This man who made us laugh as Rimmer on Red Dwarf is a delight hosting these shows- he does if with style and grace.

I didn't realize who he was until he talked about the "left turn signal" being like a salute he was familiar with.

Had to laugh when Chris was driving the Morris 8 and making reference to how one signalled a left-turn in a car with no indicator lights....akin to a certain salute he made elsewhere..... smeggin' hell that was classic!

Chris Barrie! What a guy!

Rimmer sure does a great job Presenting!!!!

Chris Barrie playing with a toy car and making noises...PRECIOUS!!

Croydon air field, now has a musuem,. The place where the term 'Mayday' was invented. Chris Barrie is a genuine vintage vehicle enthusiast. He does know what he 's talking about , and can do it. Rapides were operated in the early 1930's to Jersey. They landed on St Aubin's Beach. There is an acident report of one machine, hitting the harbour wall on take off.

They hired the wrong Chris when they hired for Top Gear

this is my favorite series right now.

"It bears resemblance to a certain salute I have to perform every now and then" :D

Really good doc - the usual cliches but done with charm and some interesting facts for the enthusiastic

Thanks for sharing! Love seeing these shows in US via the modern formats we have now!

When my parents got married my mother did not have a driver’s license. Dad taught her and they left Woodsboro Maryland mom driving and went to Westminster Maryland where the test was given. When the inspector asked her where she lived and she told him he then asked did she drive the whole way she said yes. That was her entire test as inspector said if you could drive that distance over that road you pass.

Great video, thank you for the upload

Fascinating and informative.

Great video, as usual. Packard Motors in the US were granted rights to make the Merlin. They took the design and perfected it, building an enormous factory to churn them out. There's a film on KZfaq documenting this. The Packard version had fewer parts, greater efficiency and reliability. So sad that Packard "packed it in" after the war.

Actually the Hurricane did most of the fighting against the bombers, the Spitfires went after the German fighters.

I think that the Dragon looked very advanced for the day. The cabin especially !!!

I loved the bird flying faster than the train!

only thing better than a spitfire idling on the apron is going to be a lancaster with all 4 merlins idling!

WE had the Y2K Spit here in Comox last year. What a thrill!

Thanks for shearing !!

Two flying Spits are based at Sywell, Northants, & regularly fly right over my house on their way to Duxford, and back via Sibbertoft, unmistakeable sound. You can have a 20 minute joyride for £2800 (plus VAT). (Also, one of the last flights of the Vulcan flew right over me at about 800'. Amazing,)

And a Double Rimmer Salute to you Sir!

Wind in wind tunnels is drawn through, not blasted through as this causes turbulence.

Spitfire is definitely worth to metion but it's so annoying that Hurricane is always underestimated.

No offense to the Spitfire, she was after all a great plane, but Hurricane's played a much bigger part in defending England during the battle. But I was impressed that they included the information about the Snyder Cup. Good video.

Hurricane is always overlooked lol. Why does every documentary always forget about the hurricane.

Love that Mark Felton intro music.

Lol! it's so funny watching Chris doing this programme , i'm still thinking , 'Rimmer', coz he's exactly the same! haha!

It's true, he was great as Rimmer, and he is great here. I hope he makes some movies

ace rimmer- What a guy!

Now they should put passengers through size boxes based on the standard size & spacing of coach seating. If they don’t fit, they must buy an extra ticket.

The Spitfire was truly a masterpiece of engineering at that time. The Rolls Royce engine sounds great and performs very well. It had only one flaw...the carburetor. It prevented it from making loops like the German fighter planes could because they had gasoline injection. A carburetor will simply empty itself when tipped upside down, thus the engine will die in a matter of seconds.

de Havilland Dragon Rapide: I used to see them everyday on the Isle of White-Croydon route with the mail.

In WW2 my father was medevaced in a Dragon Rapide....told me that the wings flexed alarmingly

What a guy!!!

Note the bird challenging the train's speed (21:05 to 21:15).

Schneider Trophy When the French and Italian teams dropped out, leaving no other competitors, the British team flew the course alone on 13 September and won the coveted Schneider Trophy outright.

