A/V Geeks Lunch 7-30

hi everybody i'm skip alzheimer and welcome to the av geeks lunchtime streaming show um where we watch old 16 millimeter films from the av geeks 16 millimeter collection uh this is pre-recorded i'm taking a two-week break from doing live shows but i still wanted to share films from the collection kind of keep that momentum going and so i appreciate you tuning in even though i'm not physically doing this exactly at the same time that you're watching it does that matter i don't know um anyways uh so i've been picking some themes to show and today is airplanes flight commercial air flight uh so i've got three films uh the first one is a castle film and castle was a film company that uh released short subjects uh to the home market so this is before home video this is basically making uh eight millimeter super eight and sixteen millimeter uh films that were based on either newsreel footage or uh travelogue footage or cartoons uh that they would license and kind of digest also features um and so it was very popular because you would have um home amateur uh movie makers who were shooting home movies or whatever uh they would have a projector excuse me they'd go to a camera store and they'd either be a little display or there would be a catalog for castle films and you could order them uh or buy them at the camera store and a wide variety of subjects um most of them were black and white and silent and they would have intertidals but this one is one that is 16 and actually has sound i know of some color castle films very rare but they exist uh and these films in general aren't very rare um they show up all the time on ebay they show up at uh garage sales they show estate sales they show up in uh vintage um antique stores uh and there's a lot of them um i'm sure that some of them are rare like i was saying the color ones are rare but uh a lot of them aren't so you'll see the same abbott and costellos over and over again and wc fields and things like that but anyways this one has sound it's 16 millimeter and is flying action so it traces uh using newsreel footage it traces different uh periods of time in flight um and i feel like it goes i think this is pre world war ii but i could be wrong but let's watch and find out here's flying action [Music] enjoy it's flying action on the screen the camera record of man's conquest to the skies through the magic of this pictorial record we give you history written in the heavens drama made in the clouds it was back in 1903 that the pioneering wright brothers orville and wilbur flew the first heavier-than-air machine above the sands of kill devil hill at kitty hawk north carolina [Music] then came blerio flying his animated box kite across the english channel fearless women like ruth law forced the coining of a new word aviatrix [Music] by the advent of world war one the plane was not only a gadget it was a weapon here's eddie rickenbacker and his famous lafayette escadrille the head in the ring squadron which engaged in so many aerial combats with the black nose richtofen squadron [Music] those early dogfighters were still a long way however from the fighting plane of today it took general billy mitchell to show that planes could sink battleships [Music] bombs away and the battleship is sunk but for many the plane still not proved itself more pioneers were needed and more pioneers were found such as the daredevil pilots who were first to prove the mail must go through on wings there was the hero lindbergh who took his spirit of saint louis across the ocean to paris non-stop there were will rogers and wily post who lost their lives but who remained deathless heroes of the air amelia earhart who flew off into the wild blue yonder ruth elder a great woman pilot here's ruth nichols another gal who proved that women raided wings it was a risky business flying in those days and sometimes fate to matter the sacrifice here's gene bales and his power packed speedster the gb caught by the camera in an unforgettable shot as it breaks into flames above the airfield burning wreckages his monument and here is that great silver cigar called the hindenburg queen of the lighter than air fleet a static spark ignites the hydrogen in her tanks and in a few steering seconds she crumbles to the ground a charred and smoldering wreckage of a great liner of the air [Music] undaunted men kept trying to fly in gyros that take off and land on a bed sheet in a strange helicopter that hovers flies backwards and lands on a dime and there were stranger contraptions too many a man with a high flying imagination wound up with his face in the dirt this pedal pusher was perfectly designed except for one little point it couldn't fly here's a rocket bike with wings or how to get a hot foot while sitting down [Music] and here's a human glider but it was in world war ii that the plane really wrote history in the skies first the dread dive bombers the stukas peppered the ground with machine guns their screaming dives spearheaded the axis drive across europe until british planes and akkak drove them back the plane became the carrier of those courageous parachutists who hit the silk here's the p-39 air cobra with a cannon in its nose and the tomahawk the ship the flying tigers flew into the air with the flying fortress the b-17 and its mate deliberator b-24 pressing home 1000 plane attacks but getting their bombs away while their wingmates were going down in flames in the late stages of the european war came the buzz bomb a 400 mile an hour planetless plane that could only be caught and shot