1975: Fyfe Robertson and the Aeroplane | Robbie | BBC Archive

0:00 Aren't you too surprised sometimes when you think back to see how quickly

0:04 we take marvels for granted in this age of fastest ever technological change?

0:10 Computers, moonwalking, satellite transmissions of world happenings happening.

0:17 Sensations are instant, too, nowadays.

0:21 When I was born, powered flight was thought impossible.

0:24 Today, we could fly around the world in comfortably less than 24 hours.

0:29 And orbiting space could clock up around the earth trip every 90 minutes.

0:36 When I watch Concorde nosing down from the sky or enter a great airport,

0:42 I never fail to marvel that these things

0:45 have come about well within a single lifespan.

0:49 I was a year old when the Wright brothers in 1903

0:53 lumbered into the air in the first ever powered flight.

0:56 It lasted for just 51 seconds, but it started a new age in transport.

1:05 When hearing tales [music] of UFOs in the sky,

1:10 the wise will ask for facts to verify.

1:14 [singing] But now here's a wondrous sight, it's an elephant that's white.

1:22 [music] Its trunk moves up and down, and it can fly.

1:26 You recognize it, of course, don't you?

1:28 Should I say it or her?

1:31 The great plane, not yet in service,

1:34 which is already instantly recognized over half the world.

1:39 The technological achievement of two nations which announces and will

1:44 surely compel yet another new age in civil aviation.

1:50 The most advanced, the fastest, the most horribly expensive,

1:56 the most controversial plane ever built, Concorde.

2:01 When I look at this, I think of the first plane I ever saw,

2:05 spluttering into unbelieving Edinburgh way back in 1990.

2:13 Its poison fumes destroy the [music] atmosphere.

2:18 Its sonic boom offends the public ear.

2:24 [singing] And the nation's gone insane,

2:26 pouring money down a drain that'll keep us all in debt for 50 years.

2:34 But we must keep ahead of Uncle Sam.

2:39 And contribute to space's traffic jam.

2:43 It's the wonder [singing] of the ages.

2:46 It pays a lot of wages.

2:49 The world may laugh, but we don't give a damn.

3:15 If you can wrench your envious mind off space eating Concorde,

3:19 and imagine you've gone back half a century in time,

3:22 when Mach numbers hadn't been thought of, and flying was still adventurous fun,

3:28 this is probably the plane you'd see most often, a de Havilland Moth.

3:34 The workhorse of the flying clubs that were midwifing an airborne generation.

3:39 Now, I can get misty-eyed about veteran planes because I don't fly,

3:45 but there are flying grandfathers who would positively drool over this machine.

3:50 A marvelous kite, old boy, they'd tell you.

3:53 Do anything except cook bacon and eggs.

3:57 Practically going backwards before you can stall her.

4:00 Land on anything.

4:01 They were a very special breed, these early flyers.

4:04 Most of them First World War fighter pilots.

4:09 Well, here I am, 44 years and another World War later,

4:13 going up for the second time in a moth.

4:16 And I can't help thinking of the first time.

4:20 My first fare-paying flight.

4:23 In fact, I'd hired the plane in Manchester

4:26 to fly me up to my dying father in Glasgow.

4:29 But, a long way short of there,

4:33 my flying club pilot gave 50 hands and a farmer's

4:38 wife hysterics by crash landing outside her window

4:42 in a sloping field so small that the plane

4:45 had to be dismantled later to get it out.

4:48 And before he lost his nerve, seeing mist over the Solway Firth,

4:53 my pilot managed to lose his way.

4:56 We actually sighted Blackpool Tower twice.

4:58 I guess he'd been following the wrong railway line.

5:01 Well, I'm hoping for a happier landing this time.

5:05 Oh, hello.

5:06 Here we go at last.

5:06 That's it.

5:07 Off we go.

5:23 I suppose I will need this up there, but it's it's certainly tight.

5:27 It's all right, though.

5:29 I'd rather have it too tight than too slack.

5:32 That's it.

5:34 That's it.

5:36 Yeah.

5:36 Yeah, that feels quite comfortable.

5:37 Could you keep this for me?

5:40 will.

5:40 There's not much room here even for a hat, you know.

5:47 Is this plane um as safe as the old boys said it was?

5:52 Just as safe, twice as safe.

5:54 These are not famous last words, I hope, are they?

5:56 I hope not.

5:58 Okay, Rich, ready when you are.

5:59 Right.

5:59 Petrol on.

6:00 Fuel on.

6:01 Switches off.

6:03 Switches are off.

6:04 Throttle closed.

6:04 Throttle's closed.

6:05 Brakes on.

6:06 Chocks are under.

6:07 Brakes are on.

6:07 Chocks under.

