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Teddy: Launching a first-of-its-kind vehicle
is a thrill.
I'd say biggest and baddest.
Teddy: From the first of its generation aircraft carrier,
the USS Gerald R. Ford...
We project power.
Aliya: ...to flying a monster of a plane
on its inaugural flight to San Francisco...
For everybody, there will be some kind
of a learning curve here.
Aliya: ...to piloting a flying telescope...
Everybody kind of calls us the vampire crew.
We only come out at night
Teddy: ...To building a massive cruise ship
too big for one of the world's largest shipbuilding halls.
Woman: It's amazing. It's absolutely breathtaking.
Aliya: But being first means you're always in new territory.
We're at the crawl stage.
Aliya: And new territory can be very dangerous.
It might be some small little thing that kills you.
They're putting their lives in danger every single day.
(Whooshing)
Teddy: There's nothing easy about Launch Day.
(Waves crashing)
These are the mightiest planes, trains and ships
that humankind has ever devised.
Yeah, they're bigger, faster,
and they push harder than any other on Earth.
But the first step to achieving legendary status is Launch Day,
and that's really when you work out all the kinks,
and you make sure the crew is well prepared.
And AJ, just think of what it's like for the people involved
with these incredible feats of engineering.
For them, Launch Day is the culmination
of lengthy and really intense training and, frankly,
a lot of sleepless nights.
Yeah, and I'm excited to share examples
of that with you, right, Teddy?
Like the last-minute engineering challenges
of the Norwegian Breakaway cruise ship
or the relaunch of NASA's
Stratospheric Observatory
for Infrared Astronomy-- or SOFIA--
the 747 retrofitted to house a flying telescope,
and the first flight in and out of San Francisco
for the world's largest passenger airliner:
the Airbus A380.
That thing is absolutely massive.
Aliya: Yeah.
And I'm really excited to show you and everybody
the footage we got on the USS Gerald R. Ford.
It's incredible.
Now, that's the US Navy's new aircraft carrier
that's getting a ton of buzz, right?
Yeah, lots of buzz and rightly so
because it's the biggest
and most high tech aircraft carrier ever built.
I got to stand on the deck while F-18s landed.
It was absolutely mind blowing.
I'm so excited to show it to you.
I'm so jealous you got to do that because that is so fire.
(Rock instrumental music)
We're going to land on the aircraft carrier,
and I am so excited.
♪
Thank you, guys!
The USS Gerald R. Ford is in the final stages
of training in a classified location.
(Plane engine roars)
They need to ace their evaluation
before the ship can be deployed.
(Plane engine roars)
This is your really busy time, right?
Yeah!
Yeah, we've got a lot going on right now.
Man-up is, like, now.
The Navy has been waiting a long time
to put this asset into action...
♪
...so pressure is on the crew to deliver.
This is absolutely mind-blowing.
Everything about this ship...
(Whooshing)
...from the launches on deck...
(Whooshing)
♪
...to the firearms training below deck...
(Gunfire)
...is intimidating.
That's no accident.
Our job, in a nutshell, is project power, when we need to,
where we need to, how we need to, on our terms.
Teddy: Construction began in 2005.
It was finally christened eight years later...
(Whack)
(Cheering)
...but wasn't delivered to the Navy until 2017,
years behind schedule.
The surface is three football fields long.
The ship has 25 decks.
It can dwarf a small town.
4,500 crew members live here.
It weighs about the same as the Nimitz class,
which has patrolled the seas since 1975.
About 100,000 tons fully loaded,
powered by two nuclear reactors.
But there are key differences.
On the Ford class, the control tower is further aft,
creating more room for the runway and planes on deck.
And the catapults launching the planes
are powered by electricity, not steam.
These and other improvements to key systems
get munitions to the planes, planes to the deck
and pilots in the air faster than ever.
Officer: 4-0-3 airborne.
Officer 2: 4-0-3 airborne, on the go.
Teddy: 30% more sorties than any other ship in the fleet.
♪
We can move 100,000 tons of American diplomacy
off somebody's coast that we're fully integrated
and have the capability
to launch at the time of our choosing.
♪
Teddy: The USS Gerald R. Ford is the latest and greatest,
but it's standing on the shoulders of a giant.
Nimitz isn't just a class of carrier;
one carrier in particular bears that name.
It's a mobile airfield that has sailed
millions of nautical miles, allowing the United States
to deliver military influence anywhere on earth within hours.
