Classic British Flight Sim

... two rather good aviation related programmes on the BBC yesterday?

One was the latest "Who Do You Think You Are" on BBC1, Kate Humble looking at her ancestry. Her paternal grandfather was Bill Humble, of Hawker fame; she found out all about him with a visit to Hendon in the company of the incomparable Eric "Winkle" Brown. Her maternal grandfather was an air gunner who ended up in Stalag Luft III and appears to have been heavily involved in the great escape bid. Well worth catching this one on I-Player, or the BBC2 repeat next Tuesday evening.

The second programme was on BBC4, a repeat of the 2004 documentary on the McIndoe guinea pigs; utterly mindblowing and very humbling!!

Thanks Andy

Missed that..........Thank goodness for iPlayer

Garry

Are you not going to mention the second of 3 programmes on the British Nuclear Deterent... More4, 10 pm.

Was just as good as part 1, only I did not realise that after all the agro of the Grapple bombs & getting a very fine 1.8 K/tons H Bomb, we (as in politicions) gave it all up and used the US technology in the Blue Steel weapons. To think we accused Tony Blear of being subserviant to the USA's wishes, over the Iraq conflict/fiasco, when it seems we have been crawling round their feet all my life (52 this year).

Part 3 will be on More4 next Wed ay 10.00pm, when I'm sure we will find the USA don't want us to have an airborne nuclear weapon, but they will be very happy to sell us a fish that flies (Polaries).

Happy Days :000:

Bob

Bob

Did they also happen to mention that Blue Steel was (as my late father put it) "as useless as a wet penny banger'?
I also remember some of his comments in reference to the F1-11 debacle --- that Americans knew less about
terrain following as they did making Toad in the Hole.....Funny that within three years CDI would hire him to put the
wing on the C5 :roll:

Oh yes - he was also mixed up with the CF105 prior to that -- working on Velvet Glove -- another US axed project
because they had nothing that came close.


<---is biting the hand that feeds him this morning

Leif

Forgot those programmes Bob, last weeks was very interesting.

Developing cutting edge programs, then scrapping them for an American 'equivalent', seemed to be a real speciality of our politicians back in the 50s and 60s. Blue Boar and Blue Water could have given us an unrivalled capability; but Blue Boar was scrapped completely, as the TV capability was described as inadequate (strange, never stopped the Germans using HS293) and Blue Water was scrapped in favour of the deeply inferior Honest John. There was a proposal to use it in an airlaunched form with TSR2, but we all know what came of that; at least they managed to recycle the name, which now acts as a deterrent to the 'hoodies' of Kent!

Blueboar was discarded basically because the US were deveolping the Walleye at the same time (even though the Walleye was truthfully a "glidebomb" having no propulsion and also had no nuclear capability (The US was still wrestling with the problems of tactical nukes in the late 50s)....



Sometimes growing up in an aerospace family in the 50s and 60s has/had its advantages....One of the reasons why my father went to the US to design was
due to the cuts made in the late 50s in the UK. if HALF the projects on the drawing boards in 1961 had come to fruition the UK would still be a major palyer in what is rapidly becoming a multinational monopoly ....


Leif

(Ok I've vented -- I'll take my soap box and go quietly)