Finding a big market for a TV show all about airplanes might seem like a challenge, but The Aviators has found its niche, and now is ready to start its sixth season, this week. “The season starts off with a segment we’ve long wanted to do, working with Jessica Cox, who has learned to fly though she was born without arms,” executive producer Anthony Nalli told AVweb this week. Cox will be the latest pilot in the show’s repeating segment about who can fly an airliner — using a simulator, private pilots and others have been tossed into the cockpit to see how they do. Other upcoming episodes will explore the airplanes of World War I and the connections between the aviation community and the history of spaceflight. “So I can’t imagine anything that we’ve missed, in that entire scope of time, from the first World War to the Space Shuttle,” Nalli said.
The show topics are selected with the interests of pilots in mind, Nalli said. “But we really want to cater to the enthusiast [who might not be a pilot]. We want to be as inclusive as we possibly can.” The show is distributed on PBS channels around the U.S., and also can be found on iTunes, Google Play, Hulu, Amazon, and more. “There are a lot of choices,” Nalli said. A new feature this year is an added director’s commentary for each episode, exclusively on the iTunes version of the show. Nalli said he and his crew already are at work on Season Seven. This season debuts on PBS this Friday, Oct. 23, and will be available on iTunes and elsewhere the next day.
