Warplane Workshop - Episode Guide

Documentary following engineers and aviators who battle to keep the UK's most historic warplanes in the air. In the first edition, the team rebuilds a Spitfire MJ772.

During the Vietnam War an elite team of pilots braved terrifying odds by flying unarmed light aircraft over enemy troops to mark targets for America's supersonic strike planes. Now, British airline pilot Shona Bowman is determined to return one of their planes to the sky, but the battered Cessna Bird Dog she bought for £10,000 turns out not to be the bargain it first appeared. Featuring recently rediscovered tapes of combat missions over Vietnam recorded by the pilots themselves.

In 1940, a handful of Dutch air force pilots took on the might of Hitler's Luftwaffe, shooting down hundreds of enemy aircraft. Many escaped to Britain to join the RAF, but the outdated fighter they flew vanished. Now, a flying family of restorers is recreating the legendary Fokker DXXI, in an episode that features remarkable colour archive footage shot by one of the Dutch pilots who became national heroes.

Intrepid pilot Taff Smith rescues the wreckage of a biplane with a sinister history. The Bucker Jungmeister is a relic of General Franco's fascist air force which brought civil war to Spain and introduced the world to the horrors of strategic bombing. Rebuilding the Jungmeister means long hours and big bills for Taff's restoration team - and its resurrection could prove controversial in Spain.

On Lake Windermere a restoration team is determined to recreate the first flight of Britain's first seaplane. In 1911, Winston Churchill personally championed the Waterbird to give the Royal Navy an eye in the sky ahead of the First World War. However, putting Edwardian technology into the air proves to be harder than anyone expected.

A 1930s Lockheed airliner used by MI6 to spy on pre-war Germany is restored to flight by engineer Richard Grace and his team. To the suspicious Gestapo security men who checked his documents and searched his plane, maverick Australian pilot Sidney Cotton was on a business trip to promote his film business. In reality, he was Britain's most audacious spy, photographing Hitler's military secrets from the air - and on one occasion, with a Nazi general in the cockpit. The restoration reveals tell-tale signs of the plane's top-secret past.

The second series of the show that follows the skilled engineers and brave pilots who are on a mission to return history-writing planes to the air. In hangars and workshops across the UK. A rare Spitfire that escorted American daylight bombers over occupied Europe in 1945 is prepared for a new mission. Its home, the Shuttleworth Collection in Bedfordshire, faces financial difficulties - and engineers maintaining Britain's biggest fleet of flying vintage aircraft believe their iconic fighter can spearhead a recovery, if it can be returned to the sky in time.

Engineer and pilot Richard Grace and his team fight to complete an epic 40-year project to return the RAF's fastest wartime fighter to the sky. The Hawker Tempest could reach about 500mph, but it weighs six tons and it's so complex that missing parts have to be recreated by hand. Then Richard must find someone who's prepared to fly a fire-breathing 3,000-horsepower monster.

Following the restoration of a Spitfire that was discovered as an unlikely plaything in a children's playground. The TE517 was built to fight Hitler but then became a pawn in the Cold War, before ending up in the Middle East. Engineers at Biggin Hill in Kent are determined to return her to the air and proudly restore her to her original markings as a member of one of the RAF's legendary Free Czech squadrons.

Engineers fight to prepare a squadron of 10 Spitfires for Britain's biggest warbird air display in years, along with Corsairs, Hurricanes and Mustangs and a dozen more rare warbirds. Technical boss Martin Espin and his team must fault-find and repair against the clock, while display mastermind Jane Larcombe juggles the logistics of an event that involves a small air force and thousands of fans.

Eighty years after it crashed in flames during the Battle of Britain, a rare Spitfire is reconstructed from a wreckage dug from the soil of the South Downs. The mission for modern engineers at the Biggin Hill Heritage Hangar is to make P9372 fly again. In doing so, they honour the pilots of the RAF's most flamboyant fighter squadron whose social life was almost as legendary as their aerial exploits.

At 100-years-old, David Berry is one of the last surviving wartime airmen who flew the fragile Fairey Swordfish biplane, which helped sink Hitler's Bismarck battleship. Now engineers from the charity Navy Wings are fighting to return a rare example of the Royal Navy's last biplane to the sky in time for David to see it. At the same time, 250 miles away, another team are determined to make the US Navy's last biplane fly again.

Putting viewers in the cockpit of the planes that wrote history, the third series of Warplane Workshop traverses the globe to find rare aircraft and meet the people who are saving them. From the USA to New Zealand, and from the landing grounds of Normandy to the killing fields of Arnhem, its stars include two iconic Spitfires and the First World War biplane that made the first landing on an aircraft carrier at sea. We jump into action with American, French and Dutch parachutists recreating one of World War II's most daring operations aboard a transport plane that's still scarred by bullet holes from the real raid. And we meet some of the veterans who braved the lethal skies over the D-Day beaches 80 years ago. The opening episode follows a Spitfire that made history in 1944 by becoming the first Allied plane to land in liberated France. MK912 is rebuilt by engineers at Biggin Hill, and it's a tense mission for the test pilot assigned to conduct its first flight...

Putting viewers in the cockpit of the planes that wrote history, the third series of Warplane Workshop traverses the globe to find rare aircraft and meet the people who save them. From New Zealand to the USA, the landing grounds of Normandy and the killing fields of Arnhem, its stars include two iconic Spitfires and the First World War biplane that made the first landing on an aircraft carrier at sea. In this episode, a C47 transport plane that was badly damaged by anti-aircraft fire while dropping British paratroopers in 1944 returns to the scene of the ill-fated Arnhem landings. And the iconic Drag 'em Oot's pilots and crew face the challenge of keeping her flying long enough to drop hundreds of modern parachutists who are anxious to mark the 80th anniversary of the ill-fated raid on the real-life Bridge Too Far.

Putting viewers in the cockpit of the planes that wrote history, the third series of Warplane Workshop traverses the globe to find rare aircraft and meet the people who save them. From New Zealand to the USA, the landing grounds of Normandy and the killing fields of Arnhem, its stars include two iconic Spitfires and the First World War biplane that made the first landing on an aircraft carrier at sea. In this episode, pilot and engineer Richard Grace stages a major airshow at the airfield where he's restored dozens of rare warbirds. But the crowds are unaware that he's fighting a personal battle for survival against a terminal illness. It means he may not survive to see the big day.

The story of a group of Scottish pensioners who spent 25 years building a replica First World War biplane. The original Sophie the Sopwith Strutter made history by becoming the first plane to land on Britain's prototype aircraft carrier - but for her modern pilot, flying a 110-year-old design is fraught with danger.

The makeover of an iconic Spitfire becomes unexpectedly controversial as the UK re-assesses its main military alliance. Lady Ellen III was one of dozens of RAF fighters given to the US Army Air Corps during the Second World War and emblazoned with America's stars and bars. And the restoration team discover that their Spitfire's wartime pilot was a celebrated US civil rights activist.

On an airstrip in Kent, engineer Nicky Wood and her team rebuild an RAF Tiger Moth biplane - one of 8000 that played an unsung role in winning The Great War. Outdated and barely able to reach 100 miles an hour, they gave tens of thousands of allied airmen the skills to fly and fight.