down by a jet interceptor off the drawing boards came great banana-shaped helicopters able to drop combat soldiers and supplies miles behind enemy lines bigger bombs required bigger bombers like this intercontinental b-36 with six piston and four jet engines supplying a mighty thrust of power in the very last days in europe we saw the jet fighters changing fighter tactics assaulting the very barrier of sound itself in the pacific it was still a carrier war corsairs and hellcats launch from carrier decks fill the sky and scorch the enemy back to his homeland his weapon of reply was kamikaze the suicide plane attack pressed home at the cost of the plane in the pilot boat and what a toll the kamikazes took before the victory was won [Music] the war over aircraft development turned completely toward jets reaction thrust took planes up to 700 miles an hour jet fighters required jet interceptors [Music] so among strange new experiments with the norfolk prying wing a frightening vision of the future and here's the hot new jet bomber the b47 stratojet with swept back wings and speed near the sound barrier and a landing speed so hot a parachute had to be released to slow it down for the approach to earth not being fast enough the rocket was built into a plane and the xs-1 dropped from the bomb bay of a mother ship straight through the sky at close to 1500 miles an hour [Music] as for the future well it looks like this giant rockets burning liquid oxygen and alcohol maneuvered by electronic devices point their noses into the sky to other continents other planets who knows where but always climbing through space to write another great chapter in the exciting history of flying action that was great i i definitely like it and it has that news real feel to it uh with the with the narrator the excited narrator and the music and all that stuff so this next film is an educational film it's called airport in the jet age and it's trying to show young people um what an airport is a lot of kids had never flown before because it was cost prohibitive and so this is just showing uh transportation and what how it works um and so you can learn about it uh and the fact that this is in the jet age is you know there's now international travel and there's uh you can get from one side of the country to the other very quickly and so that's what these this film is uh showing us so let's enjoy airport and the jet age this jetliner is going to the airport mr stewart is going to the airport too he works there mr stewart works in the control tower of one of the busiest airports in the world southwest 1-0 cleared to land runway 2-5 hi norm how's it going today oh paul no problems landed about a dozen last half hour but i saved about a dozen for you oh thanks a lot buddy what's the next inbound quiet 738 on fire okay behind the friendly joking lies a deep sense of responsibility for the lives of thousands of people there are more than a thousand flights a day going in and out of this airport it's the job of these men who are called air traffic controllers to direct and control the coming and going of these flights so that there will be no accidents or interference between aircraft flight 739 this is los angeles tower cleared to land runway 2-5 when west 1-0 mr stewart's job is to give incoming planes permission to land it takes several men each doing a specific job to safely control the traffic at a busy airport flight 733 this is la ground control cleared runway 25 number five for departure giving aircraft permission to taxi is the responsibility of a second controller flight 569 cleared for takeoff runway 2-5 a third air traffic controller is responsible for giving aircraft permission to take off from the top floor of the tower the controllers get a clear view of the entire airport the huge parking lot is for passengers the low building is one of seven passenger terminals at the airport a tunnel connects it with the building where the planes come to load and unload flight 755 this is los angeles tower cleared to land runway 2-5 flight 755 has carried 103 passengers non-stop from chicago to los angeles the plane's next assignment is flight 766 non-stop to new york and leaving in just two hours many people who work at the airport will now work together doing a variety of jobs to get this plane ready to leave on its next flight on time accordion-like corridors called jetways enable the passengers to leave the plane quickly and comfortably regardless of the weather as soon as the passengers have left the plane work is begun to prepare it for its next flight jet fuel is pumped into the plane from underground tanks experienced mechanics carefully checked the powerful jet engines at the same time in the airline dispatch office the flight crew for flight 766 has reported to make out their flight plan the pilot captain george rogers will select the route altitude and speed for the trip to new york he is assisted by his co-pilot first officer tom dickinson and by his flight engineer jim peterson the flight crew must have the latest weather information in order to make out their flight plan this weather map is being transmitted by wire from a central weather bureau in washington anything new on the fax machine no it's still good to new york good these maps were transmitted earlier some show storm areas others wind direction tailwinds all the way everything looks fine let's sign the clearance and let's go have a cup of coffee good flight 766 leaves at five o'clock so dinner will be served on the plane these dinners are being prepared now assembly line