But crew members have lost their lives
while in training on this ship.
(Engine roaring)
Planes have crashed on the flight deck.
High tension cables have snapped.
Helicopters have crashed.
There are a lot of ways to die during training,
especially for the pilots.
You don't have to be deployed off of the-- you know,
in the Gulf to have danger around you.
You can die just as easily on day one in a work-up cycle
as you can in the last day of careers
before you pull in.
Teddy: It's a fact of life on an aircraft carrier.
This is one of the most dangerous workplaces
in the world.
The crew of the USS Ford is well aware of this.
The danger is only heightened on a new ship with new systems
and new crew.
Launching is serious business,
so the carrier has been subject to thorough testing.
The Ford completed combat systems testing in April 2021,
firing missiles at attacking drones.
(Blasting)
In August of the same year, it completed shock trials.
Man: (On PA) Three, two, one.
(Booming)
Teddy: These certify the ship's hardness and its ability
to absorb the impacts it will face in combat.
Now the focus is on being prepared for deployment.
Organized chaos is what I'd call it,
but very structured and very controlled.
Teddy: Establishing that structure and control
takes training, which is happening on the Ford right now.
The ship right now is at the beginning
part of our work-up phase of our training.
It's performing all the basic mission steps
so that we can get quicker, get more efficient.
Teddy: They can't get quicker fast enough.
The ship's launch is years behind schedule,
but the Ford can't leave until its crew is ready for anything.
We don't send a carrier strike group out without getting
them fully certified to be able to go conduct operations.
♪
Teddy: Coordinating all the activity on a warship
with new technology and live munitions is like
performing a ballet with hand grenades.
They're putting their lives in danger every single day
to make sure that we can deliver
the promise we've made to America with this ship here.
Man: We've got to build relationships with each other
because the operating environment is dangerous.
Also, don't fly below any chutes.
Teddy: When you operate a jet filled with bombs
from a ship in the ocean,
relationships and communication are serious business.
Before every mission, the pilots pour over every detail
of the flight.
We're in the ready room.
This place is the domain of the pilots.
It's where they're about to get their briefing
before they do their flight operations up on the deck.
Our sound recordist is putting a microphone on one of the pilots.
We just got weather and NOTAMs.
Looks like we're working case three out there today.
Teddy: Preparing for launch requires complete focus
from Jeff Bosworth,
call sign Donnie G.,
and all of the other pilots on the ship too.
We'll have you in the F-18 on the right side,
and I'll be in the F-18 on the left side.
What we're doing right now is mostly the basic phase
of what we need in order to employ
and actually execute the mission.
But it's very dangerous.
It takes a lot of practice to make sure we can do it safely.
We're going to start up on plot two,
based on the fact they called case three.
So a small change to it.
And then over at TAC, and then expect that after we do
the check-in on TAC...
Teddy: If you're not a navy jet fighter pilot,
this sounds like another language.
But the communication is crystal clear
to the professionals in this room.
So you will move your aircraft aggressively and down,
and I'm gonna manoeuvre out and up in...
Teddy: It needs to be if this crew
hopes to be ready for deployment
into some of the most dangerous places in the world.
(Unclear) today, it should start off with Viper 1,
this being the engine on the left.
Right is appropriate, Viper 2.
Speeds angels, right. Check tapes HUD.
That first probably 10 minutes was talking about just
how we were going to take off from the aircraft carrier,
how we're gonna get to the airspace
that we're gonna work in,
and then how we're going to return to the aircraft carrier.
Teddy: Those may seem like mundane tasks, but pilots
need to know what to do in a bad situation before it happens.
And you need to know what training to fall back on.
Teddy: It's pretty dangerous below deck too,
where the crew is preparing and transporting
the smart bombs that the pilots will be taking
into enemy territory.
♪
So, I mean, as you can tell, for the crew of the USS Ford,
precision is so important.
They need to be doing their jobs at the top of their game
every day because the stakes are so high.
Yeah, the details can really make you or break you, right?
And we'll see that as they get more into launch day preparation
for the Norwegian Breakaway,
for the Airbus A380 and for NASA SOFIA.
But I'm also really excited
to hear more about your experience on the Ford.
It was absolutely phenomenal.
We were actually the first camera crew to be there
while the Air Wing was on board.
♪
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(Driving rock instrumental)
♪
The Mightiest: Launch Day continues.
And, Teddy, you and I were just talking
about the intense amount of training
and attention to detail that US Navy sailors need to have
before they go out to the open sea.
