National Aerospace Library
NAL’s lockdown lectures
It is not just the BBC and ITV that have been putting some of the best of their archive content on primetime and online. When we went into lockdown last March, we pushed the accelerator on our Classic Lectures project so members and the rest of the worldwide aero community could look forward to a recording of a classic Society event every Monday. We seemed to have done something right as, throughout lockdown, material from the Society’s audio archives were accessed over 125,000 times, with the vast majority coming from the NAL’s releases.
Though we have aimed to bring out a blend of Society material that will cater for all aero tastes, we both have our favourite lectures. For Mike, the best are the ones that replicate the exploits of ‘Biggles’- like pioneering early adventures and bravery and the others are very understandable technical lectures suitable for a wider audience. Here, in no particular order, are our 12 recommendations.
The arrival of the first de Havilland DH9C at Charleville in 1923. Capt G Mathews, pilot, on the left and A N Templeton, Director, QANTAS Ltd, right.
by Capt Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown HonFRAeS https://www.aerosociety.com/winklepod
He must be the members’ biggest hero. Every Branch lecture he gave was highly oversubscribed and followed by an invitation to return. He had his ‘Biggles’ time in the war and his adventures in Germany at the close of the war are truly fascinating. Every lecture was different and spontaneous and delivered with tremendous clarity. This lecture should be made compulsory for all the family where there are teenage children who need some direction in life! There are both sound and video versions of this lecture.
by Sir Michael Knight FRAeS https://www.aerosociety.com/cobhampod
Cobham’s Flying Circus brought the excitement and glamour, challenges and enthusiasm, thrills and spills of aviation to literally millions of people across Britain and parts of the Empire between 1932 and 1935 and, in this lecture, Sir Michael Knight brings them back to life. There are both sound and video versions of this lecture.
Capt S C Winfield Smith, East Surrey Regiment attached to the RFC, who became a Prisoner of War in 1916. Both RAeS (NAL).
by Sqn Ldr S C Winfield Smith DSO https://www.aerosociety.com/winfieldsmithpod
Working at the NAL at Farnborough, the birthplace of flight in the UK, cannot help but fill you with aviation heritage. So, you have to stop and listen when you get a lecture given in 1965 by an old and bold chief test pilot at Farnborough before the First World War. Another Biggles character; they don’t make them like this anymore.
by Dr Michael Pryce MRAeS https://www.aerosociety.com/p1154pod
Planned to succeed the Harrier even before the Harrier flew, Michael Pryce tells a fascinating but familiar story of how organisational, financial, technical, and political problems collided and lead to Denis Healy cancelling the project in 1965. As an expert in today’s defence procurement projects, Pryce then examines the project’s legacy, both technically and as a lesson in advanced project planning.
by Capt L J Brain https://www.aerosociety.com/qantaspod
Returning to the swashbuckling theme, in 1954 the Australian Broadcasting Corporation broadcast a talk from a pilot who joined Qantas after World War 1 and helped to open up the Empire routes. It is tremendous fun. Of course, as was in the spirit of the day, the only way to land was to crash on a very small desert island and wait to be found. Seemed quite usual really!
Perhaps one of the best kept secrets of the Society is the annual Stewart Lecture where the Aviation Medicine Group gives the floor to one of the finest in their business. We know it is a cheat to roll three lectures into one choice, but they are worth it:
by Dr Charles Billings MS MD FRAeS https://www.aerosociety.com/billingspod
Taking the story of his career ‘as he lived it’, he explores studies of the body in high-altitude conditions and endurance flying and pioneered the ASRS accident reporting system. The results of his study on the effect of alcohol on pilots may not be a surprise, but is great fun!
John Theodore Cuthbert Moore-Brabazon, later Lord Brabazon of Tara, 1884-1964, makes the first ‘official’ air freight flight in 1909. The pig was secured in a waste-paper basket which was attached to the fuselage of a Short biplane. RAeS (NAL).
by Wg Cdr Nicholas Green MRAeS https://www.aerosociety.com/spinpod
The dangers of losing consciousness while flying has been a continual danger for airmen. ‘Spin Doctor’ Wg Cdr Nicholas Green gives a fascinating and entertaining history of G, G-protection and the medical and other uses of the centrifuge.
by Wg Cdr Matt Lewis MRAeS https://www.aerosociety.com/stewart2008pod
Want to know the safest way to travel by air next time you go on holiday? Listen to the top tips from a man who has investigated over 130 air accidents.
https://www.aerosociety.com/brabpod
If you want a first class after-dinner speech, go no further than these three recordings of ‘Brab’. The first man to hold a Royal Aero Club pilots’ licence, friend of the Wright brothers, the man who Churchill chose to specify which civil aircraft should be produced by the post-war aircraft industry and the Chair of Air Registration Board at the time of the Comet Inquiry, retells some of his finest stories.
by Prof James DeLaurier https://www.aerosociety.com/ornithopterpod
We finished our lockdown podcasts with this hidden gem. This is an understandable technical lecture on a project where (unusually) nobody crashes. As Mike has been able to match the audio with the presentation, you can see clips of a model of the ornithopter flying with great panache and then of the real aircraft being flown by a pilot – a great achievement in an incredible looking machine with huge flapping wings.
A self-portrait of NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover shows the vehicle at the ‘Big Sky’ site, where its drill collected the mission’s fifth taste of Mount Sharp, October 2015. NASA.
by Andy Garner FRAeS https://www.aerosociety.com/olympicheathrow
Try putting through thousands of athletes and VIPs through one of the world’s biggest airports during summer and with luggage including firearms, specialist wheelchairs and canoes! Don’t worry, it was all done smoothly and with the London 2012 spirit!
by Clive Rustin FRAeS https://www.aerosociety.com/flyingfunpod
Stories from a career testing 70 aircraft types, all in 96 minutes of great entertainment in this General Aviation Group lecture from 2012. Clive retells stories from his time at RAE Bedford and RAE Farnborough and includes work for Concorde, the Hawker Siddeley P.1127/Kestrel and projects exploring short-field landing and blind landing V/STOL aircraft, together with clearance programmes at Boscombe Down and his work with the Jaguar, Harrier, Phantom and Hunter.
by Dr Matt Wallace https://www.aerosociety.com/curiositypod
We must also mention the timely inclusion of the lecture by Dr Matt Wallace on the Curiosity Mars Rover delivered in 2012 before the actual landing and the ‘seven minutes of terror’. Its two-year mission has been extended indefinitely and it remains active on the Martian surface. Mike again combined the audio with the video and slides shown which leaves us wondering if it would ever work …we now know the skycrane approach worked perfectly.
https://www.aerosociety.com/filmcomp
As the last of our 12 podcasts we must add the Christmas quiz that Mike made for the members. (OK, so not actually a podcast!) The Library had launched its movie archive of cine films for all to watch and Mike thought it would be a good idea to help advertise the project by setting two aircraft identification quizzes using film from archive. Even then, on the second film nobody got all the right answers. And Mike thought it was easy!
