George Cayley: the same dream: to build a flying machine … In Scarborough Cayley’s dream would take flight … Cayley had created the first working glider. ibid.
Wilbur and Orville Wright: an obsession with mechanical flight. ibid.
Otto Lilienthal: The dream of a flying man was real at last even though the flight couldn’t be sustained … Lilienthal died knowing that sustained flight should be possible. ibid.
The Wright brothers managed to create an engine that was light enough to power their aeroplane … The world’s first powered flight took place at Kitty Hawk. ibid.
Frank Whittle: a completely new kind of engine … He came up with this: the jet engine. ibid.
A British Airways flight takes off somewhere around the globe every ninety seconds. Once the world’s favourite airline, recent years have seen BA facing some turbulent times. Competition in the skies has never been tougher, and the stakes have never been higher. Inside British Airways 24/7: Access All Areas s1e1, Channel 5 2019
The passenger jet industry is dominated by two global players: Airbus based in Toulouse, France, and Boeing, a US giant of aviation located here Seattle, Washington. ibid.
Planning new routes is a complicated business for an airline. Currently, the airline flies to 200 cities in 75 countries. ibid.
From trouble at the top to the teams on the ground, and the people who keep the passengers smiling. British Airways 24/7: Access All Areas s1e2
Every six years each plane in the BA fleet gets a supersized overhaul known as a D-check. ibid.
The team inspect around 1,500 emergency slides every year. ibid.
‘The 767 has served British Airways well for twenty-six years.’ ibid. pilot
‘When you’re working on a plane that weighs three hundred tons there’s going to be problems as you go through.’ British Airways 24/7: Access All Areas s1e3, engineer
Can the airline’s crack team of engineers fix a hangar full of faulty aircraft in just one night? ibid.
As well as their long-haul fleet, the airline runs a short-haul operation: 140 smaller aircraft that fly on routes of five hours or less. ibid.
Aircraft are complex machines, and any technical issues can cause havoc with the schedule. ibid.
… And that means jacking up a sixty-five ton plane. ibid.
From the earliest days of flight the Royal Family have taken to the sky. Their favourite way to travel for over one hundred years the Royals have loved to fly in the sky. And behind every journey, whether by private jet, chartered plane, commercial aircraft or helicopter, there’s been an extraordinary team tasked with looking after our monarchs on the move. We lift the curtain on five-star regal luxury in the cloud. We buckle up for some turbulent times and tell the story of a Royal love affair that shows no sign of abating. The Secrets of Royal Flights, Channel 5 2019
The British Royal Family are the most well-travelled monarchy in history. ibid.
The Royal wheels have touched the tarmac in over 100 different countries. ibid.
Edward VIII was the first member of the family to have his own private royal plane. ibid.
De Haviland’s success was remarkably short-lived. ibid.
Alongside their thirty bags of luggage, the Queen and Prince Charles always fly with their own personal bags of blood. ibid.
In 1994 it was when Charles took over the controls that disaster struck. ibid.
They would now find themselves under scrutiny as never before … A government investigation into the costs of maintaining an elite private air force. ibid.
Come here, Alberto. What are we building? How many others have tried to build another airport in this city? Only we succeeded. You know why? Because we’ve done everything by the book. Gomorrah s4e8, Gennaro to airport deputy
March 2019: Boeing’s brand new plane promised to be the future of commercial flying but then the unthinkable happened: a plane crash, not just once in Indonesia in October 2018, but twice – another crash, five months later. Boeing’s Killer Plane: What Went Wrong? Channel 4 2019
How did the world’s biggest plane company plunge from triumph to disaster, and who was responsible? ibid.
With a price tag of $100,000,000 a plane, it promised huge profits. 2,000 had been ordered ahead of the first flight, and after production started, 20 planes were being made a month … The Boeing 737 Max became the fastest selling plane in Boeing’s history. ibid.
What was the mysterious force that led the aircraft to crash? ibid.
‘… the 737 Max is as as safe as any airplane that has ever flown the skies … Boeing is taking every measure to fully understand all aspects of this accident …’ ibid. Boeing press release
Inside the Nazi war machine, travelling across Europe, I’ll explore the extraordinary machines they produced and uncover rare archive to understand who built them, how they evolved, and why their technically brilliant designs were militarily flawed. Nazi War Machines: Secrets Uncovered I, James Holland reporting
The magnificent fighter planes no rookie could fly. ibid.
By the outbreak of the Second World War, the Luftwaffe was without doubt the finest air force in the entire world. Just five years later it was no longer an effective fighting force. ibid.
The wunder-weapon that cost more than the creation of the atomic bomb. ibid.
Their principle fighter was the Messerschmitt 909. It made its first flight in 1935. ibid.
One of the best fighter planes of the War – the Foke-Wulf 190. ibid.
17th July 2014: Just after midday Flight MH17 takes off from Amsterdam bound for Kuala Lumpur. On board, the 298 passengers and crew … Three hours later MH17 is blown out of the sky over the Russian/Ukraine border. There are no survivors … Suspicion immediately falls on Ukraine’s nearest neighbour – Russia. Secret Wars Uncovered s1e1: Coup in Crimea, Sky History 2020
He was the first man in US history to hijack a plane for ransom. He leapt out of a commercial jet with a parachute, $200,000 and was never seen again dead or alive. It’s the only unsolved skyjacking case in aviation history. But to the public he is a lasting legend. Who was D B Cooper? Did he survive? Mystery of the Disappearing Skyjacker, National Geographic 2018
He wants $200,000 placed in a napsack. He also wants four parachutes, two main backchutes and two safety front chutes. The terrified attendant takes both notes forward to the captain. Later Cooper will demand these notes back. ibid.
Months later a second almost identical skyjacking … McCoy is arrested on suspicion of both hijackings. But the FBI finds no evidence to connect McCoy with the Cooper crime. ibid.
The money [$5,800] is found more than twenty miles outside Dan Cooper’s dropzone and in the opposite direction from where the wind was blowing. ibid.
During the waning hours of Thanksgiving Eve 1971 a Boeing 727 leaves Portland bound for Seattle. This plane and its passengers will become the most infamous skyjacking in American history. A man called D B Cooper by the news media jumped from the plane over dense forests carrying four parachutes and $200,000. Why is the crime still unsolved? Who is Cooper? Where is the money today? In Search of s4e11 … D B Cooper, History 1979
The airline clerk who sold him his ticket did not take any special notice of Cooper. Later, through an error in newspaper reporting, he was incorrectly identified as D B Cooper, not Dan Cooper. ibid.
A note: it demanded $200,000 in $20 bills and 4 parachutes. ibid.
The first American to hold a plane and its passengers for ransom. ibid.
Cooper’s only motivation was the money. ibid.
Cooper could not have landed in a more inhospitable place. ibid.
When a major airliner crashes the tragedy is overwhelming, the destruction sudden and complete. In the spring of 1979 a New York woman has a series of dreams of an airliner disaster in the mid-west; two months later a Cincinnati man dreams of a large jet in peril: it crashes and explodes. The dream repeats ten nights in a row and no matter what he does, it will not leave him alone. Were these dreams just nightmares or will they prove to be prophecies? In Search of s4e21 … Air Disaster Prediction, History 1980