Yeah, the amount of training that they go through
is really something else.
And it's because every job on board is dangerous,
including working with high level explosives.
A mistake could absolutely mean disaster.
So, I mean, it's really the definition
of a no-fail scenario.
(Whooshing)
The action on the flight deck is thrilling.
All right, copy.
All: Copy!
Teddy: It's no less intense below deck,
where the crew is preparing the ordnance.
We call them bombs.
Aviation Ordnanceman 1st Class, Raphael Godette,
is teaching the crew how to arm and transport
the deadly explosives.
♪
What she's doing is she's installing the FOU-139 fuse,
uh, that was what makes the bomb go boom.
"Go ahead and remove fuse safety pin".
(Pin clicks)
"Place the tail assembly
on the aft end of the bomb body as follows."
Warning!
All: Warning.
Teddy: The tail section carries
software that allows the aircraft
to 'talk' to the bomb.
It also tells the bomb where it's going.
It's a smart bomb.
Teddy: The smallest of details
is scrutinized.
They can make or break a mission.
Even how much to tighten a screw is drilled into the training.
If you don't torque it, then these screws can back out
and this tail section can fall off in flight,
which no longer makes this bomb smart.
Teddy: Once the bomb
is fully assembled, it's inspected.
So, I have to sign it, date it,
and put the fuse settings on the tail.
Teddy: Now that the bomb is armed
and dangerous, it's ready to move.
But, sailors won't be grabbing each end
like a piece of furniture.
The holes in this carrier allow for different centres
of gravity, depending on what's being moved.
Ready on the nose? Ready on the nose.
Ready on the tail? Ready on the tail.
Hoist.
(Compressor hissing)
♪
Teddy: Then, the bomb is strapped down,
because rolling off would be bad.
♪
Weapon is strapped.
Female sailor: Hands and feet clear,
ordinance on the move!
Teddy: Now the bomb is moved
to one of the biggest advancements on this ship;
the elevator.
We've got new elevators that are electromagnetically
operated, and they are able to move more ordinance,
more rapidly, directly from the weapons magazines
up to the flight deck than you can in a Nimitz class.
Teddy: The Ford class can launch 30%
more missions than the Nimitz class, so the planes
have to be fully loaded and ready to go faster, too.
The ship does it with 20% less crew.
It's a lot more efficient, less maintenance,
and it's just a lot easier to control.
That's an advantage we have on board the Ford
that no other ship has.
Teddy: Bombs are placed
between the yellow lines to avoid a bump
which could set off an explosion.
This crew prioritizes safety at all times.
♪
So if it seems like those sailors
are under a lot of pressure,
it's because they absolutely are,
there are a lot of eyes on them to perform.
And another crew under a lot of pressure are the builders
of the Norwegian Breakaway cruise ship.
Now, this is one of the biggest cruise ships ever,
three times bigger than the Titanic!
And this is the one that was build really quickly, right?
Yeah, you're right, it was ground-up in 18 months,
and nothing like that had ever been done before.
♪
Aliya: Germany's Meyer Werft shipyard
has build hundreds of big ships,
but Norwegian Breakaway is the biggest of all!
And she's so tall, the crane can't lift her smoke stack
high enough to fit it on top of the ship.
♪
Crane supervisor Reinhold Villems can see
only one solution: cut the funnel...
...and move it in piecemeal.
(Speaking German)
Aliya: Even then, it'll be a tight fit.
♪
int precision,
the crane guides the funnel into position.
The very top of the smoke stack will be re-attached later.
It's a reminder that nothing like this build
has ever been attempted, and if details are missed,
the launch date could be delayed indefinitely.
♪
There are eight months to her first voyage.
The ship's 330 tonne bow is now welded and ready
to join the hull.
Breakaway's bridge is more than 40 metres, or 131 feet across.
Crane supervisor Andreas Roskins must find the exact balance
when fitting it to the hull.
(Speaking German)
♪
Aliya: The bridge is carefully lowered
into its resting place on the gigantic ship's hull
and she's looking whole!
♪
Despite the odds, the Norwegian Breakaway meets
its unrelenting two year production schedule.
So this is the moment we all have been waiting for.
♪
(Guests applaud)
♪
Aliya: Clear of the port,
the gigantic ship makes her way west.
A successful launch for the ship!
Big enough to find a home
alongside the New York City skyline!
