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DeliciousTop Gear time defended by MoD
Thursday, November 19, 2009Military personnel have spent the equivalent of 141 days filming items for Top Gear in the last five years, it has emerged
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Press Association, the MoD also revealed that civilian officials spent 48 days working on items for the programme.
In 2004 one item featured an Apache helicopter attempting to get a missile lock on a Lotus Exige driven by host Jeremy Clarkson.
A year later, Clarkson drove a Range Rover in an off-road competition against a Challenger tank, and presenters attempted to avoid sniper fire while driving a Porsche Boxster and Mercedes SLK.
In 2006 co-presenter Richard Hammond raced a Porsche Cayenne against a parachutist from the Red Devils display team.
The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal was used as the backdrop to a film on the luxury Rolls Royce Phantom in 2007. In the same year an RAF Typhoon raced a Bugatti Veyron at RAF Coningsby airfield.
The equivalent of 63 days of the Royal Marines' time was taken up in November 2008, when Clarkson took part in a mock beach assault while driving a Ford Fiesta. Lynx helicopters and amphibious landing craft were also used during filming.
Most recently, in May 2009, Clarkson played a game of "British bulldog" at Bovington training area, which took the equivalent of 60 days of soldiers' time and involved five military vehicles.
The Ministry of Defence said taking part in the BBC show was a valuable way of raising public awareness of the Armed Forces' work.
In its response to the Freedom of Information request it said no additional costs were incurred as a result of taking part in the programmes, and that filming took advantage of scheduled training hours and resources which would have been consumed irrespective of the BBC filming or not.
HAVE YOUR SAY
quite right too MoD, good on you. It is right to have a high profile in such popular programmes - engaging the public in the goings-on and showing a fun side to military workings.
Laskovar - UK
Long live top gear this is such a massive moral booster for overstreched and under paid troops !
Anonymous
Anyone who questions the military presence on Top Gear needs to get a sense of humor. The Royal Military knows what is a waste of its time and what will be good for its image and it would not partake in Top Gear stunts and challenges if it thought that it could not benefit from it in some way. And 141 days of filming in 5 years comes to 28.2 days a year. The only month with less days than that is February. That's not really a lot of time. During the filming of Top Gun the US Navy spent months filming on both air craft carriers, naval bases and in the airplanes themselves to make the movie happen. Guess what happened as a result? More people joined the Navy and other branches of the US Armed forces. What good things have happened for the British armed forces since their participation in Top Gear?
Bryan Baier - Haruno Japan
It is plain that the Top Gear Team are immensely proud of our Armed Forces; and the activities TG carry out in conjunction with the military go a long way to showing tangible recognition. Any serving or ex-serviceman realises this. The military personnel who are lucky enough to be involved will get a tremendous sense of appreciation. This goes deep into the military psyche to reinforce the feeling that the public fully support them. Our Military are a proud group of people, absolutely everything possible should be done to make sure the public is also proud of them. TG have shown the way, the rest of british society should follow.
Ex bomb''ed - North West
I agree, with comments already posted. Top Gear always does a brilliant job with their show and including the military is a massive bonus to us viewers. TG's support of the military is highly commendable, anyone complaining about the days, needs serious psychiatric help. Thank you MoD, the Military and TG. G.C.Sharpe
Gordon C. Sharpe - NY New York USA