Plane Tales

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Plane Tales episodes

April 01, 2016 An Engineer’s Story
Lost over East Africa, Captain Alcock takes the only course of action available and lands in a narrow river, ripping open the hull of his Imperial Airways flying boat Corsair. This is the story of how a small team of engineers brave the African jungle to repair the aircraft, not once but twice!
12 min
March 26, 2016 Hey Buddy, Can You Give Me a Push?
During the Vietnam war, Captain Bob Pardo finds an unusual way to help his buddy after being hit by anti-aircraft fire.

Title image, “Pardo’s Push” by S.W. Ferguson
9 min
March 21, 2016 First Corinthians 13:13
The story of three lone Sea Gladiator biplanes and their brave pilots who defended the besieged island of Malta during WWII.
13 min
March 20, 2016 Flying ‘Round the Egg
A little lesson in basic combat manoeuvres for the budding Phantom pilot.
10 min
March 14, 2016 Death of a Pilot
The year was 1976 and, for the RAF, it wasn't a good year and it wasn't a bad year. However, in that year the RAF lost 43 aircraft and 27 personnel, one of which was a fellow student.
10 min
March 04, 2016 Tsar Bomba
Major Andrei Durnovtsev was about to get airborne in his TU95 Bear. Hanging from the white painted aircraft was a 27 Ton monster, the largest nuclear bomb ever devised. It was so vast that he didn't even know if he would survive the explosion when he delivered the Tsar Bomba.

The site of the detonation.

The Tsar Bomba's fireball which reached 5 miles in diameter.

The mushroom cloud of the Tsar Bomba the crown of which reached 45 miles up into the atmosphere.

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to Croquant, Minatom, SA3.0 and atomicforum.com
7 min
February 28, 2016 Eric “Winkle” Brown
A tribute to one of the most remarkable pilots who ever lived. Qualified on 487 types of aircraft he also completed an unmatched 2,407 carrier deck landing... a record that is never likely to be bested.
16 min
February 13, 2016 Taffy Holden’s Lightning
The RAF Wing Commander who flew a Lightning jet fighter. An unremarkable event except for the fact that he wasn't a pilot!

Taffy Holden's Mk1A Lightning XM135 can be seen at the Duxford Aircraft Museum in Cambridgeshire in the UK.
6 min
January 29, 2016 Who Was Joe Gilmore?
The Moonwalker and Joe Gilmore.
The story of how a barman from a London Hotel become involved in the Apollo 11 mission that landed the first men on the moon?
1 measure of grapefruit juice
1 measure of Grand Marina
2 dashes of rose water
Shaken well and drained into a wine glass which was then filled with champagne
3 min