Such an incredible ship, and it was build in two years.
Yeah, that's pretty amazing.
And you know, the USS Ford, it took longer to build,
but that makes sense because there's so much
new technology on board, like these two huge elevators
that can bring jets up
to the deck faster than ever before.
(Waves crashing)
We've been given incredible access here by the Navy,
and our crew, while we're filming,
have to be really careful;
we have to stay out of the way,
we're constantly lugging our gear around
and being where they tell us,
'cause if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time,
the results could be disastrous!
(Mechanical whirring)
This ship has two hanger bays where planes are stored
and shipped to maintenance or to the flight deck;
fully loaded with munitions.
It's amazing to see this unfolding in real time,
here it comes.
We got to get out of the way.
♪
The crew in charge of moving resources around wear yellow.
When an aircraft is requested, this crew aims for speed.
We shoot for a two minute elevator drop,
so the elevator comes down, we pull the aircraft off
and we try to send it up in two minutes.
♪
Teddy: But speed never comes
at the expense of safety.
I have a lot of, uh, sailors here that I work with,
that I know and I'm good friends with,
and they're in harm's way a lot of the times.
They're moving near, uh, you know,
thousand pound aircrafts, you know,
I don't want them to get hurt or run over
or anything like that.
♪
Teddy: There are three elevators
on the Ford-- One less than the Nimitz--
But they carry many more planes and move much, much faster.
They were used to their fullest today.
It was kind of a tough move, um, putting an E2 in a 18,
anything tight like that, it kinda gets
your adrenaline going just a little bit.
Teddy: Moving billions of dollars
of high-tech planes may seem
like heavy lifting to you and me...
but the crew of this ship makes tasks requiring skill
and coordination look effortless.
This level of skill takes months of training.
But when you get to the flight deck,
you need every bit of experience.
In just a few moments,
we're gonna talk about NASA's SOFIA,
an incredible flying observatory that's taking its first flight
after being grounded for over a year,
and we're gonna talk about the first flight
of the Airbus A-380 in San Francisco.
That plane is incredible, massive.
And I'm gonna take you back to the USS Gerald R. Ford,
I'm gonna see some
of the revolutionary new engineering
that allows it to project power faster than any other ship
in the U.S. fleet.
(Plane engine whirring)
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(Plane engine whirring)
(Dramatic instrumental music)
♪
You can't deploy
until you know that every single system
on board is tried and tested, and that's even more true
for a high-tech ship like the USS Gerald R. Ford.
Yeah, you know, you're absolutely right.
And all of that new tech, and the crew, are constantly
under the microscope of engineers and trainers.
But in the same breath, not everything needs
to be re-worked and overhauled.
You know there's a saying,
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it"?
That also applies
to state-of-the-art aircraft carriers!
♪
Trying to hook up a tow bar.
There's a thousand moving parts when you look
at what a carrier operation does.
Tag flight deck control.
Teddy: Coordinating all those
moving parts is the job of the handler.
401 calling Alpha?
101 is aft of the wire boxes, going into the heat as soon
as it gets parked.
Flight deck control office is really the beating heart
of everything that happens on the flight deck,
and the handler's responsible for everything that goes on.
Getting to see him in action, doing his job, is mind blowing.
The amount of things that he has to keep in his head at once...
Handler: I got Seven coming down.
...is astounding.
Yup, I'm looking at 101,
it's going by my window right now.
We take an air plan, which is written by AirOps
and the team the night before, and we execute the air plan
to the best of our ability.
Teddy: Sounds simple?
It isn't.
It is definitely not airborne if I'm staring at it on deck.
Teddy: This ship may be big,
but it's a minuscule airport.
Better call the shot!
You're on able to recover so many aircraft and park them
before you run out of space.
Teddy: With planes full of fuel
and bombs, a fatal disaster is one small oversight away.
(Incoherent radio chatter)
If he's going then I need to know.
Yeah, shut him down, yeah.
Teddy: To prevent this, the handler
augments a state-of-the-art system called 'ADMACS'
with something they call 'the Ouija board.'
It's like combining
a super computer with a board game.
Roger that, let 'em know.
Handler, can you tell us a bit about the Ouija board?
Uh, yes sir, absolutely.
So, the Ouija board is what we use to track and manage,
um, maintenance requirements of where aircraft
are currently on deck at this time.
So our Ouija board is a two-scale representation
from the bow to the fan tail.
