Episode
NOVA: Top Gun and Beyond
Overview
Today's sophisticated fighter jets can almost fly themselves, but well-trained pilots are still needed to win air battles. NOVA looks at how planes and pilots are adapting to high technology.
Details
- Series
- NOVA
- Season
- Season 15
- Episode
- Episode 1
- Air date
- 1988-01-19
- Runtime
- 55 min
Episode context
Top Gun and Beyond is Episode 1 in Season 15 of NOVA. It aired on 1988-01-19. The runtime is 55 min.
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More episodes from this season
Episode 3: Buried in Ice
Scientists investigate the frozen remains of members of the 19th century Franklin Expedition to the Canadian Arctic and ask why all perished.
Episode 4: Why Planes Burn
Airplane fires are often deadly. NOVA looks at efforts to make fires aboard planes less likely and more survivable.
Episode 5: Battles in the War on Cancer: A Wonder Drug on Trial
In part one of a two-part special presentation, NOVA reports on the trials to determine whether the new drug Interleukin-2—the first to make use of the body's own disease-fighting strategy—will live up to its promise as a pivotal cancer breakthrough. Jane Pauley of NBC News hosts and narrates.
Episode 6: Battles in the War on Cancer: Turning the Tide
Breast cancer claims the lives of four American women every hour. Jane Pauley of NBC News hosts and narrates this NOVA report on stepped-up efforts to reduce the death rate from this all-too-common killer.
Episode 7: The Mystery of the Master Builders
Princeton professor and author Robert Mark tracks down the engineering secrets of some of the beautiful buildings in the world including Notre Dame in Paris, St. Paul in London and the Roman Pantheon.
Episode 8: Whale Rescue
It was a blustery day in December 1986, and the New England Coast was in the midst of a winter storm, accompanied by strong on-shore gales and an unusually high tide—conditions perfect for stranding whales in the confined shallows of Cape Cod. NOVA recounts this tragic episode and the happy suprise ending for the young whales who survived after being nursed back to health by the New England Aquarium in Boston.
Episode 9: The Man Who Loved Numbers
NOVA explores the life of Srinivasa Ramanujan, a poor clerk from India who astounded mathematicians in the 1910s with his brilliant insight into the world of numbers.
Episode 10: Race for the Superconductor
NOVA charts an electronics revolution in the making as Japan and the United States race to develop a material that will conduct electricity at room temperature with zero resistance.
Episode 11: Can You Still Get Polio?
Most cases of polio in this country are caused by the vaccine designed to prevent it. NOVA examines the controvery surrounding the nation's vaccine policy.
Episode 12: Pioneers of Surgery: The Brutal Craft
Part one of a four-part series on the pioneers of modern surgery relives the early days, when surgery was practiced without the benefit of anaesthesia or antisceptics and patients usually died.