Chasing the Sun Episodes on PBS

Part 2 recalls the visionaries who transformed aviation “from a curiosity to a part of the fabric of life” during the 1920s and '30s, says narrator Ken Howard. Among them: Pan-Am founder Juan Trippe, who pioneered international flight; Lockheed designer Jack Northrup, whose Vega was the first plane to fly around the world; plane builder William Boeing, who also founded United Airlines; William Douglas, whose DC-3 was “the first plane to make money flying only passengers”; and Ellen Church, who devised a revolutionary solution to the fear of flying: stewardesses.