1956-09-02
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The De Havilland Comet was the world's first passenger jet airliner. But less than two years into service, two aircraft blew up in mid-air, killing all aboard. PM Winston Churchill ordered an assemblage of experts to discover what went wrong - in the process, inventing many of the air crash investigation techniques still used today.
LIVING IN THE AGE OF AIRPLANES offers a fresh perspective on a modern-day miracle that many of us take for granted: flying. Narrated by Harrison Ford and featuring an original score from Academy Award® winning composer James Horner, the film takes viewers to 18 countries across all seven continents to illuminate how airplanes have empowered a century of global connectedness our ancestors could never have imagined.
A documentary covering the history of TWA, from its origins to its ultimate sale to American Airlines.
The compelling story of the multi-billion-pound gamble to build the world's biggest airliner, the Airbus A380. Provides insight into the unique challenges of building an airliner on such a large scale, and includes footage of its grand unveiling and its maiden voyage.
Eight decades after her disappearance, Amelia Earhart's incredible accomplishmenys are still celebrated, thanks in large part to her sister Muriel.
Few aircraft have attracted more attention than the ominous black supersonic jet that for years has ranged the world on reconnaissance missions. This is the definitive tribute to an extraordinary peacekeeper, the SR-71 Blackbird. The History. The Technology. The Missions. The Pilots. And compelling, gripping footage of the Blackbird itself, on its "rocket ride" through the world's airspace.
How the Soviet Union was able to copy the Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, and the influence of the resulting Tupolev TU-4 on the Cold War.
On an expedition through Latin America, Italian General Italo Balbo made the Atlantic crossing with his seaplane squadron, which left Boloma, entered Brazilian territory via Natal and now ended its journey in the capital Rio de Janeiro. Arrival of the fascist squadron at Enseada de Botafogo. People, many in boats, applaud the descent of the seaplanes. A group of officers searches the soldiers in profile. Italo Balbo, Ambassador Vittorio Cerrutti and Royal Consul Onorevole Mammalella watch the parade of troops. A group of officers with Col. Magdalena, "the intrepid hero of several aerial feats". At the Catete Palace, Balbo and Cerrutti are received by the President of the Provisional Government, Getúlio Vargas, and his ministers. The Italian delegation leaves the Catete Palace.
Go higher, faster and farther with the Smithsonian as they explore the dreams of flight.
The 2022 film "Top Gun: Maverick" continues the adventures of the ace fighter pilot made famous by Tom Cruise. But how true to life is the fictional story to the real Naval Fighter Weapons School? TOPGUN flight instructors take us inside the most famous and prestigious training program in the sky, where only the top 5% of U.S. naval aviators are accepted. We reveal the tactics and techniques taught in the classroom and in the air. We also examine how the real Navy TOPGUN came to be, an origin story that is truly stranger than fiction.
Clouds 1969 by the British filmmaker Peter Gidal is a film comprised of ten minutes of looped footage of the sky, shot with a handheld camera using a zoom to achieve close-up images. Aside from the amorphous shapes of the clouds, the only forms to appear in the film are an aeroplane flying overhead and the side of a building, and these only as fleeting glimpses. The formless image of the sky and the repetition of the footage on a loop prevent any clear narrative development within the film. The minimal soundtrack consists of a sustained oscillating sine wave, consistently audible throughout the film without progression or climax. The work is shown as a projection and was not produced in an edition. The subject of the film can be said to be the material qualities of film itself: the grain, the light, the shadow and inconsistencies in the print.
The film tells of the beginnings of the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. At the end of the 1950s, the Tanzanian National Park Administration wanted to fence in the protected area around the Ngorongoro Crater. Bernhard and Michael Grzimek were invited by the national park administration in 1957 to get a precise picture of the animal migrations and to provide the national park administration with the values they needed for their project. Using a new counting method with two airplanes, the Grzimeks found out that the migration of the herds was different than assumed.
There is a mystery there and the answer lies somewhere between Bermuda, Puerto Rico and Miami. Hundreds of boats and planes have disappeared in the ocean with little or no trace at all. Most of these cases can be explained quite easily by human error or bad weather. But there are some that defy all explanation. Theories abound on these causes: Aliens, massive gas eruptions and freak waves. The documentary reveals that the boats and planes face a real danger in a triangle, but the true threat is often as strange as the wildest theory.
Engineer Dr Hugh Hunt revisits the little-known story of the First World War's Blitz, when the Zeppelin waged an 18-month terror campaign on the people of London.
This documentary profiles the major jets used by the RAF between 1945 and the mid-1950s, the period when the British air force was the second largest in the world
A British expeditionary team attempt a dangerous, world-first circumnavigation of the Earth in an 80-year-old vintage World War II fighter to inspire a new generation through the freedom of flight.