A letter I sent to the Wings Channel

This is the text of a letter I sent to the Programming Department at
the Wings Channel. If you have a comment, please be sure to send a
copy to me in case I miss it on the news group. Thanks.

AJ Harris


The letter:

I appreciate what you are trying to do with the Wings Channel.
However, the programming is becoming repetitive and boring. There's
only so much one wants to hear about the Luftwaffe and Alexei Tupolev.

Personally, I would love to see more about the history of the Powder
Puff Derby, Florence "Pancho" Barnes, the use of Soviet women pilots
during their "Great Patriotic War," the Female pilots of the 46th
Taman' Guards Bomber Regiment, etc.

This should provide enough material for several shows. I hope that
you will consider this and allow the Wings channel to live up to its
promise.

Thank you.

Sincerely, AJ Harris


cc: rec.aviation.piloting
rec.aviation.military

I must agree with you that the repetitive nature of programming is beginning
to become a turn-off. I personally would like to see more "recent" aviation
events. If I wanted that much history I'd switch to the history channel

I do like their new injections of "Learning to Fly" though.

JBaker
PP-ASEL, San Diego

"AJ" wrote in message
om...
This is the text of a letter I sent to the Programming Department at
the Wings Channel. If you have a comment, please be sure to send a
copy to me in case I miss it on the news group. Thanks.

AJ Harris


The letter:

I appreciate what you are trying to do with the Wings Channel.
However, the programming is becoming repetitive and boring. There's
only so much one wants to hear about the Luftwaffe and Alexei Tupolev.

Personally, I would love to see more about the history of the Powder
Puff Derby, Florence "Pancho" Barnes, the use of Soviet women pilots
during their "Great Patriotic War," the Female pilots of the 46th
Taman' Guards Bomber Regiment, etc.

This should provide enough material for several shows. I hope that
you will consider this and allow the Wings channel to live up to its
promise.

Thank you.

Sincerely, AJ Harris


cc: rec.aviation.piloting
rec.aviation.military

wrote in message
.. .
I must agree with you that the repetitive nature of programming is
beginning
to become a turn-off. I personally would like to see more "recent"
aviation
events. If I wanted that much history I'd switch to the history channel

I do like their new injections of "Learning to Fly" though.

JBaker
PP-ASEL, San Diego

Well, what you guys don't realize is that the 'Discovery Wings' channel
produces very, very, very little of it's own programming. Almost none,
actually. It is owned by the same company that owns the Discovery Channel
(obviously), the Hisory Channel and The Learning Channel. They have almost
zero production budget allocated exclusively to themselves, and compounded
with the fact that they are a brand-new channel, they are left to fill their
programming schedule with off-the-shelf shows that were in fact originally
produced for the History Channel or Discovery or TLC, as well as various
syndicated documentaries that may not have been originally produced for
broadcast at all (the documentary on stealth technology, for example, was
orginally produced by the Pentagon to show congressmen). 'Learning to Fly',
'Celebrity Wings' and I think one other new show are the first productions
to actually be originally created specifically for the channel.

As time goes on, and the popularity of the channel and it's programming
grows, so will it's budget and it's selection of shows. I remember when the
History channel looked very much like Wings does today.




"AJ" wrote in message
om...
This is the text of a letter I sent to the Programming Department at
the Wings Channel. If you have a comment, please be sure to send a
copy to me in case I miss it on the news group. Thanks.

AJ Harris


The letter:

I appreciate what you are trying to do with the Wings Channel.
However, the programming is becoming repetitive and boring. There's
only so much one wants to hear about the Luftwaffe and Alexei Tupolev.

Personally, I would love to see more about the history of the Powder
Puff Derby, Florence "Pancho" Barnes, the use of Soviet women pilots
during their "Great Patriotic War," the Female pilots of the 46th
Taman' Guards Bomber Regiment, etc.

This should provide enough material for several shows. I hope that
you will consider this and allow the Wings channel to live up to its
promise.

Thank you.

Sincerely, AJ Harris


cc: rec.aviation.piloting
rec.aviation.military

"Yossarian" wrote in message
t...
The student pilot on that show annoys the hell out of me. Instructor
seems
pretty good though.

Ditto. I just want to ring her neck.


wrote in message
.. .

I do like their new injections of "Learning to Fly" though.

JBaker
PP-ASEL, San Diego

"John T" wrote in news:b80bb05082fae505ebeb221a8f5fb103
@news.bubbanews.com:

"Thomas J. Paladino Jr." wrote in message


Well, what you guys don't realize is that the 'Discovery Wings'
channel produces very, very, very little of it's own programming.
Almost none, actually. It is owned by the same company that owns the
Discovery Channel (obviously), the Hisory Channel and The Learning
Channel.

"The History Channel" is an A&E network, not Discovery.

...compounded with the fact that they are a brand-new channel...

How old does a channel/station have to be before it is no longer "brand
new"?




I think that Wings is 4 or 5 years old now. It may be new to your cable
system, but it's been around for a while.

I just spent the weekend with a Discovery film crew. They are making a one
hour show about history re-enactments in aviation. They said they have 20
hours of stuff "in the can". Editing will reduce to the one hour - with
commercials.
VL

Yossarian wrote:

The student pilot on that show annoys the hell out of me. Instructor seems
pretty good though.

I have the opposite impression. The instructor often doesn't know what
he's talking about, and he never shuts up.

Tim

I am not an expert but I haven't noticed any glaring errors from the
instructor. What leads you to say "he often doesn't know what he's talking
about?" He may not be silent very much on camera but would YOU want to
watch long minutes of silence from the both of them as Kyle practices this
and that? That's called "dead air" in the trade, especially if the people
are just sitting there, and the first thing you edit out when putting
together a program. Last thing I'd want to see on TV is two people looking
around the sky and cockpit in silence for ten minutes as they climb to
altitude and get over to the practice area - almost as boring as watching
golf.


"Tim Bengtson" wrote in message
...
Yossarian wrote:

The student pilot on that show annoys the hell out of me. Instructor
seems
pretty good though.

I have the opposite impression. The instructor often doesn't know what
he's talking about, and he never shuts up.

Tim

On Mon, 28 Jul 2003 06:31:07 -0700, Tim Bengtson
wrote:

Yossarian wrote:

The student pilot on that show annoys the hell out of me. Instructor seems
pretty good though.

I have the opposite impression. The instructor often doesn't know what
he's talking about, and he never shuts up.

Tim

Are these two options mutually exclusive? I find them both annoying,
but I watch nonetheless.
Rich Russell

Steve House wrote:

I am not an expert but I haven't noticed any glaring errors from the
instructor. What leads you to say "he often doesn't know what he's talking
about?" He may not be silent very much on camera but would YOU want to
watch long minutes of silence from the both of them as Kyle practices this
and that?

I don't watch the show regularly, but have channel-surfed into the
middle of two different episodes and heard what I consider glaring
errors both times. The first time, during stall practice, he pointed out
that the wing stops producing lift at the stall. This is absolutely
incorrect; lift is maximum at the stall. This weekend he was talking
about what to do during an engine failure in the pattern, and said that
the first thing you want to do is get on the radio and let someone know
you're in trouble. I don't know about you, but if I had an engine
failure in the pattern, I would be so busy flying the plane that I might
not talk on the radio again until I was on the ground.

As to on-camera silence, how about a voice-over? For my part, silence
would be better than listening to this guy blather on incessantly about
every piece of minutia that entered his mind. If I had an instructor
talk to me like that, I'd tell him to shut up.

Tim