Mighty Planes

Hit the air with flying gas station Omega, a commercial aircraft turned tanker, built to refuel U.S. fighter jets while they are in flight. Follow this modified Boeing 707 as it lends support on a three-day U.S. Navy and Marine Corps exercise. Witness the midair rendezvous between aerial refueling tanker and fighter jet. The slightest bit of turbulence or the smallest human error can prove fatal. On this mission, however, it's a mechanical issue that puts the entire operation, and Omega's reputation, in jeopardy.

Meet a battle-tested Mighty Plane with a nose for adventure and danger. The P-3 Orion Kermit once hunted Soviet submarines but now hunts deadly weather. It slices through the eye walls of hurricanes with one objective in mind: to collect information that will save lives. Loaded up by NOAA with data sensors, recording devices, and airborne radars, this laboratory in the sky is one smart (and tough) cookie. Go where no plane was ever meant to fly as Kermit flies into today's worst tempests, including "Frankenstorm" herself, Hurricane Sandy.

How do you tell one of the world's richest men that his pride and joy is in pieces? That's just one of the challenges facing pilot John Dunkin, captain of Donald Trump's lavish Boeing 757. Follow him and "The Donald" as they fly from Florida to New York to London, with a pit stop in Georgia for an inspection that doesn't go quite as expected. Tight deadlines and a demanding boss will push Dunkin to the limits. But when you work for the man who made the phrase "You're fired" famous, you get used to the pressure.

The C-17 Globemaster III is the most versatile cargo plane in the U.S. Air Force fleet. It's a tireless workhorse, designed to carry more than 170,000 pounds of cargo, yet agile enough to land and take off on short, rough runways. Watch as two of these $200 million jets take off on separate missions. One ventures into an intense war training operation over unforgiving terrain, while the other embarks on a grueling three-day journey to deliver missile launchers from a remote Pacific island to California. Both jobs will push these C-17s to the limit.

If you're going to take on the universe, you're going to need a Mighty Plane. Enter SOFIA, a Boeing 747 jumbo jetliner that's been converted by NASA into a space observatory in the sky. Manned with a 17-ton telescope, she gives scientists and researchers access to targets that are out of reach to observatories on Earth..that is, when she's airborne. She's currently grounded for upgrade and overhaul maintenance, and four months behind schedule. The crew needs to work overtime to get SOFIA ready to, once more, unravel the mysteries of the cosmos.

This is your first-class ticket to board the world's most magnificent flying machines. This series explores amazing aircraft and the men and women around the world who build, maintain, shepherd, and fly them. From the aerobatic artistry of the Blue Angels to the bravery of NOAA's hurricane hunters, and from Trump's flying luxury suite to the military's gas station in the sky, each episode is its own engrossing drama about people and Mighty Planes, coming together to tackle momentous missions.