Whilst waiting for Sunday lunch to cook and there being very little worth watching on British television (even less on French television – but that’s another story), I went to an episode of ‘The Saint’ on ITV3. This episode was entirled ‘Flight Plan’, dated from 1966 and featured what I assume to be a fair amount of stock footage of a P.1127 on the ground, taking off, in flight and landing. As military jet aircraft are not really within my sphere of knowledge, I’ve assumed that if the episode was first aired in 1966, the aircraft shown is likely to have been one of the prototype P.1127s. But perhaps someone more knowledgeable than me can tell me if this is so and, if not, what it was. And finally, I should mention that I did chuckle at the cockpit ‘close up’ scenes which showed this V/STOL aircraft as being a side-by-side two seater!
By: J Boyle - 25th February 2013 at 21:38
I recall that episode from when It was shown on American network TV “back in the day”.
Yes, technical details leave a bit to be desired, but remember in the pre-internet and specialist channel days, aviation-mad boys like myself were excited to see any film of interesting or histopric aircraft on TV.
By: charliehunt - 24th February 2013 at 15:54
It’s expecting a great deal to see technical accuracy in a 60s popular TV drama series…….not one for the enthusiast!
By: pogno - 24th February 2013 at 15:40
the 2 seat must have been a Hunter T7 or a Lightning T5?
I watched it, and the cockpit close-ups looked like a film set mock up, the two crew were sitting so close together that their bonedomes were only inches apart, very cosy.
The P1127 shots were of several different aircraft, sometiimes it had a blunt nose and sometimes a pointed one.
The use of speeded up film was pathetic.
Richard
By: antoni - 24th February 2013 at 15:33
The story line say VTOL and that is what you see. Season 5 Episode 13 Flight Plan.
Watch it on itvplayer. Yes, lots of adverts. If you don’t want to watch the whole episode, the aircraft appears around 26 mins.
https://www.itv.com/itvplayer/the-saint/series-3/episode-13-flight-plan
By: SADSACK - 24th February 2013 at 14:43
re;
the 2 seat must have been a Hunter T7 or a Lightning T5?
By: avion ancien - 24th February 2013 at 14:29
I did that, Melvyn, before I posted but none of the numerous websites that I found, concerning this episode of ‘The Saint’, identified the aircraft featured in it. But then, those websites were not, presumably, designed to cater for the needs of aviation anoraks!
By: Bob - 24th February 2013 at 14:07
Don’t know about him flying a P.1127 but he drove a P1800……
By: Melvyn Hiscock - 24th February 2013 at 13:58
It is worth doing a google search on the episode. There is at least one good website that is devoted to the various programmes made in the 1960s in England, such as The Prisoner, The Saint, Department S, The Avengers and several others. Real fan stuff about episiodes and locations.
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February 24, 2013 at 1:53 pm