Page 16 - Autumn Lineup 2019

They are the high-flying pride of the U.S. military, one-of-a-kind warriors that, over the decades, collectively revolutionized aerial warfare. This series takes you behind the scenes to reveal the origin stories of the U.S.A.F.’s most iconic aircraft. We examine the features that make them so deadly and effective. Through rare, archival footage and compelling testimonies, meet the men and women who fly and maintain these ‘Air Warriors’ and see how they’ve overcome incredible obstacles to rule the sky.
In 1961, President Kennedy issued a challenge: to land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth by the end of the decade. What followed was a series of daring missions against an almost impossible time line on the most complicated spacecraft ever built. Revisit an era when NASA’s team of engineers and astronauts gambled everything to embark on humankind’s most ambitious journey; Project Apollo.
Smithsonian Networks
US Airways Flight 1549 is about two minutes into its journey from LaGuardia Airport to Charlotte, North Carolina in 2009 when bird strikes to both engines cripple the plane. What results is an emergency landing on the Hudson River that astonishes the world and shines a light on a growing problem affecting our increasingly busy skies. Follow a team of forensic ornithologists and discover the remarkable research being conducted to solve the bird strike problem.
Arrow International Media/Smithsonian Networks
No longer just instruments of war, these camera-carrying drones are now filling our skies, capturing sights never seen before. They now help film our movies, patrol our streets, keep watch at our borders and fight our fires. As these drones multiply so do our concerns over surveillance and safety. How much is too much? Fusion’s Mariana van Zeller goes deep inside the world of drones in ‘Drone Nation’.
Air Warriors
24 x 60’, 2014-2018, HD/4K
Red Rock Films/Smithsonian Networks
In a blockbuster paper in 1948, Claude Shannon introduced the notion of a “bit” and laid the foundation for the information age. His ideas ripple through nearly every aspect of modern life, influencing such diverse fields as communication, linguistics, genetics, computing, cryptography, neuroscience, artificial intelligence and cosmology. But when interviewed in the 1980s, Shannon was more interested in showing off the gadgets he’d constructed - juggling robots, a Rubik’s Cube solving machine, a wearable computer to win at roulette, a unicycle without pedals, a flame-throwing trumpet - than rehashing the past. Mixing contemporary interviews, archival film, animation and dialogue drawn from interviews conducted with Shannon himself, ‘The Bit Player’ tells the story of an overlooked genius who revolutionized the world, but never lost his childlike curiosity.
An IEEE Information Theory Society Production
Fusion Original Production
The Bit Player
1 x 89’, 2019, HD
Apollo’s Moon Shot
6 x 60’, 2018, 4K
Bird vs Plane: Miracle
On The Hudson
1 x 60’, 2019, 4K
Drone Nation
1 x 30’, 2016, HD
Science