Planes That Changed the World - Season 1
Season 1
Episodes
DC-3
One plane made flying affordable for passengers and profitable for airlines, and helped win World War II: the DC-3. Wing flaps. A circular fuselage. Swept back wings. A little bit of the historic DC-3 exists in every plane that flies today. This masterpiece of engineering went against all received aviation wisdom when it was created in the 1930s, but the gamble paid off magnificently, and created a revolution. The DC-3 helped boost an economy still reeling from the Depression, played the lead role in the D-Day invasion, and through its versatility, rugged reliability, and economy, changed air travel forever.
A380 Superjumbo
It's as tall as a seven-story building. It can carry 853 people. And the challenge to build it was equally massive. It began with a mission to take on Boeing's queen of the skies, the mighty 747. The plan: to build the world's first superjumbo, a double-decker jetliner. Building it would be no small undertaking, and failure could mean the end of the Airbus. This is the story of the A380, from its planning to its building to its first big test. It was a high-stakes gamble, with engineering and logistical challenges on a scale never seen before. Engineers wondered if a plane this size could ever get off the ground, and they risked everything to find out.
SR-71 Blackbird
The SR-71 Blackbird can travel at three times the speed of sound and at heights of 80,000 feet, at the very edge of space. But its greatest legacy is helping maintain peace when the world was on the brink of nuclear war. Even today, this marvel of engineering remains one of the fastest, highest-flying manned planes in the world. This is its remarkable history, through interviews with the men and women who built it and dared to fly it.
Recently Updated Shows
Ugliest House in America
Comedian Retta travels across the country to tour properties nominated by their owners as the ugliest home around. After crowning the worst of the worst, designer Alison Victoria surprises the homeowners with a jaw-dropping $150,000 renovation!
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
In the criminal justice system, sexually-based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories.
Chicago P.D.
District 21 of the Chicago Police Department is made up of two distinctly different groups. There are the uniformed cops who patrol the beat and go head to head with the city's street crimes. And there's the Intelligence Unit, the team that combats the city's major offenses - organized crime, drug trafficking, high profile murders and beyond. These are their stories.
Chicago Fire
No job is more stressful, dangerous or exhilarating than those of the Firefighters, Rescue Squad and Paramedics of Chicago Firehouse 51. These are the courageous men and women who forge headfirst into danger when everyone else is running the other way and whose actions make the difference between life and death. These are their stories.