style in one of several flight kitchens at the airport some of the people who will eat these meals are arriving at the airport now do you know why they have come by helicopter not so many years ago commercial airliners were small and didn't need very big airports but the jetliners of today need lots of room and make lots of noise for these two reasons the modern jet airport is likely to be located far from the center of the city it serves far enough to make a trip by helicopter a useful time saver for passengers who can't spare the hour or so it may take to travel to the airport by taxi or car or bus los angeles airways helicopter flight 133 harold white is a salesman his office in new york has just phoned him to get there as quickly as possible he wants to buy a ticket on flight 766 if there is still space available on it this machine and hundreds like it throughout the nation is connected with a giant electronic computer which records each ticket sale and can indicate if there is space available on a particular flight yes sir i can confirm you on flight 766. good that's wonderful some of these passengers will also fly out on flight 766. this small airliner has arrived from a city 100 miles away many passengers at the airport transfer from short local flights like this to transcontinental jet flights this is the williamson family judy and bob williamson are flying with their parents on flight 766 to visit their grandparents in new york city [Music] mr williamson purchased his tickets several days ago at a ticket agency so the williamsons can check in at a counter for passengers who already have their tickets one of the big jobs at a modern jet airport is handling the luggage for all the people who fly in and out first of all the luggage must be weighed to avoid overloading the plane then each bag is tagged idl stands for idlewild airport in new york this machine electronically directs the luggage to the proper flight and starts it on its way through the basement of the terminal building along an elaborate system of conveyors finally the luggage is loaded into a container which fits right into the baggage compartment of a jet aircraft flight 766 non-stop for new york will depart from boarding area 79. a fast runner might beat his luggage to the plane but not the average family at another part of the airport aircraft especially designed for carrying freight come to be loaded and unloaded when fast delivery is important there's no better way to ship freight than buy air many tons of airborne freight move through the airport's freight terminal every day the passenger agent for boarding area 79 checks tickets to make sure that passengers are boarding the right plane there are more than 60 boarding areas in this airport flight 766 non-stop for new york is in the final boarding process at boarding area 79 passengers holding space on this flight should be on board [Music] captain rogers calls the tower and receives clearance to taxi to the end of the runway a few minutes later flight 766 is in position for takeoff los angeles tower this is flight 766 ready for takeoff flight 766 this is los angeles tower cleared for takeoff runway 2-5 as it grows darker brilliant lights are turned on to help direct inbound flights to the runways the jet age airport day and night a complex busy gateway to our major cities okay uh this last film is uh it's interesting because it's a un film made by the united nations and it's hosted by aleister cook um a distinguished british guy uh who actually i think he does a colliers um i have a sponsored film where he is trying to convince people to sell collier's encyclopedias um so it's not very distinguished in that one but um yeah this is looking at uh international air flight commercial air flight and all the logistics associated with it and how the un came up with a government governing body that tried to all the different laws and rules in different countries regarding air flight try to come up with some basic guidelines some standards of to ensure safety and fast uh efficient processing of flights coming in and out and so i like this because it's a look at the infrastructure of what was going on at that time when uh commercial air flight was really taking off taking off and i get it all right so here's a flight 108 this man is an airline pilot he lives about 10 miles from idlewild and he drives to his work now you might think this is pretty dangerous work and some recent newspaper headlines might lead you to guess that this man is insurable at a rather high premium but according to the insurance companies the most dangerous part of his journey is already over [Music] so [Music] it says here breakfast in karachi lunch in london supper in san francisco and sometimes we have to add luggage in rome today we're going to look into the crowded sky and consider air safety now it's an odd thing about the human mind that it seems to be so constituted that when you say the phrase air safety most people think of its opposite air disaster every time a plane crashes in tibet or kansas we are grateful that we were not aboard and yet when 450 people are killed on a holiday weekend on the highways we don't say it might have been me every day 500 000 people get off the ground take the planes and fly in all sorts of weather and all sorts of landscapes and come safely to their destinations how safe is air travel well the insurance companies who employ experts to figure risks they put in a rather vivid way it does not cost an airline pilot one penny more to buy a life insurance policy than it costs a