Episode
Modern Marvels: Runways
Overview
What do you think about when you gaze out the window as your plane takes off? Probably not about the least heralded part of our infrastructure–airport runways. But runways play a vital role as the backbone of aviation. They’re where rubber meets road and land gives way to sky. Did you know that airports like JFK train falcons to keep little birds from becoming a hazard to the big, shiny birds? Join us for an engrossing look at the brawny concrete and asphalt runways that make aviation possible.
Details
- Series
- Modern Marvels
- Season
- Season 9
- Episode
- Episode 59
- Air date
- 2002-12-04
- Runtime
- 44 min
Episode context
Runways is Episode 59 in Season 9 of Modern Marvels. It aired on 2002-12-04. The runtime is 44 min.
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More episodes from this season
Episode 57: Salt Mines
Episode 56: Digi-Tech
Episode 55: Limos
Episode 54: More Bond Gadgets
Episode 53: Garbage
Episode 52: The Spitfire
Episode 51: High Tech Sex
Episode 50: Secret Life Of The Crash Test Dummy
The crash test dummy, patron saint of vulnerable motorists, has become a modern icon and is a potent symbol of safety in a risk-obsessed age. But what’s the real story behind this blank-faced semi-human? From a case of mistaken identity in the Roswell UFO incident, to the U.S. military’s top-secret research and development programs of the 1950s, to a series of highly sensitive experiments on humans, animals, and corpses, we chart the bizarre and often gruesome life of this mechanical humanoid.
Episode 49: Great Train Disasters
Throughout railroad history, disasters lay at the heart of progress since expansion and profit proved the main goals of management. In 1875 alone, an average of 22 train accidents happened daily; in 1890, over 6,000 people were killed. We’ll examine how safety, once a secondary consideration, became a primary goal.
Episode 48: Sherman Tanks
An exciting series that takes viewers into the heart of action as it focuses on a particular machine from WWII, beginning with the story of its design and manufacture and showing the machine in combat, using vintage archive footage. Miniature cameras take viewers inside the machine to share with its crew the experience of war. In this episode, ride along in the thick of battle in the American M4 Sherman Tank, as it blasts its way into history and paves the way for the liberation of Europe.