‘Confessions of a Flying Instructor: Teaching the RAF’s Fighter Pilots’ is Tug Wilson’s second book and he joins us to discuss the time in his career teaching new fighter pilots. As always, Tug is great company with Gareth in this sometimes hilarious, and at other times frightening, story of his time as a flight instructor.
Tug Wilson grew up in North Yorkshire and in 1985, his dream came true when he joined the RAF...
On our Journalist’s Roundtable discussion in Ep.161 (Trust Me I’m an Aviation Journalist), Rich Cooper mentioned the visit to a North Korea Airshow. We wanted to find out more and Rich introduced us to author and photographer, Gerry Manning, who was there.
Gerry joins us to share the experience and we talk airliners and fighter jets as well as helicopters, cargo lifters and microlights...
In the second part of our feature Sree (KS Nair) talks to us about IAF Training, aircraft types and ground attack tactics. We expose some of the challenges around motivation as well as culture and work through the quote from many at the time that “The Indian Air Force was an experiment that was never meant to succeed”.
K.S. NAIR is the son and son-in-law of Indian Air Force officers...
The air war in India and Burma (World War Two) has not received the focus it deserves. In this episode we talk to author K.S. Nair (Sree) to look at this area of conflict, the contribution made to the allied efforts in both WW1 and WW2, as well as the evolution and early operations of the Indian Air Force.
K.S. Nair is the son and son-in-law of Indian Air Force officers...
The story of China is space is not one widely known nor properly understood in Western corridors, although China of course has been launching rockets for almost a thousand years. In this episode we welcome back author and Chinese space expert Brian Harvey to help us address that.
In 2019, China astonished the world by landing a spacecraft and rover on the far side of the Moon, something never achieved by any country before...
Cranfield Aerospace Solutions’ (CAeS) is an established aerospace business of over 33 years, with 100+ staff and is one of very few aerospace SMEs globally to have both whole aircraft concept design capability and to hold a range of regulatory approvals for the design and manufacture of modifications to existing aircraft...
Few aircraft encompass as many contradictions as the Fairey Swordfish – the legendary ‘Stringbag’ naval torpedo bomber which was approaching antiquation at the start of the second world war yet struck mortal blows against some of the most powerful battleships in the Axis fleets.
We are joined by Naval Air Historian Matt Willis to discuss many of the lesser known aspects of the aircraft and its real impact on World War Two Fleet Air Arm operations...
Mike Bannister joins us to talk about Concorde and his career flying the supersonic airliner. He became the youngest pilot on the Concorde fleet in 1977, was appointed the airline’s Chief Concorde Pilot in 1995 and regularly flew as Captain on all of the aircraft’s routes worldwide...
Our latest roundtable discussion focusses on aviation journalism and to better help us understand the challenges and ups and downs of writing a good article are the journalistic legends that are Tim Robinson, Steve Bridgewater and Rich Cooper.
Enjoy hearing their techniques, challenges and unusual stories!
Recorded 7th December 2022
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Consider for a moment repairing and loading aircraft at -30 degrees with no cover, flying in thick cloud through heavy flak and snow with no idea if you might get through or even deliver your precious cargo. Robert Forsyth talks us through the Luftwaffe’s Stalingrad Airlift, a less well-known event in the tragic Stalingrad story.
He brings to life the challenges, horror and heroism of the pilots and crews who tried to save those trapped in the ‘pocket’...