A series of seven programmes which examine the impact of air travel on ourselves and the world we live in. Presented by Julian Pettifer
1: Changing the World
It all began on 25 August 1919. Four passengers left Hounslow Heath for Paris - the world's first regular, daily, international air service. Today 600 million people travel by air every year. How has this extraordinary growth in air travel changed our lives? For better or for worse?
This first programme focuses on one small, unexpected corner of the world which crystallises the effects of the aeroplane on mankind. In Papua New Guinea, almost overnight, air travel has transformed a stone-age country into a 20th-century state. It has brought remote hill tribesmen into the age of the computer, the flush lavatory, the English language and the tourist credit card. Now the sons of head-hunters travel by air as a matter of course, both as passengers and crew. They share the same advantages, irritations and doubts as the rest of us.
Film cameraman EUGENE CARR
Produced by HARRY HASTINGS