
04 Jul 1995

Air & Space Smithsonian: Dreams of Flight - Higher Faster Farther
Go higher, faster and farther with the Smithsonian as they explore the dreams of flight.
A hilarious countdown of the black sheep of aviation, aircraft that have embarrassed their builders, enraged the owners and terrified their pilots. These are stories of aircraft that should have never been built, including highly imaginative concepts to “fly” tanks and jeeps directly onto the battlefield, a real flying saucer and starkly bizarre efforts to design and build a submarine that flies. We come to understand why these ideas were doomed from the start…
Narrator
04 Jul 1995
Go higher, faster and farther with the Smithsonian as they explore the dreams of flight.
22 Nov 2015
Historians and engineers investigate how Allied forces conspired to destroy Hitler's "supergun".
01 Jan 2013
Adolf Hitler's Nazi megalomania knew no limits. The most daring of his plans World War II involved German fighter planes crashing into Manhattan's skyscrapers as living bombs, like the Japanese kamikazes. Hitler understood the huge symbolic power of Manhattan's skyscrapers. He believed suicide bombing would have a devastating psychological impact on the American people and the U.S. war effort.
25 Jun 1959
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.
04 Jun 2010
Two modern Red Arrows pilots take on the challenges faced by World War I pilots by performing photo reconnaissance, artillery ranging, and bombing missions in period aircraft - culminating in a classic dogfight.
24 Feb 2013
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.
13 Mar 2025
Today London, tomorrow Paris, the day after New York – the life of the "jetsetter." Long before the climate crisis and flight shame, flying was considered the epitome of luxury, freedom, and cosmopolitanism. Passenger aviation is making flight attendants and pilots the ultimate dream jobs. Modern aircraft are setting new standards in comfort, technology, and style. Flying is becoming a hobby of high society.
19 Oct 2023
Meet Brian Boland—the beloved, eccentric hot air balloonist and artist from the rural Upper Valley of Vermont.
15 Sep 2018
German-made documentary about Claude Dornier, the aeronautical engineer and founder of Dornier GmbH which built warplanes for Germany in both world wars. Dornier's descendants are interviewed.
07 Jul 2024
Guy joins an ambitious engineering project to recover a crashed WW2 Lancaster Bomber – and the remains of its missing crew members – from the depths of the Dutch lake where it’s lain for 80 years.
28 Feb 2023
No overview found
01 Jan 1956
Fred Davis introduces us to Canadian Air Force operations in Zweibrucken, West Germany. Follow Green Section as they perform drills and explain what it takes to be a fighter pilot.
03 Nov 1939
This early, influential propaganda film blends documentary and studio footage to show the valiant efforts of the Royal Air Force to defend the British people against the Nazis.
01 Aug 1983
Framing the erotic vignettes in this entry is "Taking Off With Kitten Natividad," which is set aboard Electric Airways flight #11, a new airline hoping to cut out the competition with unique in-flight entertainment of a sexual nature. Stewardesses Kim (Michelle Bauer) and Sandy (Lois Ayres) help Kitten give the passengers a flight to remember. First issued in the UK as Electric Blue 11, this was titled Electric Blue 5 for the later U.S. release.
17 Aug 2017
In January 2012 Italian divers discovered the wreck of a massive plane off the coast of Sardinia. At a depth of 65 meters (213 feet) lies a Messerschmidt `Gigant', the biggest aircraft to fly in WWII.
01 Jan 1985
During the Vietnam War, the main threat to the strike packages was the V-750 (S-75) Dvina, the first effective Soviet surface-to-air missile (SAM). Better known by the NATO designation SA-2 Guideline To suppress and destroy this threat, the U.S. Air Force countered with the courage and skill of the Wild Weasels, who not only flew some of the most dangerous missions in Southeast Asia but also became pioneers in Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) operations. This documentary tells the story of the Wild Weasel program.
27 Sep 2007
Panair do Brasil revives the story of the most important commercial aviation company in Brazil, between 1930 and 1965, with its commercial daring in establishing routes to the four corners of a continental country, taking the adventure of air transport to never-before imagined places, as well as the first international routes. Four decades after it closed its doors, it still retains a marked presence in the country's collective imagination for its pioneering spirit and stories of heroic deeds and for the bewilderment which was aroused by the facts surrounding its closure during the military regime.
13 Nov 2004
This 2004 documentary by Werner Herzog diaries the struggle of a passionate English inventor to design and test a unique airship during its maiden flight above the jungle canopy.
25 Nov 2005
An exhilarating documentary film that celebrates the unsung hero of aviation - the local airport - by tracing the life, history, and struggles of an airport icon: Southern California's Van Nuys Airport. Featuring thrilling aerial photography and a sweeping original score, the film dispels common misconceptions and opposes criticism of General Aviation airports.
10 Nov 2017
Spitfires were the nemesis of the Luftwaffe and the instrument which halted Hitler’s plans for invasion. After relentless bombing of the Spitfire factories in Southampton, the Germans were convinced they had halted the production of the Spitfires for good. But across the South of England, hidden in sheds, garages, back gardens, bedrooms, a bus depot, and even a hotel, a workforce of unskilled young girls, boys, women, elderly men, and a handful of engineers secretly built thousands of Spitfires to help win the war. Witnesses recount this never-before-told story of amazing achievement.