librarian or a grocer now the point of all this is simply that statistically aviation is one of the safest forms of transport but it's not safe enough and in some countries it's a very big issue and as you will soon see it is of special concern to the united nations civil aviation started after the first world war the first airliners were converted bombers of the 1918 vintage and the first airline passengers were people moved by urgency or bravado the machines of that period were creaky and underpowered and the pilots were by today's standards deaf and blind flying was a daytime fair weather sport sometimes a desperate expedient things are now quite different for years airliners have been flying at night in weather both fair and foul and pilots have been able to supplement their physical senses with all sorts of new devices flying is busier more complex faster more important and necessary than ever before let's have some [Music] the flight which follows is typical of today's international airline procedure because idlewild has the greatest traffic density of any airport in the world we shall focus the traffic problem by showing both a take-off and a landing at the same airport [Music] idlewild [Music] now we're going to break the law of gravity the shape of this plane and the power of its engines is going to help us to overcome gravity by lift and defeat drag by thrust and up front there are some very skilled men who are going to see that this goes according to plan checklist roger ready for checklist ready for checklist wheels block safety landing gear lever down for cabin oxygen pressure check equipment cooling control automatic oxygen panels and mass check circuit breakers all checked and in warning system lights check flow meter power normal battery and dc power check battery on electrical panel check and set fuel quantity and distribution distribution normal quantity 37 000 fuel panel checked and set fuel flow meters reset hydraulic fluid full engine start pressure 3000 each bottle air conditioning and pressurization panel set fuel done complicated quantity technical of course but every complicated piece of equipment or procedure consists of a great number of essentially simple things things that any of us can understand anti-skid spoiler switches passenger oxygen valves no smoking seat belt sign on even say exit light armed q inlet heat off rudder and aileron trim neutral just stop checklist complete at the airport terminal other men are busy making sure that our flight goes well the flight plan has been filed and approved which means that a highway has been set aside for us in the sky all right ask for texting clearance please roger idlewild ground this is only a jet 108 request taxi clearance please aaron you're one zero eight 108 ottawa crowns by the outer perimeter right turn tax away hotel taxi two hole chart three one left wind northwest one zero the altimeter two nine seven three time one six four one roger atc clears air india one zero eight by the idaho southwest radio bacon that's the idlewild one two zero radial to hampton 252 radial to hampton pick the 46 south nantucket flight plan route now the men in the control tower and the men up front are combining their concentration and considerable technical skill to the problem of getting us off the ground now there are several other things that we need to ensure a safe flight we have to have first obviously a well-built well-designed plane we have to have airports with long strong enough runways accurately sighted we have to have an air traffic system that can separate planes both laterally and vertically we have to know a good deal about the weather all along the route preferably we should be in continuous contact with the ground with for which we have to have all kinds of navigational equipment beacons charts and so on we have to have enough of all these things now whenever you read in a newspaper that there's been an air disaster one of these things much more likely a combination a rather freakish combination of these things has gone wrong they don't often go wrong last year the airways of the world managed 108 million separate safe flights like the one we're on that was checked three my side who's my side check take off checklist complete okay idlewild air india jet 108. permission to take off please over check minimum power please [Music] no dead you're up yeah going up okay tracking on one to zero radio roger [Music] thank you now at this point you may well wonder what the united nations is doing getting into civil aviation let's put it this way at this moment all around the world thousands of people are taking off from the ground the ground on which for millions of years they've learned to live on now in europe and the middle east asia and africa the air traffic density is getting worse every month and on those continents remember they have many frontiers which in the united states we do not have so that when you fly across europe you cross a frontier seconds divide one language from another one system of law from another one culture from that of its neighbor now who's going to call the term what language should the pilot speak what landing instruction should be obeyed by a pilot of one country who's making an emergency landing in another to bring some sense and order into this traffic jam of the world's airways the nations decided that they had better get together and establish a world order that's why the united nations is getting into it and that's why just now we're going over to montreal montreal canada is the headquarters of