Our fuel maintenance representative here
is wearing purple, so all the piping throughout the ship
is all JP5, its painted purple.
So if an aircraft requires fuel, the maintenance request comes
in from the maintenance office, through Senior Chief,
Senior Chief lets us know that, that aircraft requires fuel,
so we take a single purple nut and we place it on the aircraft,
simple as can be.
So, with the high-tech displays available you still choose this?
You prefer it?
I like this, only because I'm able to see everything
up close and personal.
So, there you go.
There's no replacement for effective.
Which is exactly why NASA was under so much pressure to get
its airborne observatory, SOFIA, back in the air
after being out of commission for months.
So, let me ask a question that a lot of other people
are probably wondering, too.
NASA has a lot of telescopes, why does it need one on a 747?
Okay. Well, our atmosphere absorbs much of
the infrared light emitted by objects in space.
So, the only way to scan space in infrared is by being
above the atmosphere.
And, SOFIA has been a very useful tool to study the birth
of stars, and even black holes at the centre of our galaxies.
But it's not much use if it's, you know,
just sitting on the ground.
Right.
(Engine whirring)
Aliya: Tonight's 10-hour flight will take SOFIA northeast
from Palmdale, California to Rapid City, South Dakota.
There, she will turn west towards Portland, Oregon
and out over the Pacific Ocean before turning back towards
San Francisco;
and then her final leg south to Palmdale.
SOFIA is fuelled up and on deck for her first mission in a year.
The airplane is ready to go and it looks like we're ready to go
fly for the first time, all night long, in over a year.
Pilot: (Over radio) We're set. Airspeed's alive.
Aliya: Chief pilot, Troy Asher, applies full power and SOFIA
accelerates down runway 2-5.
♪
Tonight's mission is to calibrate and test the
telescope's upgraded control system.
Without a fully operational telescope, there will be
no more science flights.
We're basically trying to mea-- take some measurements of how
well the telescope is performing, how well we can see,
how well is it tracking, how well can we do everything.
We're test driving the telescope.
It has a lot of new software.
We'll, uh, see how it goes at the end.
Aliya: The observatory door opens and the telescope can soon
start tracking stars.
The door's open. We're good to go.
Aliya: With SOFIA on course, and on target, the telescope
operators get busy locking onto stars.
And now, there's a new problem: high-altitude turbulence
that affects the telescope's precise stabilizers.
The telescope itself is resting on air springs, and these air
springs are dampening the vibrations from the aircraft.
We use gyroscope sensors that guide the telescope exactly into
the direction we want it to look at.
Pilot: (Over radio) We're starting to pick up some, uh,
continuous chop here.
Is it more of the same up ahead?
Aliya: It looks like the telescope is moving, but it's
actually the aircraft itself that's moving around
the telescope.
♪
Pilot 2: (Over radio) It would have been nice to sail some
smooth air, but, oh, well.
Pilot: It would have been.
Aliya: After 30 minutes, the worst of the turbulence has
passed allowing the science crew to get back to work.
After months of setbacks, the flying telescope
finally works perfectly.
We had pretty good success with it.
All the kind of work that infrared astronomers do
is fundamentally based on this capability.
So, it's really important that we were able to show
that this works.
I think that went really well.
At least we finished the test, which was-- it was a difficult
for us to do, and we finished it.
And we have new functions, new functionality with it,
than we did a year ago.
(Engine roaring)
Aliya: It's 5:00 AM, and the sleep-deprived crew
is ready for bed, relieved to have this test behind them.
It went great. I think successful,
We got everything.
Uh, SOFIA's back in business.
We're ready-- we're ready to--
ready to do some good science here.
♪
It really is a careful dance between the flight crew
and the scientists on board, but a successful one.
Yeah, and, you know, that can bring us back to the USS Ford,
because the runway is only 91 metres long.
Get this, that's seven times shorter
than the average runway on land.
That actually sounds impossible.
It's almost impossible, but it requires a careful dance, really
intense coordination between the pilots, the ground crew, and the
incredible new launch system that I got to see up close.
♪
(Engine roaring)
You're going to be flying at a few hundred knots
right off the front of this ship,
at 60 feet off the ocean.
And the ocean's an unforgiving place.
Teddy: Making sure the catapults that launch the planes
work perfectly every time is the job of the green shirts:
Maintenance.
It's overwhelmingly stressful at times, too.
(Engine roaring)
Teddy: The job will always be stressful,
but at least the machinery is getting better.