6:09 I'm just going to flood now.

6:11 Okay.

6:25 Sucking in.

6:35 Throttle set.

6:37 Throttle set.

6:39 Contact.

6:39 Contact one.

6:40 Still on.

7:18 When science first designed the train, doctors said such dreams are vain.

7:24 The human frame won't [music] stand the strain of the devilish velocity.

7:29 The humble bee is so designed his wings can [music] never lift his body.

7:35 It's lucky no one told a bee, so he gets on with the jobbie.

7:42 If God intended man to fly, he'd give him wings, you can't deny.

7:48 It's man's nature to defy, and it's bound to end up badly.

7:53 But brothers will [music and singing] and Orville

7:56 Wright just pushed on with their silly hobby.

7:59 And so the world got powered flight, and about time, too, said Robbie.

8:06 Oh, so you're learning at last.

8:09 You know Robbie, Robbie, this is the only kind of flying that's fun.

8:17 I have forgotten most of the big jet plane flights I've made all over the world.

8:22 But I can remember every light plane flight I've made.

8:28 In a big jet you lie down.

8:30 All I usually feel is boredom and indigestion.

8:34 But here, you really feel you're flying.

8:37 You watch this.

8:41 You look right.

8:42 Feels good.

8:44 Buzz off and let me enjoy this in peace.

8:47 And I'll see you at the bar.

8:49 Friends are all I've got.

8:53 Oh, Icarus, my [music] son, I have fashioned your wings.

8:57 They will carry you into the sky.

9:02 But beware of the sun, for your feathers will burn if my words

9:07 you ignore [music] and go soaring too high.

9:12 Dear father Daedalus, wisdom [music] is yours,

9:16 and I know what your warning is [singing] wise.

9:21 But I want [music] to look down on the clouds from [singing] above,

9:25 so it's up and away and farewell to the earth.

9:42 Great boys they long may they live.

9:45 This is a one of the more sophisticated of the 31 craft out here today.

9:51 They're not doing it just for the kicks, you know.

9:53 There's 3,000 quid for the first man that can reach that boy over there.

9:57 Can you show them it, Roy?

9:59 I doubt very much if they're going to add much to the signs of aeronautics,

10:04 but they're certainly adding a lot for the joy

10:06 of living for me and the crowds lining the beach.

10:09 Show them.

10:09 Look, thousands there.

10:11 This is the fourth meeting and it looks a bit more hopeful than the others.

10:16 31 craft, some of them very sophisticated,

10:20 one at least built with the aid of a computer,

10:23 but some of them have been built with aid of nothing more than hope and hunch.

10:28 No qualifications demanded.

10:31 Wait a minute, here he goes.

10:33 Rather him than me, I can tell you.

10:42 Well, that's just about the most vertical glide possible, I should think.

10:46 He not only went He didn't even go straight down,

10:49 he went straight down and back.

10:52 [laughter] These boys, you know,

11:03 are moved by one of the oldest passions in the world, envy of the birds.

11:08 And it's fun.

11:08 Wait a minute.

11:15 Well, the only thing you can say about that one

11:17 is he got into the water quicker than his plane did.

11:22 Yes, far back as the records go, you know,

11:24 lunatics have been leaping off towers and bridges and now

11:28 in their Concorde days there are still lunatics doing it.

11:32 So far, one competitor has made about, I should think, 30 yards,

11:36 but most of them go with the shortest distance between two points.

11:40 But, it all adds to the joy of living, you have to agree.

11:44 How was that for woman's lift?

11:46 The only one among 31 competitors,

11:49 and she's in a long line of human endeavor, you know.

11:52 I wait a minute.

12:00 Well, she made some lateral move, anyway.

12:04 She's going to go with the wind this time.

12:07 No qualifications demanded, by the way,

12:10 although one you can take for granted, which is hope.

12:12 And another one is certainly desirable, and that's the ability to swim.

12:36 I've come a long way to the lovely peaks and the blustering

12:40 winds of Connemara to raise my hat in memory of two

12:44 bold spirits and a headline miracle that made me and my family

12:49 one June day in 1919 forget the meal before us.

12:54 As the old man read out the newspaper

12:56 story that startled millions into a sort of stupefaction.

13:02 Maybe you were one of them.

13:04 The unbelievable had at last been done in an epic

13:08 of courage and endurance that thrilled every British heart with pride.

13:13 And it had been done without any ballyhoo at all while Britain slept unknowing.

13:19 If you haven't guessed already, this stone symbol of flight,

13:24 rearing improbably from an Irish crag, should be clue enough.

13:28 This marks the area where years before Lindbergh two unknown

13:34 British First World War airmen made the first ever transatlantic flight.