26:16 "Smoked kipper", now where have I heard that before?!😄😄😄

When I was a kid plane-spotter at Heathrow airport's open-air public area in the mid 1950s, you could have a joy-ride in Dragon Rapide for thirty shillings ... way more than I could afford.

A little fact that is understandably over looked about Mallards record run was the fact that it broke itself in doing so. One of its bearings inside got too hot and desintegrated. Then had to be towed back for repair. I'm all for a bit of national pride. But if asked to do it again and again, It simply couldn't.

Fascinating

at least no H on Rimmer's forehead...the race to Australia included the KLM doing a normal routine. The RAF named it Dominie. Even the Irish had such aircraft :)

The Rolls Royce R type, the engine block later developed to become the Griffon, powering later marks of Spitfire. (XII, XIV/XIX, XVIII, 21, 22 & 24)

"You might resemble a Stoked Clipper!"

in USA we did streamlined locos BUT maintaining was a pain in the butt cause the streamlining on the loco

Smoke him a kipper, he'll be back for breakfast!

LOL "One would hope so Sir."

Mum took me and my sister for holiday to Blackpool about 1948. I don’t know how it happened but a chap offered mum my fare and so I went on a trip in a DH Rapide flying for the first time around the tower.

21:07 Did anyone notice the Pheasant?

Spitfire "After the aircraft’s rejection in 1934, Mitchell and his team revised the designed under the designation Type 300 which would result in a whole Ministry specification based around it and become known as the Spitfire." Spitfire Society Mitchell

The water in that horse trough looked nasty.....

I love his style I wonder what make his clothes are?

Dragon Rapide i have flown in one of these at Biggin Hill very slow when you take off it looks like the plane has stopped i think it takes off at 60 miles an hour the plane i went in had duck boards on the floor because underneath was just canvas so for a quick exit just step of the boards

When is the episode about the Hammond organ?

Sweden also used Unemployed people to build roads these are called AK-roads in Sweden AK comes from the Unemployment committee's initials (in swedish)

The greatest locomotive of all time is a matter of opinion. Some might say that it was the London Midland Scottish's Black Five, others; the Great Western's Hall, or the London North Eastern's A4.

I actually passed my tests car and Mcycle using hand signals 1961 ! When did indicators take over ?

I've flown in the rapide dragon. It's a great plane.

2:12 that bloke's rug is unforgiveable...

Hard to believe the still much depended on DC3 was developed in the 30s.

I guess it didn't mention the hurricane because this was about cutting edge tech?? P.S. always thought the crusader 'looked' right.

I love the 30s. The styles and technologies. However, I do realize I love the 30s because I didn’t live them as one of the 99% of the population.

Music sound track is by The Beta Brothers, checkout more audio clips at their website here: betabrothers(.)co(.)uk/music-for-tv/national-geographic/5-chris-barrie-britains-greatest-machines-series-1.html

All the period clips shown when talking about the Panzer III were actually of the Panzer II.

He's so English ! ☺☺

Not the not so deliberate mistake ..... in the model of the wind tunnel (22 mins) ...... the fan is put in front of the model , which breaks up the clean flow, the usual position, as i understand it, is behind the model, so there is laminar flow over the model & by the time it gets to the fan the information has been gained.

how come tea isnt on this list?

Smeeeeee...Smeeeeeeeg...Heeeeeee...Smeeeeeg...Heeeeed

the man who make aircraft to said he dead before went to service

Was Chris the inspiration for Alan Partridge?

/?April 22nd 19....is that timw NY GOOD?

The U.S. does give a same if most deals aren't done in the USD!

Just to add ... The Gresley Mallard was limited in top speed basically because even when fitted with auto stoking - the coal couldn't be fed in quick enough. Second - the Spitfire and S6 / S6B were GLYCOL cooled not water ..

38:20 they might as well not even put any glass in there at all. Not like you could see anything anyway.

Croydon Airport looks the same as Rand Airport, near Johannesburg, to this day - that was also designed and built in about 1930!

21:10 anyone else notice the pheasant?

Rimmer rules"

YOLO!

What happened with the 1970's?