The launch system works in the same way on all carriers.
A catapult is attached to a device on the front wheel.
Then, the catapult pulls the plane forward really fast,
reaching more than 200 kilometres,
or over 120 miles per hour in 2 seconds.
In the past, the catapults were powered by steam, which pushed
the piston attached to the catapult.
However, thanks to the turbines inside the Ford, the power
system has been given a major upgrade.
Everything's electrical on Ford.
We got rid of the steam.
We got rid of the hydraulics.
It's more efficient.
It's less maintenance, and it's less manpower.
Teddy: The Electromagnetic Launch System, or EMALS, also
means the catapult can be reset and ready to go in an instant.
So, we could keep the shuttles back out pretty much all night
long, for weeks, if we wanted to.
Teddy: When planes land on the deck, a hook catches a thick
metal cable slowing the aircraft down.
That process is easier on the Ford, too.
In the old system, fluid in a valve slowed down the cable.
The new Advanced Arresting Gear, or AAG, is electromagnetic,
as well.
My recovery system is more advanced and more reliable
than a Nimitz-class carrier.
It is a smooth deceleration, which is exactly what you're
going to want. It's not ripping off the tailhook.
Teddy: The new system was being built while the technology
was still being developed.
So, the crew had some kinks to work out.
Now, they're practicing to improve efficiency.
They already know the new electrical system works.
The system has been proven.
So, yeah, I think that's what makes it the meanest and baddest
aircraft carrier on the fleet now.
(Waves crashing)
Okay, after the break we'll look at one of the most important
jobs on an aircraft carrier.
And what it takes to handle the first ever arrival
of the massive Airbus A380 in San Francisco.
♪
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♪
If you're on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier;
sometimes it comes with tremendous consequence
for the person that's working on the flight deck
so, we have skin in the game.
You know, when you're out there on the flight deck
you are the one in danger.
Teddy: Everyone knows about the risks, but the crew on the deck
is as cool as the other side of the pillow.
We're filming with the shooter.
That's one of the most important roles on the aircraft carrier.
They're responsible for the safe launch and recovery of the jets.
It's almost like a crossing guard on steroids.
Teddy: Because it's so loud, shooters communicate with pilots
and other flight deck crew through hand signals.
This shooter's hands are getting a workout, because the crew
is still learning the nuances of the new tech.
It's a new technology, so we're still working out some of the
small kinks, and some of the things that we know
go wrong often.
It's important to get it right, 'cause if things go wrong
you're breaking stuff or you're hurting people.
Teddy: Right now, the shooter is training an up-and-comer.
You're good at getting back and doing stuff pretty quick.
Wind a little earlier, 'cause it sounds like
she's waiting on your winds.
Male Shooter: Yeah.
Teddy: A few pointers go a long way towards getting this crew
mission ready.
It went pretty well. We had a couple of hiccups.
We've got to coordinate with the guys on the waist, as well,
to make sure that we're not going at the same time.
So, we had a couple of issues there.
(Engine roaring)
♪
Teddy: Even when the issues are solved and the carrier
is deployed, crew drills never end.
That's everyday for the crew of the USS Gerald R. Ford.
And, you know, it's all to prepare for the day they finally
deploy for the first time.
It's important to stay on your toes, even for crews
at passenger airports.
Especially when you're handling the largest passenger plane
ever built, the Airbus A380.
Yeah, that thing is an absolute monster.
And it's really interesting, because it was built to reduce
airport congestion, because you'll be able to move more
people with fewer planes.
And, believe me, there was a ton of celebration when it landed in
San Francisco for the first time.
I bet.
♪
Aliya: Behold, the Airbus A380, the world's largest
passenger plane.
It carries 100 more passengers than a 747, but burns
12% less fuel.
So, lower gas bills and more paying customers.
Man: (Over radio) Lufthansa 454,
super contact San Francisco tower, 120.5.
Aliya: On the ground, emergency vehicles are rallied.
They'll offer a traditional salute to mark the arrival
of Lufthansa's first A380 to San Francisco.
♪
More than 10 years earlier, San Francisco opened a terminal
capable of accommodating a super jumbo.
Now, their first paying customer is pulling in.
♪
(Indistinct radio chatter)
♪
It's a moment for celebration.
♪
Push that off.
Aliya: For Captain Juergen and his crew, the job is over,
but the clock is ticking for Denise Stevens
and her ground team.
They've got just over two hours to unload and inspect the plane,
then refuel, reload, and send it back to Frankfurt.
