This is the story of the thousands of people who design, build and test engines at Rolls-Royce’s manufacturing plants in Derby and across the UK, making Rolls-Royce a central part of life for the people of places like Derby.

The Boeing 747 entered service with Pan American Airlines in January 1970 and has since become the workhorse of the world’s long-haul, high-capacity fleet. It was the first passenger jet to have a twin-aisle cabin section and a staircase leading to an upper deck in the nose section.

Powered by four Pratt & Whitney/General Electric/Rolls-Royce turbofans the Boeing 747 remains the world’s fastest subsonic passenger jet. It has carried more than 3.5 billion passengers on 35 billion miles of revenue-earning service with 80 airlines.

In the world of road making, the Alcan Highway is a feat worthy of comparison to the legendary byways of ancient Rome. Stretching 1,500 miles from British Columbia to Fairbanks, Alaska, the Alcan traverses incredibly difficult and hostile territory, crossing the Canadian Rockies, raging rivers and dense forest.

NOVA goes behind the doors of Boeing’s Phantom Works and Lockheed’s legendary Skunk Works to record classified meetings, fly the most revolutionary planes, and examine the high-stakes battle to build the most capable and versatile fighter ever created – the Joint Strike Fighter.

The Channel Tunnel, the world’s longest undersea tunnel is set 131 feet beneath the sea. It took six years to build and can transport up to 31 million passengers a year. A marvel of modern construction, the tunnel offered a great potential to link England with the rest of Europe.

The Antonov AN 225 is the heaviest and largest jet ever built, with a landing gear system comprising 32 wheels, and a wing span of 291 feet. It was designed for the Soviet space program in 1988, and is able to airlift the Energia rocket’s boosters, Buran space shuttle or ultra-heavy and oversize freight, up to 250,000 kg.

Two months after an explosion on BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 people, Panorama’s Hilary Andersson tells the story of America’s ‘greatest environmental disaster.’

Dubbed an environmental ‘9/11′ by President Obama, the leak caused by the explosion is still releasing thousands of barrels of crude oil a day into the waters of the Gulf – livelihoods and ecosystems are threatened, fishermen are unable to work and billions have been wiped off the value of BP shares.

Panorama examines the full consequences of the disaster amid a mounting war of words between the Obama adminstration and an embattled BP, asking what went wrong and who is really to blame.

Richard Hammond journeys to discover the startling engineering connections behind the Troll A gas platform, the largest object ever moved by man across the surface of the Earth.

Richard Hammond sets out on a quest to find the amazing engineering connections behind the Airbus A380, the largest passenger airliner in history.

His journey reveals that this state-of-the-art aircraft owes as much to weapons of war, Mother Nature and household objects as it does to high technology. He discovers that a bicycle pump, a 19th-century rocket, an ancient Mongolian bow and an eagle’s wing are all hidden in its secret DNA.

Former General Motors executive John DeLorean planned to build a stylish European sports car, at a price that would make it attractive to the American market. The site he chose for his state-of-the-art factory was on the outskirts of Belfast, a city best-known for sectarian violence and high levels of unemployment.

The unexpected marriage of high-tech glamour with the gritty reality of 1970s Northern Ireland captured the public’s imagination but this early optimism would end in failure. Although the cars looked great, the windows leaked and the engines seized; as his financial problems mounted the maverick DeLorean faced charges of drugs trafficking.

The Trans-Alaska Pipeline was built between 1974 and 1977 after the 1973 Oil Crisis caused a sharp rise in oil prices in the United States. This rise made exploration of the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field economically feasible.

The task of building the pipeline had to address a wide range of difficulties, stemming mainly from the extreme cold and the difficult, isolated terrain. This was one of the first large-scale projects to deal with problems caused by permafrost, and special construction techniques had to be developed to cope with the frozen ground.

The New York subway became the word’s largest mass transit system shortly after it opened in 1904. Today, it carries fully one-third of all mass transit passengers in the United States. But after decades of neglect, New York’s once great subway is nearing collapse.

An enormous renovation effort will transform the city’s subways and commuter rails into the most technologically advanced mass transit system in the world – that is, if all goes as planned. Structural engineers grapple with the difficulties of updating the transit system whilst still keeping it open to the public, and city planners work to strike a balance between attracting even more people to the city and transporting them effectively.