The prequel to ATV’s celebrated boardroom drama The Power Game, The Plane Makers follows the fortunes of a leading airplane development company and its managing director, the ruthlessly ambitious John Wilder (Patrick Wymark). This series features guest appearances by, among others, Garfield Morgan, Geoffrey Chater, Anthony Newlands and Malcolm Tierney.
Scott Furlong Ltd. is about to launch into the fiercely competitive world of government-backed military contracts, with the prototype development of the Predator – a supersonic, vertical-take-off fighter bomber. But in entering the supersonic rat-race, Wilder is embarking on a path of struggle and heartbreak that stretches to the corridors of Whitehall…
Wonderful. Though I didn't see this when it aired I thought it was really excellent when I watched the Series 2 set. (You'll have a job watching Series 1 - I think only one epsiode exists - though this won't spoil your enjoyment of Series 2). Indeed, I enjoyed it so much that I ordered 'The Power Game' in the recent sale, though haven't watched it yet. This is excellent news.
Yes this is great news. This will complete the release of The Plane Makers I believe, so we will now have on DVD all the episodes of the series that still exist!
However it is unclear from the catalogue listing when actually Set 3 will be released. Can anyone confirm this please?
I'd love to see a full photo of the aircraft on the cover, the one with the nose cropped. It looks like the Fairey FD2 or possibly the BAC 221 (FD2 rebuilt with Concorde shape wing as a aerodynamic testbed) but neither of these had bicycle maingear with wing outiggers, which are more suggestive of Harrier but the intakes are too small. The cover art aircraft is suggestive of FD2 but with a really fat arse.
Edit: A quick google reveals one photo and it looks to be a copy of FD2 but with what appear to be fuselage mounted lift engines, so I've a feeling it's something French, as they had a fad for delta winged stuf in the late 50s.
"It's basically a cure... for not being an axe-wielding homicidal maniac... the potential market's enormous!"
I'm about half way through viewing this now. Obviously a big change of pace from the previous series, with the switch to the military aircraft. It would be interesting to know how much of the format was dictated by availability of cast. Wilder is not present in every episode, and indeed one of the best stories so far has been one where everyone runs around trying to guess what Wilder is up to (Only a Few Millions).
The stories are much more concentrated on the antagonism between Wilder and the Merchant Bank, on the one hand, and Wilder and his internal rival David Corbett. Almost none of the stories are concerned with the lower level managers, and the ordinary workers are almost invisible.
Alan Dobie, as the aircraft designer, David Corbett is an interesting contrast to Wilder's previous rival Arthur Sugden. Sugden had integrity and bluntess, but Corbett is a teetotal, non-smoking zealot, interested only in creating the best-possible VTOL jet (as opposed to Wilder who is more interested in getting the jet into production quickly and sold). Dobie reminds me of Raymond Massey as the futuristic "Wings over the World" pilot in Things To Come.
