Customer Reviews

A Century of Flight

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

An aviation buff, I thought I could not go wrong getting this 4-DVD documentary for less than $20. I was wrong. This is far from the documentary quality one can find on the History and Discovery channels, in fact it actually reminded me of the murky and dull 16mm films seen in school (half a century ago) as a feeble gesture toward audio-visual "education".

Most of the early archival film clips didn't look as good as similar clips seen on TV, while the newer clips were almost uniformly unsharp or in bad color. The narration was half-decent, but overall the visual quality was so lacking this entire production seemed a distinctly amateur project done on a shoestring.

I had been fooled into thinking this DVD set might be a quality item because of the packaging in a neat metal case. I might as well keep the case and throw away the DVDs. The DVD publisher Madacy is one I DEFINITELY will try to avoid in future.

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES BUY THIS COLLECTION
Ditto everything the other reviewers have written, with the addtion of this note:
For a collection featuring the SR-71 Blackbird on the cover, it is not even mentioned on any of the four discs.
What a disappointment.

Had I realized this was a Madacy production before I bought it, I would have made a different decision. I learned long ago to avoid Madacy titles because of their poor production quality, but there was nothing on the box indicating Madacy involvement (it is there but almost impossible to read without a magnifying glass). The packaging was quite spectacular, unlike Madacy titles I had purchased in the past. Metal case with color printing and there was even a wonderful full-color book inside outlining many of the great pioneers of aviation and their aircraft with superb production quality. So, I was unprepared for the poor quality of the video content inside. I own many of the videos from disc 4 in VHS format, and could not believe how badly these have been reproduced on DVD. I can do a better job of transferring the VHS to DVD using my analog-to-digital converter! As other reviewers have pointed out (too bad I saw these posts after my purchase), the documentary is not organized in any meaningful pattern and fails to deliver on its promise of describing the history of aviation.

This 4-disk video set is beautifully packaged in a 4-disk folder in a beautifully illustrated metal can case.

While it was reasonably well produced and showed some fun stuff, it was not organized well. The worst is the so-called "hawks and doves" disk that is all hawks.

During the first 100 years of aviation, warfare played a key role in air development, but not as overhwelming as portrayed here. The first two disks are almost entirely devoted to war with very little coverage of the development of civilian aviation at all. And even if it were supposed to be all about wartime aviation, some highly historical airplane episodes, such as the Enola Gay, are not even covered.

The third disk was devoted to space exploration. Moving from the second disk to the third suffered from some of the same sense of uneven treatment.

There must be a better collection than this - but where?

I had great hope for this 4-disk video set. It was beautifully packaged in a well-designed plastic 4-disk folder which was placed in a beautifully illustrated metal can case. Unfortunately, the contents fell far short of my expectations. While it was reasonably well produced and showed much interesting footage, it suffered from a number of faults, the principal being its predominant emphasis on warfare, some of which, particularly the coverage of the First World War, was only loosely connected to aviation. During the first 100 years of aviation, major warfare entailed perhaps 10 of those years, mostly the two World Wars, yet, the first two disks are almost entirely devoted to those two conflagrations with relatively minimal coverage of the period of initial development and the development that took place between the wars, to say absolutely nothing of the post-WWII era. There always seemed to be a sense of hurry to get back to one war or another. In general, there was a lack of depth, skimming over many significant events, in the rush to get back to battle. There were errors in presentation that any aviation buff would be sure to catch, such as discussing one aircraft while showing another, sometimes even from another era. With the many thousands of hours of historic film available it's hard to understand why the producers felt it necessary to show many of the same cuts repeatedly during several of the discussions. The sequencing was disjointed often leading the viewer to ask, "how did we get here?" The third disk was devoted to space exploration. Moving from the second disk to the third suffered from some of the same sense of disjoint leaving one to think that not too much went on in aviation during the period after WWII ended. However, of the four disks, this one was, nevertheless, by far the best. With the exception of a somewhat incongruous insertion of a segment on Chuck Yeager's historic flight beyond the sound barrier, the disk followed a timely sequence from Goddard to the moon landings, giving all of the appropriate nods to the Russian accomplishments along the way (they were, after all, first, if not best, in many areas - first satellite in space, first man in space, first woman in space, first space station - where most other U.S.-produced histories of space flight have tended to gloss over those embarrassing facts). The final, fourth "bonus" disk was a hodge-podge of films and clips ranging from another mini-doc of Chuck Yeager, to a copy of the famous original WWII film Memphis Belle (which, inexplicably, while originally shot in Technicolor, was reproduced here in black and white). Lacking depth and continuity while being obsessed with warfare did not lend itself to my finding it particularly entertaining. But that's just me. Overall, on a scale of one to five, I'd give it a two. Moderately interesting, a bit more frustrating. But, hey, it was only $29 bucks - waddya' expect?

With some minor flaws, for less than $ 20, this is a good collection of aviation history.

Going from the orginal, which has probably been copied several times, to DVD some quality has been lost, but still preserves the history of aviation and the type of movie photography for that time. Even though some main events of aviation history are not covered.

Anyone wanting a basic knowledge of aviation, and how it developed, this collection, you can't go wrong for the price.

Richard L. Holmes

I really like the documentary for its entertainment value but it isn't a good documentary for educational purposes. It seems to be a loosely connected set of low-quality video and audio.

The worst part about it in my opinion is that it's hard to hear the commentator and understand what he is saying. The guy narrating sounds like:
1. He has damage vocal cords
2. He is talking through/behind a pillow into a low-quality microphone
3. He has no vocal range other than sub-bass

I have to constantly strain my ears to make out the words that this guy is speaking. Absolutely the worst audio narration I have ever heard.

Can't imagine anyone not wanting their children to see this part of history. Cheaper then gas and a rotten movie house ten miles away.

I bought the product but I never cound find information about the audio language so I could know the answer until receive the product. The only available language is english so I can not show the DVD to my childs because we are in Mexico

I suggest to put complete info about the products you offer on your online system