This programme provides an historic account of Parabolic flights starting with their discovery in the 1950's and looking at their use today for microgravity research and astronaut training.
The 5-minute A-roll contains split audio with an English guide track and is complemented by a B-roll with international sound only

If you fly an aeroplane at an n angle of 45¡ and then release the engines - the aeroplane will fly along a vertical parabola. From the moment the engines are turned off, the aircraft is in free fall subjecting the aeroplane and its occupants to a short period of weightlessness, or zero g.
The discovery, of using an aeroplane to create a zero g environment, was made by Fritz and Heinz Huber of the Airforce school of Aviation Medicine back in 1950. It came at a time when sending a man to into orbit for the first time was not a reality but still only a vision of scientists and engineers. Prior to parabolic flights the only way of studying zero g and its physiological effects was thought the use of sounding rockets.
However, these were not only costly financially but often suffered failures due to their parachutes not opening, and invariably ending the lives of their animal passengers.
By using aeroplanes, the creation of a zero g environment became cheaper and, more importantly, opened the way to rec