Airline

Airline is a British television series produced by Yorkshire Television for the ITV network in 1982. The series starred Roy Marsden as Jack Ruskin, a pilot demobbed after the end of the Second World War who starts his own air transport business. Airline was created by Wilfred Greatorex and lasted for one series of nine episodes broadcast in January and February 1982, with a repeat in the summer of 1984. Other leading cast members were Polly Hemingway, Richard Heffer, Nicholas Bond-Owen, Sean Scanlan and Terence Rigby, while noted guest stars included Anthony Valentine and Walter Gotell (better known for his numerous guest stints as KGB General Gogol in a string of James Bond films during the Cold War era). Production The main location filming was at the former RAF Rufforth in Yorkshire, former RAF Duxford airfield in Cambridgeshire and on the island of Malta. The aerial unit was managed by the Aces High Company, who operated two C-47/DC-3 aircraft for the series: "G-AGIV"/'Alice' (former USAAF and Spanish Air Force C-47A G-BHUB, now in the American Air Museum in Britain at the Imperial War Museum Duxford, painted in its original markings as "W7"/43-15509) – which featured a postwar drop-down airliner door – and the famous C-47A G-DAKS, which was previously used by the Royal Aircraft Establishment and had an extended nose originally used to test Ferranti / Marconi radar for the English Electric Lightning. This aircraft was retired by the RAE and ferried to RAF Catterick's Fire Training Ground to be used as a fire training aid but was saved by Mike Woodlet of Aces High at the last minute, being purchased by him from the UK Ministry of Defence. The extended nose was replaced at Duxford by Aces High's chief engineer to enable the aircraft to appear as "G-AGHY"/'Vera Lynn'. During production, a Taylorcraft Auster and a North American Harvard, rented from private owners, also featured, as did shots of grounded / stored Douglas DC-3's in Malta which were used for the Berlin Airlift scenes in the final episode.