Idiots in the media!

well said!

YOU DONT THINK SPOOKS IS REAL???!!

NEXT YOU WILL SAY EASTENDERS AND CORRY AINT REAL!

HONESTLY YOU GUYS!

People do tend to believe what they see, well a good % of people. Sometimes the people that make the most noise are these people. A lot of the time the people that believe this are narrow minded or fear this sort of thing because of the portrail made by the media.
This isnt to say we should rap them up in cotton wool, or change what TV stations show, its just a bit of fun – lets face it could a heli be dropped out of a plane at 15000+ started and flown as in James Bond?
Its just a bit of fun, people that get worked up about it and believe it, could possibly do with being tarnished by the same brush and scepticism? etc
People that moan about aircraft noise and airfields, well may be they souldnt by a house next to an airfield, may be they should get a job and or a life (within reason) May be they think of the consequencies of what they do and not what they can gain (could this be endemic of the population at large?)
Im involved in emergency and disaster managment and flying and you see many views, usually the smaller groups make the biggest noise on the smallest snippet of data!
Lets focus on some important stuff, educate people in aviation, but not stop what is shown on TV or complain and pick about silly points.
I could go on but whats the point? the world isnt going to change by one person overnight and isnt going to change if people turn their head!
Oh BTW Discoveries are awsome vehicles wasted on the road driver, i own 3 classic, mid age and a branie awsome off road! great to get to a remote field when a microlight crashes!!:D not that i would get in one of those ever again and i will still complain when one is left infront of my aircraft in the hangar – but seriously its all a bit of fun, lets all enjoy it

In all fairness Spooks is pretty cheesy ! It’s worth watching to see
Keeley Hawes but thats about all ! I watched Ultimate Force this evening and saw them roar round in Discoveries – our sales reps
also drive Discoveries but they are not members of the SAS – I think the general public is perceptive enough to decide reality from fiction.

EwenT,

Of course it is possible to launch a terrorist attack from a microlight, of course people fly with u/s radios, of course some people bust airspace (sometimes) – but do we really need to plant the idea in the heads of the general public to whom the idea had never occured?

My point is this programme provided negative publicity to GA at a time when we need all the positive spin we can get.

With regard to Chiltern Park – take a look in Pooley’s – it’s there. The programme took the opportunity to change the name of the base that the harriers operated from (Cottlemore rather than Cottesmore) but couldn’t dream up a new name for the microlight strip.

Avid

Avid, hi. I know it is a little difficult to chill out or even cool down with the weather as it is at the moment – still 80+ here at 22:15 – but please try.

“To suggest that a microlight could be used for an act of terrorism is outrageous.”

Unfortunately any light aircraft/flying machine could be used for terrorist purposes and we must live with that knowledge and ensure it does not happen.

“In the end it turned out that the pilot was innocent, he had been blown off course into the TRA and his radio was bust – giving the impressionthat us microlighters fly around with bust radios, bumble into restricted airspace “

Again the truth is that this does occour, both with microlights and class “A” aircraft – more often than we care to admit.

“Perhaps worse, they said that the microlight had taken off from Chiltern Park airfield – did they really need to use a ‘real’ airfield in the fictitious rubbish? What effect will this have on the airfield now?”

I did not know there was a Chiltern Park airfield and I suspect the programme makers didn’t either, certainly no one not involved in aviation or Chiltern Park itself would know. Effect on the airfield will be zilch, probably forgotten by now.

” ‘we all know how gullible the general public can be if they are fed information from a ‘reputable source’ such as the TV.

Spooks is a fictional drama, not a reputable(?) News broadcast and does not “feed information”

“Put yourself in the place of a complainer at Chiltern Park, you now have added ammo to close down the airfield “Not only is it noisy, but it has the potential to mount a terrorist attack!”

Sorry Avid, but the fact is you don’t need a named airfield to launch a terroist attack from using a light aircraft so should all aircraft/flying machines including hang gliders and powered parachutes be banned? Are we becoming as paranoid as the Americans in the programme?

On the subject of the Firefly accident: Read the thread on the FlyPast forum and see how it unravels.

oh, you dont think the plot lines in spooks ever happen? says who?

😀

I like spooks its fun to watch, I think the important thing for me was trying to decide how it would be possible to shoot down a microlight with a sidewinder……..

if you believe these programmes you’ll believe anything, and more often than not you deserve whats coming to you because of that.

coanda

Moggy,

I do normally enjoy ‘Spooks’ but thought this one was just too plausable – maybe because it involved something close to my own heart – i.e. private flying!

It’s all well and good saying ‘chill’, but we all know how gullible the general public can be if they are fed information from a ‘reputable source’ such as the TV.

‘YOU’ know its not true and ‘I’ know its not true, but its the impression it gives the ‘uninformed’ watcher who know very little about the sport.

What about the people who fly from Chiltern Park? I don’t think there are any airfields in this country that do not have any complainers. Put yourself in the place of a complainer at Chiltern Park, you now have added ammo to close down the airfield “Not only is it noisy, but it has the potential to mount a terrorist attack!” Moggy, you and I know this is rubbish – but do the public, and do the planning authorities?

Just look at how the US media jumped upon that kid crashing his Cessna into the Tampa tower block. The media like to make a mountain out of a mole hill and when it comes to aviation they seem to get their knickers in a twist very easily.

On that subject, if this programme had been shown in the USA the AOPA would’ve written to the proigramme manufacturers and demanded that they retract the errorneous information – what have AOPA UK done? Have they got out of bed yet?

On the subject of the firefly – that was just something I read on the web, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was true. Even if the families did know before the footage was shown, was there any need to show it at all? Didn’t it say on the FP forum that the film came from the airshow video? I would hope everyone boycotts the video this year on principal.

I would hope that no photos make it into the magazines either – very distastful. I remember seeing a graphic sequence of pictures of Martin Sargent’s demise in the Spitfire in France in Mrs Avid’s ‘Hello’ magazine! What possible relevance does a warbird accident have to a magazine showing posh birds in frocks?

Avid

Chill Avid!

I watched the programme. It wasn’t real. It’s a story and the things in it don’t really happen.

I just gave myself a reality check and thought, ” Maybe Avid has a point, what if the guy had been flying a small Piper?”. Still don’t reckon I’d have got as worked up as you seem to be. It really is just fiction. (And I must admit I enjoyed it thoroughly)

One the other topic (Sky and Sunday) UNCHILL!! 😡

If that is actually true they must be taken to task. Do we know this for a fact or is it just rumoured?

Moggy