A film by Glyn Jones

The test pilot is one of the 20th-century's hero-figures. The mere name conjures up images of nerveless courage, death-defying heroism, 'the dashing gallant lad,' as one of them put it. But is he really like that? Or is he a much more skilled and calculating man? In this programme - presented in the week of the Farnborough Air Show - you can fly with the pilots, live with them, see how they are trained, and find out whether the myth remotely matches reality.
The BBC got willing help from the pilots. This was just as well since in some cockpits three is more than a crowd; remotely operated cameras mounted on various parts of the aircraft were also used to give some picture angles which have not been seen before.
Among the pilots appearing are such veterans as Jeffrey Quill, who test flew the Spitfire a few days after its first flight in 1936, and John Cunningham, still flying from Hatfield, where he pioneered the Comet.
(The war was his lucky break: page 8)