I got extremely exited today, even to such extent that i need to tell you about it. You don't have to read it, it's enough for me to write it down. ;-)
For many, many years i have been anxiously looking for a DVD set that represents a British TV drama series called 'AIRLINE' that was broadcasted here in Holland in the early 1980's. Roy Marsden (aka Inspector Dalgliesh) plays Jack Ruskin who is demobbed just after WWII as an RAF flight sergeant flying Dakota's. He tries to join BOAC but fails. He then grabs all of his courage and faith together and with help of a loan shark buys a surplus C-47 to start his own airline. He recruits some of his former flying buddies, gets the C-47 airworthy again and off they go on their first job.
Of course i recorded the whole series on one of the first home video recorders. Philips, a huge machine of which the tape spools lie on top of eachother instead of side by side. The quality was outstanding, much better than the later VHS system. Later on this particular system, together with V2000 (also Philips) and Betamax was of course phased out in favor of VHS. The tapes were of no use anymore because the machine had broken down beyond repair.
Every now and then, for many years, i kept on searching for this Airline series to appear on DVD. Alas without any luck. I would pay a small fortune to be able to view the series again. One day i stumbled over some posts about it in a TV series forum. Apparently it seemed to be the family of the director that refused a rerun of the series and/or put it on tape or DVD. ( i remember the series ended just like that, all of a sudden out of the blue, without a satisfactory ending of the story ) I lost all hope i would ever see the Dakota flying adventures of Jack 'The Mad Boilerman' Ruskin and his flying comrades again, let alone have it here in my own video library.
Couple years ago a few episodes of the series appeared on Youtube. Wow!! Hurraay!! Atleast that's something! But guess what happend to me today when i bought a couple of DVD's at Amazon.com. Didn't try for a long time but just for the heck of it i typed 'Airline, Roy Marsden' in the search window and LOW AND BEHOLD!!! THERE IT WAS!!! Talk about out of the blue !!!
Yessir, the whole series on 3 DVD's in a box ! Holey Moley!! Quickly, before this dream would come to an end, i bought the box. Proved it was no dream, it's really true !! " Ruskin Air Services" on DVD !! Finally then!! What unbelievable luck !!!
Goes without saying that this Airline series is a must for any DC-3 lover. It's quite old of course but the story is great and realistic ( not all whine and roses, far from it ! ) and the acting is perfect and lots, lots and lots of great footage of DC-3's ( and other aircraft ) both inside and out, of course. The Dak's were provided and flown by Air Atlantique.
Also quite a long time ago when i was still collecting aviation magazines, i believe it was in 'Aeroplane Monthly' that a photo of Roy Marsden as Jack Ruskin appeared. However he was not standing in front of a DC-3 but a Connie ! The brief text said that plans had been made to arrange a follow up of the Airline series in which 'Ruskin Air Services', despite all the troubles, had grown pretty big. The Connie however proved too expensive to restore into flying condition and so the whole plan was abandonned. This particular Connie now sits up at the Science Museum, Wroughton,UK, in early TWA colors.
The 'Flagship' :
The Load :
The Crew :
The Box :
Here's a clip from Episode 2 where they try to fix the shortcomings of Able Victor and perform the first testflight. All carefully scrutinized by Mr.Reardon with bowler hat, Air Registration Board.
Makes my year, i can tell you that ! ;-)))
cheers,
jan
)
That is beautiful work, Ray! Especially the water ingress. Very nice work, so - I hereby commission you to produce a worn DC-3 one for me! Now... about the money.... 
