PBS's "City in the Sky"

I've only seen the first episode as well. There is certainly some very basic information involved--who knew that wings generate something called 'lift'?--but I did enjoy seeing the intricacies of baggage handling at DXB, as well as the way they transport pieces of the A380 through a small town. And, I'll be transiting through Atlanta this Saturday, so I'll have to see if I can spot the somewhat subliminal cues in the flooring and decorations that are supposed to help with passenger flow. And, I must say that I haven't seen airplane food in domestic coach anything like what they showed being prepared in Dubai for the folks in the pointy end of the plane!

I only caught the last half of the first episode but I found it fascinating. Monster-sized sections of planes being trucked through small French villages at midnight, streets blocked off...because one of the main plants manufacturing the sections is located in an idyllic-looking rural location. Interviews with the different managers who make sure all the things which we take for granted happen. The effect on the economies of different places when there is a major airplane being built near there. The fact that every single rivet is hand hammered by two people at once, one inside the plane and one outside....etc., etc. I've ridden on so many planes and it was exciting to see what goes into building them and designing all the necessary systems.

I'm curious if they used a credit cad to get mileage points when fueling the plane for $28,000??? It got me to thinking when I watched the DVR yesterday morning. So I signed up for RS Tour #14 yesterday afternoon. Thanks AMEX and Delta for my $86 ticket to Palermo!!!!!

I'm kind of an aviation junkie, so I expected to like it but after the first episode I was lukewarm about it. Then I found out that it was a BBC production and had originally featured two hosts who were experts on science and math, so I tracked down the BBC versions of the show and loved it. Even though the PBS version uses the same script for most of the time, it made all the difference to have the hosts presenting the show and talking with the pilots and ground crew and others. I found it on DailyMotion and on the BBC iplayer (which doesn't work from US IP addresses...)

If anyone missed part or all of the first episode try this. Go to your state PBS web site and look around. Some of them have a link so you can view it online.

I don't know about other cable systems, but I was able to watch the first episode on-demand from Comcast last night.