Four Years of Thunder

All Episodes 1996

  • Ended
  • #<Network:0x00007f9fb0306b80>
  • 1996-01-01T05:00:00Z
  • 45m
  • 45m (1 episode)
  • United States
  • Documentary
World War I was the first time aeroplanes were deployed for warfare. The then rickety flying machines fought crucial dogfights as both sides struggled for air supremacy. Flying aces like Manfred von Richthofen, aka The Red Baron, won fame and glory for their aerial expertise. Four Years of Thunder reveals, for the first time, the inside story of the air war in World War I with the use of some of the most stunning and authentic footage ever assembled.

4 episodes

Series Premiere

1996-01-01T05:00:00Z

1x01 Flying to War

Series Premiere

1x01 Flying to War

  • 1996-01-01T05:00:00Z45m

The story of how military aviation, in less than a decade, grew from a vague theory to a comprehensive system of warfare.

1x02 The Fokker Scourge

  • no air date45m

By 1915 the technology race was in full swing and is illustrated here with such developments as Roland Garos with a deflector plate fitted to the propeller of his Morane-Saulnier N countered by the first real fighter - the Fokker Eindecker - with its synchronized machine-gun firing through the propeller arc. First one side then the other secured a temporary advantage thanks to new equipment.

1x03 Bloody April

  • no air date45m

Views of the Sopwith one-and-a-half strutter, the FE-2, WRAF women engaged in aircraft construction, Lewis guns and Scarf rings. On the German side we see: Hindenburg and Ludendorff, Boelcke and Richthofen, and construction of the Albatross.

1x04 Winged Victory

  • no air date45m

Featured in this final volume are the Americans and the planes in which they trained and fought [Curtiss JN-4, DH-4, Nieuport 28, Sopwith Camels, and Spad XIII]. The delays which occurred in providing them with the necessary aircraft, engines and armament are well described. Also covered are Germany’s "America Program" designed to increase aircraft production to 2,000 planes a month and the formation of Britain’s Royal Air Force through the combining of the RFC and RNAS.

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