Helicopter Wars

1982. Argentina invades South Georgia and The Falkland Islands. The SAS have a plan to retake South Georgia - but they want to be dropped by helicopter on top of Fortuna Glacier, the most barren peak of the desolate island. Two helicopters will carry the 16 men escorted by 'Humphrey' (a Wessex helicopter) whose on-board radar can find a path for the mission through the cloud and snow. But once dropped on the glacier, the SAS are soon dying of exposure in a violent storm. On the rescue trip, the two troop carrying helicopters are engulfed in whiteout - total visibility loss. They crash, leaving 10 SAS and 2 downed aircrew still on the ice. With the SAS mission a failure, Stanley returns to the glacier one last time to save the men's lives. But there's a problem - 16 men must fit in a helicopter built for 6.

The helicopter came of age in Vietnam. By 1967 the first helicopter war at its bloodiest with casualty rates among young pilots worse than in the infantry. This film tells the story of one of the most dangerous helicopter missions of the war. Forty years later the crews who flew this mission return to Vietnam to recount this extraordinary feat of bravery. Tom Baca, Larry Liss and Jack Swickard were all in their early 20s when they arrived in Vietnam. Using unique personal footage shot at the time, they describe how an acute shortage of pilots meant they were rushed through flight school in less than a year. They were catapulted into combat in the jungles and mountains of South East Asia. Tom had already been shot down five times and Larry wounded twice before, when they embarked on their epic helicopter rescue mission. By the end they will each have earned one of the aviators' highest awards for gallantry, the Distinguished Flying Cross.

This is the story of one of the biggest search and rescue operations since the Vietnam War. High in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan in 2005, a covert US Navy SEAL team is ambushed by the Taliban. Special Operations send out a helicopter rescue team helicopter, but the big Chinook helicopter is shot down. All on board are killed. It is the single biggest loss of American life since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The lone survivor, Marcus Luttrell, is now the target of a Taliban manhunt. Special Operations now turn to the US Air Force's Reserve Rescue Wing. They scramble two modified Blackhawk helicopters to find Latrell. Most of the crew in this unit are volunteers who also hold down civilian jobs. They are about to fly the most dangerous mission of their lives.

Documentary and dramatic reconstruction combine to tell a gripping story from the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The world's fastest helicopter is trapped in the sights of an Iraqi tank. The only chance is to fight back with anti-tank missiles. But the pilot can't see his enemy. As a deadly game of hide and seek unfolds, documentary fills in the detail. How to take off in blinding desert sand. How to evade enemy attack in open sky. The technology that makes the Lynx built for speed. And what to do, when the enemy is hiding in a school...