the international civil aviation organization of the united nations a member of the un family a specialized agency as it's called the secretary general of eko is a canadian mr ronald mcdonald pilots and controllers navigators and radar operators must today be able to speak the same language in more senses than one they must be able to understand each other whatever the nationality or the mother tongue what's more they must agree on how things are to be done the business of reaching that agreement is our problem here at the international civil aviation organization eko for short you've heard about some of the services required to get a plane up in the air to keep it up there safely and to bring it down safely at its destination when it comes to international flying every one of these services is our concern how an airliner is designed and built how strong a runway must be the kinds of people who operate aircraft their training and their licensing air traffic coordination the navigator's tools and maps and so on you may well ask what do we at ako do about all these things we operate no radars we fly no planes we man no airports but in our meeting rooms and around our tables they assemble the civil aviation administrators and experts for most of the world together they work out and agree on the minimum international standards the essential hardcore of safety which then forms the practical basis for international flying by all nations flight safety is an international problem never have the airlines been so crowded with such large fast internationally moving objects and the pace is steadily increasing this problem could only be approached in an international way and it has been so you see the main problem of air safety is separating air traffic just keeping planes apart because remember a plane is not assigned a position behind another plane on a highway like an automobile it must have a clear highway all the way to its destination and with three or four planes going from point a to point b this is easy common sense takes over you fly left of this line i fly to the right you stay above ten thousand feet i'll stay below that's what happens in the country at large desert air strips and rural places so on but the aching problem of civil aviation today is the metropolis with its hundreds of planes landing and leaving when you approach a metropolis the air is the sky is no longer as wide as the horizon it begins to contract into a rather cramped mesh of highways crossing intersecting running in parallel running opposite to each other then what happens well sometimes this i look i'm considering the navy out of the way uh put the headset up one guy's got a crush on it because i'm using him he's in here [Music] all right why seven right because this is new york control center at one of the busiest hours of the day late afternoon essentially what these men are doing is the simple but always tricky job of keeping aircraft out of each other's way okay where's america american fire is out of the way 25 348 new york center and radar your present heading until three zero seconds then turn left to three zero five three zero five three sixty-five heading zero three zero two in the poughkeepsie vor advise you when you read it now this american is going to be shooting up your way okay bring them across here all right united 603 turn left immediately heading 240 for three minutes you're overtaking an american conveyor maintaining one two thousand radar officers hey joe saturation to the west no more altitudes available saturation point that's correct radar is the clue to sorting out these situations and giving the controllers the information on which they can base their decisions but the radar equipment in use in civil aviation today is blind in one important respect it does not measure height an air controller generally has a good picture of the relationship between the ground plan of his airport and the moving blips which represent planes flying in the air but he does not know without getting further information at what altitudes these planes are flying it looks all the same to him whether one is at five hundred feet another at fifty thousand or and this is the hazard where the both are at five thousand research is at present underway on radar equipment that will measure altitude proposals have been presented to eko and the first experimental tower has already been built but the use of these devices on airlines is still several years away now we have a man standing by who knows all about this kind of research and he'll be our guide to the kind of work that's being done to make tomorrow's airliners safe when they're flying at tomorrow's speeds his name is jerome lederer we know what kind of air traffic system is needed one day maybe not too far off we shall have it i am with the flight safety foundation an organization dedicated to making the airways safer i've also been a consultant for ikea and montreal how will it be different from the present system well for one thing the whole idea of using a human voice for instructions from ground to air will change that will be all automated each airplane will be allocated a moveable cube of airspace computers will probe for possible conflicts and pass solutions onto the controllers only near airports will this area system of automatic control have to give way to a channel type of approach to the runways work towards this kind of automated air traffic control system is underway right now various aspects of it are being researched here in the united states other activities and related