Watched 3 out of 4 so far. The program is clearly pitched at giving people that have no previous interest in airports, an insight into how interesting it actually is. The presenter is probably tasked to ask the questions joe public would ask. James May as somebody that knows about engineering and has a general interest in aviation, would probably ask more probing questions and take it to the next level, but only if he's allowed to make it up as he goes along, and the questions are not pre scripted in a production meeting.
Anyone with some sort of interest will have already found out most of the stuff they are presenting from sites like this and the pointers to other sites. I fly once a year, I generally browse the site occasionally, but at the moment i'm looking at the VS73 schedules for my hols, and prior to that the refurb info from last years hols. So I have no more than a passing interest in planes and airports, but credit to this site and other sites, I've picked up more knowledge than they were presenting on the program, so I can certainly see why seasoned veterans of this site see the program as a bit simplistic and boring.
I was quite interested in the division of labour in ATC, than the juggling act they do with the planes. As an ex restaurant chef, I did the same mental juggling act with food, making sure that different orders are cooking, some are starting whilst others are almost served, and of course making sure they are all ready at the same time, but not the next tables, as then they might burn while you server the first etc. It's a similar mental process obviously without the pressure of risk to life.
The bits that informed me were the tight turnaround times for the engineering works and in the paint shop. I expected it to be out today, airborne tomorrow, not up within hours of leaving the hangar.
The brakeman, whilst you would never think to ask if they had someone sat in the plane, it's quite logical that they are there when you think about risking millions of pounds of aircraft for the sake of a bloke with his foot on the brakes.
Nobody asked what possesses passengers that check in and then don't know what time they need to be at the gate, that's the question I want the answer to (excluding when it's alcohol !).
I subscribed because I was travelling MAN-MCO in economy, and was probably looking for reviews of the films or food.
