A series of seven programmes
As Civil Aviation celebrates its 60th year, this series of seven programmes examines the impact of air travel on our world.
Presented by Julian Pettifer

It all began on 25 August 1919. Four passengers left Hounslow Heath for Paris - the worlds 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?

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 headhunters 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.

Theme music on record (RESL 72), from record shops. Book (same title), £7.95, available from bookshops from 8 November