fields are being pursued in england in the netherlands and in many other countries at some point the stage will have been reached when this system is considered ready for regular international airline use and at that point ikea will enter the picture and the system and perhaps competing ones with developed in other countries will be brought to the conference table at montreal there will be intensive consideration of all aspects cost practicability and scope finally an agreement will be reached an agreement to which all eko members will be asked to subscribe then the world's airlines will have taken another great step towards uniformity reliability and safety in the world's airline well that of course is all in the future and we are concerned with today or rather with tonight because we have a to get back to the ground and it seems that there's quite a bit of weather about and the pilot has asked for a gca a ground controlled approach to either wild idle while ground control this is air india jet 108 request gca approach air india 108 this is idlewild radar hear you loud and clear how do you hear me idle from air india 108 hear you loud and clear air india 108 in radar contact one one miles southwest of the airport heading zero one zero air india 108 if no transmissions receive for a period of five seconds on final proceed to and whole lido 1500 before we complete the final landing let's pause and look at the role that eko plays in it i am john bellringer of the ako technical secretariat the most critical phase of flight is the final approach to land and in this connection the instrument landing system was adopted by ko is an international standard some 12 years ago and today it serves the airlines on more than 400 runways of the world's airports additionally at a number of the larger international airports a precise radar system called ground controlled approach or gca is used to guide a pilot by the spoken word to a point from which he can land visually eko has developed technical specifications for gca which ensure that all installations will perform alike wherever they are located without the assistance of ils and gca many flights would need to be diverted to other aerodromes where the weather conditions are more favorable but this would be both expensive to the airline and inconvenient to the air passenger now let's watch and see how the jet aircraft you've been following is torqued down to a safe landing air india 108 turn right heading zero four zero roger early jet 108. okay 1500 feet maintaining your 108 is 1500 feet maintaining air india 108 now on final do not acknowledge further transmissions air india 108 nine miles from touchdown 300 feet right of course turn right heading zero four five you're india one zero eight turn right heading zero four seven on course eight miles from touchdown air india one zero eight seven miles from touchdown on course heading zero four seven air india one zero eight six and one half miles from touchdown on course approaching glide paths air india one zero eight 6 miles from touchdown on course air india 108 5 miles from touchdown on glide path on course begin descent miles from touchdown on course on glide path three miles from touchdown on course on glide path air indy108 clear to land runway four right here in the 108 passing the auto marker cleared to land runway four right wind north northeast five knots here in the 108 two miles from touchdown on course on glide path one and one half miles from touchdown on course on glide path one mile from touchdown on course on glide path over the approach lights on course on glide path over the end of the runway on course on glide path take over visually complete your approach grab your full flaps pull flat and radar out [Music] [Applause] [Music] just another landing just another flight strip to be cleared from the control board just another routine bread and butter miracle completed ladies and gentlemen that was an international zone study of the united nations role in air traffic safety together with a modest hint that airborne people of all countries would not be as safe as they are if the united nations had not its own international civil aviation organization goodbye [Music] so [Music] well that was great i enjoy i don't always do themed shows sometimes it's just kind of a pic of whatever i think is interesting or whatever kind of pops up but i enjoy when when i do a theme show you find a lot of common similarities between the films and um so i hope you enjoyed it and if you did uh one way you can show that you like us but besides hitting the like button is to buy some coffee you can go to www.buymeacoffee.com av geeks and buy coffee and even though i'm not doing this live i can assure you that i'm having coffee today because that is my one habitual thing my drug of choice um you can also go to avgeeks.com and see other things that we have online and we have dvds for sale there as well um and then like i said before hit like it's very simple doesn't hurt doesn't cost anything and um you can also subscribe tell other people about what we're doing get notifications and of course commenting and sharing are all really great ways to show your support for what we're doing uh i will be back either tomorrow or monday depending on what day it is um i don't know which day i'm gonna be showing this uh it might be kind of random but um i hope everybody has a great rest of your day and i will be back at the beginning towards the beginning of august um live so hopefully you guys are doing okay and we will see you soon take care