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NOVA: The First Air War

"The Vintage Aviator, Ltd." collection is one of the highest on my list of aircraft collections I'd like to see in person one day. Not mentioned in that show, the restoration company and collection of aircraft are all owned by Peter Jackson, the film maker of the "Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings" movies, "King Kong", etc. (who has also been working, on and off again, on a remake of "The Dam Busters", in which 10 full-scale static Lancasters, and at least one Wellington, have been created for). It's amazing what they've accomplished at "TVAL", not only in the aircraft builds, but the engine builds - in both cases, reproducing, in 100% accuracy, what was before non-existent in operating form. Within the hour show, only a small portion of the collection was focused on.

Gene De Marco, who is seen interviewed throughout the show, used to be one of the main pilots at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome, back in its good days, when it had the proper people running it and flying the planes. As the head of "The Vintage Aviator" for several years now, he's been New Zealand bound.

If you're not all that familiar with the collection, be sure to search YouTube for "The Vintage Aviator".
 
Saw it. Felt rushed as a 1 hour show. Sould have been as 2 hour show
 
I really enjoyed that PBS show. I learned a lot about the early days of aviation during WW1. I learned that Fokker was Dutch and at the ripe old age of 20, built his first aircraft.
From what was said on the show, Fokker offered his services to the British and they didn't want to have anything to do with him so he went to the Germans and they gladly
used him and his talents to create some advance aircraft for the period.

I guess it was Peter Jackson that was in charge of production of the hand built aircraft from authentic blueprints. How they managed to get machine guns to fire thru the propellor
was interesting.
 
I watched that last night wow really cool, I wish they would do a series like 1 hour per airplane.
 
I have the DVR set to catch the next showing.

Its a shame that so little has been done to cover the 1st WWI. What has been done this year has been rather dull or poorly made. The History channels little series was horrible. How many times can you show the same footage.

I do look forward to this one.
 
Allen said:
Saw it. Felt rushed as a 1 hour show. Sould have been as 2 hour show
Click to expand...

Absolutely, I couldn't agree more. A least two hours or broken into a two night series. Too much time was spent on the B.E. 2 Observation aircraft. Way too much time for that matter. I was hoping there would be more details dealing with the major aircraft,...such as the Spad XIII and the Fokker D VII and D VIII. For some reason all the French aircraft were left out. Finally,...I think it was a major oversight in not showing how these aircraft are meticulously put together. Like what about the aircraft's engines,....did they use originals and rebuilt them,...or did they construct them from scratch...from pouring the molten engine block metal to fabricating the manifolds. That would have been fun to watch and catch a bit of education from it too. A bit disappointing......
I can only give the show two and half stars......
 
:applause:

I just watched it this morning. I must say its one of the best I've seen this year. They did spend a little too much time on the BE 2. Though I loved the DIII. It should have been a two part, because like you all said before, it did end too soon.
 
I missed the show on the tv, unfortunately, and the PBS site does not allow viewing the show here in Canada. Bummer.


Mike
 
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