Airport Live

In the first of four live shows this week, Dan Snow, Dallas Campbell and Anita Rani will be reporting airside at Heathrow, behind-the-scenes at the world’s busiest international hub airport. More than 200,000 passengers travel through Heathrow each day. Everything and everyone is on a deadline. Unprecedented behind-the-scenes access allows us to witness this daily relay race first hand. We’ll see air traffic control in action and explain the extraordinary science and logistics behind every flight. Dan is based at the heart of the airport, the air traffic control tower, giving an eagle’s eye view of the complex choreography of landings, departures and ground movements. Tonight, he finds out how Heathrow went from a row of tents to an international powerhouse, welcoming 70 million passengers a year. Anita discovers how weather affects the airport each day, not just when it snows. And Dallas looks at first class on the A380, the world’s largest passenger jet.

The second episode of the series looking behind the scenes at Heathrow Airport, revealing the people, systems and science that keep us flying. Dan Snow is in the air traffic control tower, where controllers handle some 1,400 landings and departures every day. Dallas Campbell learns to hand-marshal a plane on the tarmac, and Anita Rani finds out how Heathrow trains to deal with extreme weather. Plus the programme follows, live, a shorthaul flight turnaround. The plane has just 45 minutes from landing until it takes off again.

The third episode of the series looking behind the scenes at Heathrow Airport, revealing the people, systems and science that keep us flying. Dan Snow is at the heart of the airport in air traffic control, and the programme follows all the preparations that ready a long-haul flight for take-off. Dallas Campbell is in Heathrow's paint bay, finding out about the hundreds of markings that must be painstakingly painted on to every plane. And Anita Rani discovers that as you fly off on holiday, you could be sitting above anything from mango to mail, cars to cougars.

In the final episode of the live behind-the-scenes series from Heathrow, Dan Snow sees if he has got what it takes to be an air traffic controller and Anita Rani finds out how tomorrow's planes might offer a quieter future. Dallas Campbell, whose father used to fly 747s, is at the controls of a flight simulator to see if he can land an A380, the biggest passenger jet in the sky.