13:40 Alcock and Brown that one feat wrote these two names large

13:46 and forever into the story of flying and what a feat.

13:56 The converted Vickers Vimy bomber was so loaded

13:59 with fuel that it had to be coaxed into the air and a cramped open cockpit

14:05 exposed them to conditions worse than their worst fears.

14:09 Most of the flight was in cloud or fog and below zero temperatures.

14:13 Brown, the navigator, climbed out onto the wing six times to clear ice.

14:18 And it wasn't mechanical trouble but physical exhaustion

14:21 after nearly 2,000 mi and 16 hours from Newfoundland

14:26 that forced Alcock to land in Connemara on what

14:29 proved when they touched down to be bog.

14:40 When the news broke,

14:41 Britain went mad and few honors have been as warmly

14:45 welcomed as a knighthood conferred on two modest heroes.

14:50 I wouldn't have thought it possible.

14:52 Imagine turning a harbor corner and seeing that out there.

14:56 You've a flown in one.

14:58 If you haven't, you've missed something.

15:00 For me, that's floating memories.

15:03 It's something just to see her.

15:05 How marvelous if I could go up in her again and sample a bit of my flying past.

15:13 It was flying boats,

15:15 Short's in Britain from 1936 and Boeing's in America 2 years later,

15:20 that ran the first regular long-distance services.

15:24 But the speed race and the landing limitations ended the reign.

15:28 If you ever flew in one, didn't you regret it, too?

15:33 When most planes had sacrificed comfort for speed after the war,

15:37 this one still offered the kind

15:39 of comfort demanded by between-the-war passengers,

15:42 mostly well-heeled, who lived uncrowded and graciously

15:46 and expected to fly graciously, too.

16:03 Now, this fully loaded weighs 30 tons, and at 6,000 ft, she can do 180 mph.

16:11 Not fast by jet standards.

16:14 But in their leg-cramping, elbows-in jets, we still mostly have to use.

16:21 You endure long flight.

16:23 In this, you enjoy it.

16:25 You passed each long, unhurried night in a luxury hotel,

16:30 and you took off next morning, bathed and breakfasted at a civilized hour.

16:35 And you didn't fly in a limbo

16:37 with the whole world obscured by a blanket of cloud.

16:41 You flew low, and you could see the changing

16:44 features of the earth as they slid by.

16:52 [music] And here's the way the world to roam.

16:54 We'll fly port out and starboard home.

16:57 Posh is the [music and singing] word and posh the way.

16:59 Leave October, come back May.

17:02 Farewell damp [music and singing] and sleet and snow.

17:05 Off to sunnier climes we'll go.

17:07 You may come if you can pay, over the hills and far away.

17:12 [singing] This is what I enjoyed most on every trip,

17:18 the unfolding of the greatest and most fabled river in the world,

17:22 the Nile, flowing from the far heart of Africa down to the great plain of Egypt.

17:28 Here at Khartoum, Africa was suddenly real, air like an oven's breath.

17:34 And as we roared off again,

17:36 black [music] and brown faces and ancient craft differentially lining the banks.

17:42 For them it seemed [music] to me this was not just a white man's marvel,

17:45 but the British presence when that still counted for something before Mr.

17:50 McMillan's [music] wind of change became a gale.

17:53 Journeys end for me was always either late night voucher for Nairobi

17:58 or this, the thundering smoke that guided

18:01 Livingstone to the Zambezi's of Victoria Falls,

18:05 a natural wonder that lives up to its promise,

18:08 a roaring torrent filling its dripping gorge

18:11 with rainbow spray that looks like fire.

18:15 On the African run, Durban was the flying boat's furthest point,

18:19 but the longest flight,

18:20 thought marvelous then and one I wish I'd been able to take,

18:24 was to India and the Far East and on to Sydney in Australia, a flying holiday.

18:32 We leave depression far below as off to the mystic East [music] we go.

18:37 Joy and laughter speed the day, [singing] ease and comfort all the [music] way.

18:43 Farewell world and troubled mind, toil [singing] and care we leave behind.

18:48 In the [music] sunshine we'll make hay over the hills and far away.

19:08 Just after the Second World War, I was working on Picture Post.

19:12 You remember that once great magazine?

19:15 And they sent me twice to the Channel Islands,

19:18 to Jersey to write a flavor piece about the first post-war Grand Prix.

19:23 I'd never seen a car race, you see, which was why I got the assignment.

19:28 Then to Guernsey to report on conditions after the long German occupation.

19:33 A great life.

19:35 Every job a chance to get your journalistic teeth into something new.

19:40 And if you were lucky, a chance to get airborne.

19:44 And can you beat it?

19:45 I've just learned that this plane is not just any old Rapide,

19:50 but the actual plane that flew me out to these two jobs all these years ago.

