As a vintage aviation geek (actually I prefer the term ‘propellerhead’) I’m fascinated by the stray bits of old film that turn up featuring the then dashingly modern craft of flying and what was considered cutting edge stuff. The concept of the passenger plane was astonishing and terrifying to people in the late 1920s when the first commercial air travel commenced. Soon, people were convinced of its relative safety and the adventure of flying through sky became something one had to experience. (Now we hate the whole thing, grumbling through security and shutting the window shade for the entire flight). In the above British Pathe newsreel from 1932, we visit the British Hospitals Air Pageant Tour for a demonstration of something truly astounding; a pilot flies a plane in the air and on the ground someone tells him what maneuvers to perform via a wireless transmission gadget. Radios were non-existent in planes at the time. I guess remote communication was a new thing as well? Hm. Air Traffic Control didn’t exist until the mid-thirties, so you’re looking at aviation in the era when pilots used hand singles while flying formation and weren’t sponsored by Bose Headphones.