasn't the programme about the Battle of Britain? In fact, while I'm at it, why does the BBMF have a Lancaster at all? Surely they need to change their name.

I think the BBMF have 2 Hurricanes.

Oh, this could be fun. Nothing like a re-branding exercise.....sort of worked for Windscale to Sellafield after all.

As the BBMF also operates Chipmunks and a Dakota, neither of which participated in the "BoB ", a minor detail you understand, then possibly the RAF Vintage Piston Flight would meet with your approval ?. Or maybe, the RAF Venerable Flying Flight ?.....please, do have a think about this as I'm sure the BBMF would be quite intrigued as to what you feel they should be re-branded as.......and why. Out of interest, you don't have an MBA in Management do you ?

As for the Lanc, well I actually have a connection to the aircraft as it were. In 1977, the first major was carried out and 71 MU were invited to join in. I can say, as it's probably been refurbished since, at one time, the aircraft was flying around with a significant part of my handiwork attached, notably the port flap which I de-skinned, and re-skinned, albeit with a bit of help when it came to nailing the rivets in and generally cleaned up any structure that wasn't being replaced. . Now that really was a labour of love I can assure you. It was actually quite "interesting " at times when we started on the wing upper surface skin....and some of the original pretty green rivets came off by hand sans drill !

Nearly forgot, the programme was well worth watching as other have said.

Further Thread Drift to allow anecdote
 

At least he/she wasn't flying one of the prototypes aka the Manchester Mk.III. As BT308 was basically a Manchester with new wings and 4 engines, the additional throttles and pitch controls were just metal tubes. They gave my informant sore hands even with his leather gloves on. He flew Manchesters operationally with 207 but got the chance to fly BT308 when it was on loan to 44, both squadrons being at Waddo. The controls would have probably drawn blood if he had been formating on a fighter.:)

I believe BBMF would have been gifted the Mosquito by BAe after the 1996 airshow season, had it not met with its sad accident at Barton.

RR299 was indeed due to join the Flight, and such a shame she was lost beforehand with her crew.

I bet there was going to be a hell of a fight at Coningsby with the fighter pilot ‘girls’ thinking they were more qualified to fly the Mossie than the Bomber ‘boys’! 😄

Your comment does your stock little favour. Extract from Churchill's 'The Few' speech :

"The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. All hearts go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own eyes day after day; but we must never forget that all the time, night after night, month after month, our bomber squadrons travel far into Germany, find their targets in the darkness by the highest navigational skill, aim their attacks, often under the heaviest fire, often with serious loss, with deliberate careful discrimination, and inflict shattering blows upon the whole of the technical and war-making structure of the Nazi power. On no part of the Royal Air Force does the weight of the war fall more heavily than on the daylight bombers, who will play an invaluable part in the case of invasion and whose unflinching zeal it has been necessary in the meanwhile on numerous occasions to restrain."

And you seem to forget the coincidental Battle of the Barges being waged at great cost by Bomber Command in an effort to deny to the enemy the wherewithal to undertake a successful invasion.

Battle of Britain AND Memorial Flight?

Nah, let's not change for change sake.

James Holland's book 'The Battle of Britain' outlines this part of the campaign not just against the barges but the airfields and seaways with minelaying as well. The night campaign against the airfields was to disrupt the peace of mind and sleep of the aircrews in particular, that they could not just land and forget until next day. This is something the Luftwaffe never did. The losses by Bomber Command are quite horrendous and in particular the young age of many of the fallen and indeed injured. May the RiP.

I am genetically opposed to name changes and rebranding as a general rule, but I have found myself often wondering about whether BBMF is the right name. It strikes me that a name change could open the way for other significant aircraft to be included, with the mosquito being the most obvious. In the post Shoreham world in which we live, the RAF would seem to fit most people’s idea of an appropriate operator of vintage aircraft, and with some imagination, could be funded/“crowdfunded” to do so.
I for one would happily contribute/ subscribe towards keeping a representative fleet of historic aircraft serviceable and ideally airworthy in the right hands.

Royal Air Force Historic Flight.
Get them a mossie, couple of Hunters, XH558 even?, maybe a Lightning or two...
Little bit of corporate sponsorship, almost pays for itself.

The problem isn't the Flight's name. The RAF sees the BoB as its major historical asset, its USP if you like. By presenting itself in this way it automatically triggers a positive response in the public's mind. Anything that reminds people of the Bombing Offensive for instance would have the opposite effect (or that at least is how I assume the thinking goes).

This conundrum is purely of the RAF's making. It has never stood by Bomber Command, nor in particular its Memorial in London. It took a Bee Gee to push for that, the RAF establishment only associating itself with it when it became a done deal. That is why you are stuck with the RAF BBMF.

Embrace it, you know it makes sense!

The programme annoyed me ever so slightly by focussing only on the pilots on board the Lancaster, like the other two blokes had just snook on for a jolly. The Lancaster had 7 crew on each Lancaster, many of whom made the ultimate sacrifice. It was not two pilots and five fellas who fancied a look at Germany from the air, it was a crew of seven.

I did a compass swing on one of the BoB spitfires circa 1975 at Coltishall. My treat was to get a ground tour of the Lanc. In hindsight, I should have held out for a flight in her...ho hum...

PZ 865 LF 363
 

Both old time film stars Reach for the Sky Kenley 1956 and Angels one five before that.Often wonder what happened to the Portuguese Hurricanes that flew over for RFTS, they all went back. The Lanc should remind people that our Bomber force were very combat active before the BoB, with many looses in machines no quite up to the Lanc standard.

Perhaps the Lancaster's four Merlins add backgound music to the choir.

Maxr
Only one Pilot on Lancs unless a second used for experience as second dickie.

My father had a second the day they all got shot down over Belgium. Only 21 so never got his command.

Thread drift but...

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/...itfire-factory

Starts on Monday I believe