19:56 Isn't she a little beauty and surprisingly modern-looking?

20:00 You know, in my long airborne experience, limited however to the late '40s,

20:06 this plane is a bridge between two air ages.

20:10 One covers the years between the wars,

20:12 when passengers were a traveling elite who expected and got VIP treatment.

21:23 Heathrow 1946.

21:25 You could call this terminal number nothing.

21:28 Army tents and caravans.

21:30 They called it passenger reception officially.

21:33 This was the departure lounge thoughtfully

21:36 provided outside with standard street phone boxes.

21:40 But when you draftily checked in here, you could sip a drink in a chintz-covered

21:45 armchair under the flowers in the departure lounge.

21:49 It was all very matey.

21:51 And for most passengers,

21:53 pleasantly exciting because flying was still an adventure.

21:57 Astonishingly, the prefabs that replaced this huddle

22:00 of tents lasted till the late '50s.

22:05 Now, where the tents stood this, the Heathrow Hotel

22:09 on what old airport hands call the north side.

22:12 It overlooks just one corner of a complex of buildings

22:16 and roads and runways that make the busiest international airport

22:21 in the world where last year 63 airlines from almost as many

22:27 countries landed or took off more than half a million people.

22:42 Instead of two men at rough wooden tables in a tent,

22:46 this, the great hall of terminal number one with the 48 checking in points.

22:53 And where instead of getting slow messages by telephone,

22:57 they get minute-by-minute computerized electronic advice.

23:02 Yet every year as more burdened passengers

23:05 spill out of buses and cars and taxis, checking in takes longer.

23:11 And jumbo jets carrying three or four hundred people

23:15 mean that every so often at some overburdened check-in points,

23:20 queues get bigger and bigger.

23:33 First impression of a wide-bodied jet like this Boeing 747,

23:37 the jumbo, is inevitably a sheer size.

23:41 My second gratified impression was that here at last you can get speed,

23:46 650 miles an hour, and civilized amenities.

23:50 For instance, a bar upstairs for first-class opening.

23:55 And on some jumbos you can walk upstairs for dinner when you want it.

23:59 And the food and the wines are almost as good

24:02 and unplasticized as on Air France planes in the late '20s.

24:11 Boredom was never a flying boat problem.

24:13 You flew low enough to study the changing scene below.

24:17 Movies are a poor second best.

24:20 They tell me that on some night flights now you can sleep

24:23 in a bunk as I did over the Pacific almost a generation ago.

24:38 747 on 457 establish 10200.

24:43 Roger 457, report down to 10,000 35015 knots.

24:48 Speedbird 501, cleared for takeoff.

24:50 Speedbird 9321, at 120, contact 128 decimal 4.

24:54 Good day.

24:55 014, on to the 747 departs, line up.

24:59 Oh, I can rest my son.

25:02 I have fashioned your wings.

25:06 They will carry you into the sky.

25:11 But, beware of the sun, for your feathers will burn,

25:19 if my word you ignore and go soaring too high.

25:33 There she goes, circling the earth, lifting off into the bird's freedom of three

25:39 dimensions in the sunshine above the clouds.

25:42 A Boeing 747, 320 metal tons of scientific

25:48 research and technological ingenuity roaring defiance at human limitations.

25:55 Even in these days of flying sophistication,

25:59 don't you remember sometimes to feel wonder and pride when

26:03 you see a giant like that climbing into the sky?

26:07 I do.

26:08 But, I still hold to an opinion that scandalizes

26:11 the young people I work with, born into an air age,

26:15 that in spite of all its great advantages, the airplane has brought more grief

26:21 and fear than happiness to the world's millions.

26:25 An interesting argument, isn't it?

26:27 But, we've got the airplane.

26:30 And getting it was fun, was it not?

26:37 Okay, Robbie.

26:38 Good one.

26:38 Yeah, all right.

26:40 Yeah.

26:41 The light was nice, as well.

26:42 The motorbike went by.

26:43 A tale he'll tell the news he'll seek from day to day

26:47 or week [music] to week with hand on heart or tongue in cheek.

26:51 He'll have his say, will Robbie.

26:54 For [music] Robbie, [singing] he's a thinking lad,

26:57 a reading, writing, doubting laddie.

27:00 Robbie, he's got things to say, and he'll say them yet, will Robbie.

27:04 [music] They try and right the world's wrongs is

27:09 beyond the power [singing and music] of any man.

27:11 We each must do just what we can.

27:14 That suits me fine, said Robbie.

27:16 For Robbie, [singing] he's got things [music] to say in London town

27:21 or in come Dorie on life and death or work and play.

27:24 Let's hear some more from Robbie.

27:29 [music]