Reaching for the Skies

From the Wright Brothers' first controlled-powered flight in 1903 to the advent of the space shuttle - come to know the key figures in aviation history - the people and the machine...

This is the account of the master aviators who pushed back the frontiers and found new ways to use aircraft...of test pilots, who displayed that rare combination of qualities: cool...

Over France in World War I, where man and flying machines were first forged into a formidable fighting unit. At the start of the war, the adversaries could muster only a few hundre...

Since the Second World War, aircraft have played an important role in naval operations...defending the fleet against attack by making it possible for pilots to spot the enemy beyon...

Dresden...London...Vietnam...Tokyo..their names alone are dramatic testimony to the awesome power of the bomber. These aircraft came to dominate military strategy during World War...

Few aspects of the history of aviation match the vitality, drama and scale of the World War II fighter planes. As the strategists discovered the advantages of these warships of the...

We take them - the jumbo jets - for granted today, yet overwhelming obstacles had to be overcome to first get these giants off the ground. The challenge to build larger aircraft ha...

The development of the jet engine represented a quantum leap in aviation, and revolutionised commercial aviation. Although first developed for fighter aircraft, this engineering tr...

This film begins with the SR-71 Blackbird, expressed as the ultimate expression in the quest for speed. The film, after credits, begins with the 1905 Curtiss biplane, owned and flo...

Examining the history of vertical flight, the program begins with the early helicopters, and then deals the with the pivotal breakthrough of the Cierva Rotor-head, followed by an e...