DC Wings - Test Flights - Beyond the Limits (1998) Part 2 The Need for Speed. 31/03/2013 17:48:21

Go behind-the-scenes at Dryden Flight Research Center, NASA's remote outpost where the world's top experimental flight researchers and pilots develop cutting-edge technology and flight test the world's most advanced aircraft. Here you’ll get the very rare opportunity to experience the power of top aircraft like the X-1, the X-15, the X-33, the X-43 and many more. This is the story of high risk and engineering genius, pushing the envelope to fly higher and faster. Like early explorers, these aeronautical adventurers travel where no one has gone before and share a passion to push the limits of speed, sometimes even risking death to improve and expand our horizons. This extraordinary production combines unprecedented camera access with never-before-seen test flight footage, and state of the art computer graphics.

Part 3: The New Frontier

Computers have opened up a whole new dimension of flight allowing aircraft to perform flips, spins and dog-fight maneuvers impossible for a pilot to physically control. Share the drama of developing the Fly-by-Wire technology that has allowed the F-16, F-18, the Stealth Fighter and the B-2 Bomber to fly. Meet the researchers who helped prevent a possible catastrophe with the space shuttle. From the radical looking X-29 to the amazing thrust vectoring X-31, see how computer technology can improve safety and deliver undreamed of performance … just one more challenge on the cutting-edge of flight research.