Aviation radio drama
 

I'm not at-all sure which is the right area for this, but...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/listenagain/saturday/

And the radio play called "Jumbo" is currently enlivening an afternoon's paperwork, I recommend it. Well written and acted, as well as above average on technical accuracy.

It'll be up for a few more days (it went out Saturday, and BBC7's radio programmes stay up for 5 days).

G

I see it's written by James Follett who is quite a pedant (in the nicest possible way!) on uk.local.surrey so it's attention to detail doesn't surprise me. Now how do I save the file to my PC so I can burn a CD to listen in the car?

Completely off topic, but EDDNR - only a 2 sentence post, but there were 3-4 terms/abbreviations which would have been totally unknown 20 years ago.

So, why am I still waiting for my personal urainium-fuelled flying pod which was promised to me in all the 'In the future' articles when I was a kid???

If we're playing at pedantry - which phrases or terms would have been totally unknown twenty years ago?

The (IBM) PC was introduced in 1981, the CD hit the market in 1982, 'files' has been a term in computing since at least the 1960s and Usenet kicked off in 1980.

Twenty years ago, almost to the day, Windows was launched. Now that's scary...

R

No, you're not being pedantic, just wrong. The point is in 1985, PC (in this context), CD (esp to 'burn' one) and and uk.local.surrey would have drawn a big, fat blank on the faces of the general population (nerds excepted). Even amongst geeks, I doubt the abbreviations were in common usage.

Apologies Genghis, now back to your play....

I listened to most of the drama, and it's certainly well researched and technically accurate. You do have to chuckle at the 'American' accents a bit though and I'm not sure how well a 747 would ditch in the stormy mid-Atlantic. I liked how after they'd come to a stop the skipper gets on the interphone and talks to the CC. In real life I think they'd have been lucky if the F/D was still attached to the airframe let alone the interphone still working!

Right, nearly bedtime, logging off the LAN, shutting down the PC, and gonna er, have a late night listen to ABC! :p