As a youngster I flew from Aberdeen (Dyce) to Skye in a Rapide....and the pilot was a woman...and she parked it herself......

I hope they really didn't use that dirty trough water in that great steam truck....

Maybe he does only live once. Theoretically possible I suppose.

@45:18 that's not how that works...

how about the de havlilland comet first jet airliner

Poland not so much the pk3 but the pk1 and pk2.

"The engines sound very smooth, very strong at the moment... Lets hope that remains the case" Yes, Thats always my thought on a plane as well.

The Spitfire was amazing in many aspects, but firepower was not one of them lol.

It was hurricane ,who saved England from the hin will Merlin to turn it's prop and 8 Browning guns

`27 litre to produce 340 horse ,,,, and today a 5 litre can produce 340 horse with easy and do

Yes England did have a world beating, or at least German Luftwaffe (With Huge Tactical and Strategic help from the ever arrogant German Goreing--who never did get a develop a good understanding of the tactics of Air Warfare and Air Power even in World War One when he was given command of the famous, and infamous, Flying circus after Germany's Ace of Aces was killed, the Red Baron--and of course old Adolf Hitler himself, at almost every step in the crucial battle that ultimately led to Germany's defeat). And that Fighter Aircraft was....The Hurricane, not the Spitfire, although in fairness the combination was very important. But the fact is that not only were there far more Hurricanes available when the battle began but due to the car simpler construction methods and materials far more Hurricanes could be produced than could Spitfirrs with their cutting edge technologies and materials that few could initially master, at a time when raw numbers were far more important than the slight advantages the Spitfire might offer, although on the whole both were roughly equal in the skies at that time. The Hurricanes could also be repaired and put back into service far quicker than the Spitfires as well. It was mostly due to those very attributes of the Hurricane that England quickly realized more new and repaired aircraft closing to the fighter based than were lost daily in combat, far outproducing the German factories. However, due to that baffling English trait of extreme stubbornness especially when it's obvious it's wrong, all was not a rosey picture and almost cost England the war. The Rolls Merlin engines for both the Spitfire and Hurricane were not fuel injected as the German 109s were, giving the Germans a huge set of advantages. They had the luxury of entering or exiting combat at will simply by divig, which would cost the British pilot his life of he did the same to follow evade as his engine would quit. Also the decision to modify the Browning M2 .50 Cal Machine Guns they were armed with to fire the standard British army rifle .303 Round meant that both fighters had realistically endemic hitting power especially if the English pilots engaged at the maximum ranges they were instructed to and trained for before the war. The bomber gunners on the big heavy bombers and coastal patrol never did switch to heavier caliburguns. Dowding believed the RAF was undergunned even from the being until the fighters finally went with the heavier 20mm cannons, although many still believe that Six .50 Cal fast firing MGs like most American fighters carried, would still have given the spits greater hitting power than the much slower fireing 2 or 4 20mm cannons. What cannot be argued is that many more German aircraft would have never returned to England had the British fighters been armed with the .50 or 20mm options, how many no One can guess but at that time every single German shot down could literally have made the difference between victory or defeat both in the battle and war.

"Mass production techniques, pioneered by Morris's factory guru, Leonard Lord, meant the cars were plentiful and cheap." England had Leonard Lord, America had Henry Ford. Ford? Lord? Interesting "coincidence", don't you think?

Who's just hear for the A4s like i am

5:37 #yolo

Smeg Head !

in an otherwise excellent series - out on a limb with the spitfire wing appraisal :: the elliptical design was originally a german research model keenly employed by supermarine :: eight .303 bore guns proved both ineffective in attack and tiresome to reload :: but chocks away H :: who would ever have thought . . . an HaightchGeeVee licence has thee bah gum !!

Ct by

ples say km/h

I’d be afraid to get in to that first plane. If it isn’t Lear or Bombardier I won’t fly in it. Spitfire was the greatest for Britain maybe. But not the greatest fighter in WW2. The greatest fighter in WW2 was the P-51D Mustang. And yes I agree. The Spitfire is just a beautiful aircraft. But Mustang. “Mustang is a dirty little shark”.