Spare time?

[marcus]

If you have a bit of spare time go to You Tube and have a look at some of those old Rank Organisation "Look at Life" films, all sorts of fantastic footage, much of it showing cars, trucks, vans, taxis, buses and coaches, trains, planes, boats and other lovely period stuff. I saw some of these as supporting films at the cinema and hated them, now I find them fascinating. I won't post links to all of them because once you have found the first the others will follow!

Now that London Taxis are no more the one on Taxis is worth seeing, and at 4 mins 12 there is a great shot of a beautiful Daimler Ambulance of which I had a great Matchbox model.
"Shopping by the ton" covers London's markets, lots of lovely old vans and trucks, including Scammell Scarab
"The car has wings" has great footage of old cars and car transporter planes like the Carvair DC6 conversion and Bristol Freighter, both visually pre-dating the 747 Jumbo big front end look.
"New Roads for Old" shows roads and bridges, the Woolwich Ferry, still one old paddle steamer working, amazing footage of Elephant and Castle looking VERY different, brief shot of an Isetta leaving a ferry.

Here is a link to my favourite, and available as a DVD which might have to be a Christmas present for me. This is about Civil Aviation in the 60s, and features all the planes I flew on as a boy, Viscount, Comet, DC8, 707 and the best plane ever, the BOAC/Cunard Super VC 10.  Best of all there is the only footage I have ever seen of the gorgeous old BEA Airport Coaches, AEC Regals, complete with their double split windscreens, like a VW Splittie camper van on steroids!
Also lots of footage of London Airport (as Heathrow was called then). I had forgotten the name "Oceanic Terminal" until I saw this, it always confused me when I was a boy, as it sounds more like a ship terminal! There is even footage of the terminal roof; when my brother (10) and I ( started to fly regularly out to USA we always used to go up on the roof, whatever the weather, to have a look at all the planes coming and going; airports were MUCH more fun then! We had several flights on Boeing 707s and DC8s, then our first of many flights on the superb Super VC10s, which made the Boeings and DC8s feel like farm wagons . Anyway, here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PClV1nqNlvg

[marcus]

Just had another quick look at the civil aviation one, at the start of the Controlled Landin excerpt (about 2 mins) there is a red fuel tanker with multiple windscreens (a bit like the Bea Regal coaches) and these were another favourite sight at London Airport as you never saw them anywhere else. Possibly ERF. And a bit later in the next clip there is a car park from above, and you can see the articualted truck based buses and I went on several of those to be driven out to my plane, all these planes and specially made buses, coaches and trucks were fascinating to me then, and still are now!

[Rusty Chrome (Malcolm Parker)]

Great series. For those that need further incentive there's a Heinkel in the driving test one.

[marcus]

Ooo, cheers, I'll look for that one!

[marcus]

Here's the Driving Test one, yup a Heinkel Kabine at about 2 mins and a Heinkel scooter a minute later

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_-Rcqq39x4&lcor=1&lc=ZP6QQn5jY1w0FqkgGXe3zRanPcuP5WN78sKW8vX0KCk&lch=email_reply

[AndrewG]

...you can see the articualted truck based buses and I went on several of those to be driven out to my plane

Oooh, I had a nasty turn for a moment there, remembering the 'Plane Mates' that used to carry passengers between terminal and plane at Montreal Mirabel.  You got on this odd bus and it drove/swayed/lurched out to the plane, pumped up in the air and docked onto the plane's door.

[marcus]

I think you might be confused Andrew! That is Dulles Airport, Washington D.C.(IAD) and its Mobile Lounges. I flew between London and DC about 25-30 times in the 60s and I really loved that magnificent terminal and the Lounges. The terminal was designed by a Scandinavian called Saarinen, and those huge leaning concrete columns have cables stretched between them, and the roof was  built on top, like concrete slabs on a trampoline! At 8 - 14 years old my brothers, sister and I used to run as fast as possible at the base of a column and see how far up we could get up the slope! The mobile Lounges seemed like something out of Thunderbirds.

I was last at IAD about 10 years ago flying to London with my business partner as Captain on a United 777. We caught a flight from Dallas to Dulles, then he boarded for pre-flight.

I was AMAZED that 40 years later the same Mobile Lounges were still going, but the original One Terminal Building airport had sprawled hugely and was now a mess with a pre-fab extra terminal. We took a Lounge between terminals and I was sitting beside Rev Jesse Jackson.

At that time the new air and space museum was nearing completion, and one day I HAVE to visit it!

[marcus]

My partner told me that the company which made the Lounges went bankrupt decades ago and the airport is keen to get shot of them because they are very expensive to maintain. However nothing is as flexible as them for this now rambling and crowded airport, and every time they try to loose them there is a huge outcry because everyone loves them! They also have heritage value, as they are just about the oldest things in America!

[AndrewG]

Strewth! I was happy to find some 'mobile lounge' pictures showing the Mirabel type with the weird screw jacks that penetrated the cabin and stuck up through those fins on the roof - finding pictures of them at the right airport seemed a step too far.

And of course this was capitalist transport.  After that I worked a fair bit in the former Soviet Union, where the disembarking arrangements were different - the passengers stayed in their seats after the plane had come to a stop and the doors had been opened, waiting so that the much more important flight crew* could get straight off the plane without those tiresome passengers clogging up the aisle.

*Also proper flight crews - none of your dangerous running dog imperialist skimping on two-man crews, but proper four-man crews of pilot, co-pilot, engineer and radio officer - of whom, more than two would often be sober at any one time.

[Big Al]

And unlike Bergerac Airport, France where having left the relative sophistication of Eastliegh (beastliegh, of course) Airport you land and are asked to follow the horizontally 2CV wheel bottomed home made bollards to the terminal avoiding the fireman doubling up as luggage handlers. One can mock but it works, is cheap and Le Pumpier do rather well out of it.

[marcus]

Russian aviation is different, VERY different! In some respects better, in others quite a bit worse, but very, very different.

[Big Al]

Bit like Dann Air brakes at Bristol Airport!

[marcus]

Dobro Dan, Comrade Al!

[marcus]

I did order the DVD and it turned up on Wednesday and I watched it the next day. It comprises 6 Look at Life films, Air Hostess, Controlled Landing, Flying to Work, City of the Air, The Big Take Off and the Spirit of Brooklands.

I found it fascinating, lots of great period footage and all sorts of interesting vehicles to be seen as well as planes. Most of the films are from around the time when I was 8 and flying with my brother (10) between UK and USA about 30 times. Lots of long-forgotten sights, great to see again.

The Brooklands film is about the Super VC 10 and shows some of the cutting edge design and machinery which means that the airframes are now in their 50s, and only being retired because of the engines.

Lots of shots of airport coaches, and articulated "buses" with a truck cab. Two lovely old fuel tankers too, with special bodywork and multiple windscreens for getting close to planes safely. £10 + £2 postage, VERY glad I got it!

[Big Al]

VC 10 - the last of these are just passing out of service with the RAF. Well passed the designed flight age of design. The much vaunted replacement has been found to create rather to much turbulence for easy refuelling in mid air. However the contract is signed so an answer now has to be found to make the new aircraft more usable.  Not as if there were not time to get this right or the fact that the planes are not actually owned but the good old British public will pay for the cock ups once again.