City in the Sky

Episode
Departure - Ep1
Broadcast Info
2016 (59 mins)
Description
At any one time, there are a million people airborne somewhere in the world. That equates to an entire airborne city - a ‘city in the sky’. Yes this is a metropolis unlike any other: it is a city that straddles not just countries but whole continents. The fabric of this extraordinary constructions is made up of the 100,000 flights that crisscross the world every single day.
So what does it take to run a ‘city’ at 30,000 feet? In this new series, Science Broadcaster, Dallas Campbell and Mathematician Dr Hannah Fry set off around the world to uncover the invisible global networks and complex logistics that make it all possible. They meet the hidden army of experts working to keep the city aloft, and discover the extraordinary engineering and technology that makes it tick.
The city in the sky is set to double in size over the next two decades, and keeping it airborne is testing our ingenuity to its absolute limits. Yet despite its extraordinary rate of growth, air travel is now safer than ever before, and the series will explore how this achievement is sustained.
The series follows the arc of an actual journey: episode one, ‘Departure’, focuses on how aircraft are prepared for take-off; episode two examines what happens in flight, and episode three, ‘arrival’ looks at what it takes to bring flights safely back down to earth.
In order to gain real insights into the nature of the global aviation network, we travel to some of its most extreme, busiest or far flung outposts. From the coldest airport in the world at Yakutsk, to the busiest (Atlanta, Georgia) and the airport that is one of the most dangerous at which to land (Paro, in the Himalayas). At all of these places and more, the series meets the men and women who keep the planes in the sky.
Across the series, we uncover a fascinating world that has transformed the way we live in the 21st century. Our modern way of life would simply not be possible without the city in the sky.
What does it take to get a million people off the ground and up in the air? From building the world’s biggest passenger plane to controlling the flow of passengers through the busiest airport on the planet, to the perils of getting airborne in the coldest city on earth - Dallas Campbell and Hannah Fry go to extremes to get under the skin of the remarkable story of departure.
This episode explores all of the elements that have to be in place before a flight can ever leave the ground: getting food, fuel, people and luggage loaded onto a plane is a huge logistical challenge, one that is repeated a hundred thousand times over every single day. Thousands upon thousands of people are hard at work behind the scenes to ensure that your plane is ready for departure, and this episode seeks to reveal the hidden worlds in which they operate.
In Dubai airport, we follow the journey of suitcases from check-in the plane: - a journey of up to 80km distance, on a hidden ‘railway’ that lies buried beneath the terminal buildings. We also join the world’s biggest in-flight catering company as they prepare thousands of meals for consumption in the city in the sky. In terms of overall scale, this is a challenge akin to feeding a city the size of Bristol.
The episode comes to a climax when we join the crew of an Airbus A380 for the actual moment of take-off. We examine everything that happens as the plane barrels down the runway towards critical takeoff speed, and unpack the forces and engineering techniques that enable the miracle of flight.
You will never look at flying in the same way agan...
Genre
Design; Engineering; Science; Technology; Computing

How to cite this record

The Open University, "City in the Sky". https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ou/search/index.php/prog/225935 (Accessed 10 Jan 2025)