Denise: It's a challenge to
put all three jet bridges on, because we've never
done this before.
So, it may take them a while.
Aliya: To reach the A380's upper deck requires a specially
designed catering truck.
It's the driver's first time attempting to get the lift into
the right positron.
But after a few attempts, success!
And the loading begins. Denise moves on to
the cargo holds.
Denise: Uh, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
Eight containers.
This position here is gonna be empty.
Aliya: With just a few minutes until boarding begins,
Denise has the end in sight.
Denise: We're getting close to the end.
We just have to finish loading the containers in the forward
hold and in the rear hold.
By then, they should have all
the passengers and we'll close
it up and send this baby back to Frankfurt.
Aliya: The crew at the gate
is putting everything they've
got into loading 460 passengers
on the first A380 flight to Frankfurt.
Check in?
Migueli Durand is Lufthansa's check-in manager and some of
her passengers are in danger of
losing their place in history.
So, right now, I can see from
the time, we're missing 24, more or less.
Denise: If a passenger doesn't show up, we have to haul
all the containers out, pull
the bag off, and put it back on,
and then push the plane back before departure time.
Aliya: But finally, all are present and accounted for,
and just in time, the doors are closed.
Whew!
(Laughing)
We showed 'em.
We're done.
Aliya: Denise delivers
the final numbers to the captain
so that he can verify his weight and balance calculations.
Plus four bags in compartment
five, plus six-zero.
You, too.
See you next time!
Woman: (On radio) This on
the 4-69 (Unclear), runway three,
flight cleared for take-off.
Aliya: The first A380 leaves
San Francisco as planned,
another big first in aviation.
It takes a village to handle such a big plane and all of
the passengers.
No, AJ, take that village,
put it on a ship with a full
airport on top, and you've got the USS Ford.
And, you know, I was blown away
when I took a tour below deck.
It really is a floating city.
Jax: There's about 4,500
sailors on board, so the ship
is like a floating city.
We have any service that you need on board.
Business as usual?
We get, like,
30 haircuts a day.
Do you do my 'do?
Anything's possible.
Anything's possible!
(Laughing)
So, we're in the hangar bay.
It's probably the biggest part of the ship.
You always find sailors
at the gym, 24-7.
Teddy: How long did it take you to know your way
around the ship?
Uh, it depends on how many
times you try to get lost.
How are you?
♪
Took me about three months
before I felt pretty confident in navigating the ship.
So, this is the main galley.
(Chatter)
Right now, we're headed down
one of the food lines.
So, we've got some chicken wings right there.
We got our salad bar.
Got fruits, veggies, all the good stuff.
The best meal that this ship has
to offer, teriyaki chicken, undefeated.
I am taking you to the ship's store.
They sell everything from ship merchandise, like stickers,
patches, coins, to energy
drinks, snacks, like, anything
you need to get through the day.
Oh, gosh, your calves definitely
build up very quickly from going up the ladder-log all the time.
Teddy: What's with
the red lights, Jax?
So, red lights, they project less light out into
the ocean, the sky.
So, at nighttime, we want to minimize the amount of light
we're putting out so that we're
not detected by other ships.
This ship is named after Mr. Gerald R Ford.
So, this is our ship's tribute room.
It's like a mini-museum, basically, and then, right
there's his naval service.
It's like an ant farm.
There's so many different ways to get to one spot.
You're in medical now.
You're dental.
I am.
How many teeth have you seen today?
A good many.
Welcome to the coffee shop.
Just in case y'all didn't know,
coffee is the life and blood of every single sailor.
Right.
A little cup of happiness.
Man: Made with a lot of love.
Made with a lot of love.
Well, I love it, a lot.
I love this ship so much.
Whenever I walk around the ship,
I see so many people
that I love...
What's up, dude?
How you doin'?
...and that the navy has
introduced me to, that this ship has introduced me to.
So, I feel a lot of pride walking around, for sure.
Teddy: You can see that pride in action on the flight deck,
where everyone's preparation
pays off, if it's done right.
After the break, I see the crew
of the Ford rehearse the ship's
most important job: take-offs and landings.
And you were pretty close,
weren't you?
I was really close.
I could feel the heat
and smell the exhaust.
It was wild.
(Engines whooshing)
♪
(Whooshing)
♪
This is The Mightiest: Launch Day.
Now, before the USS Ford is ready for its first mission,
the crew need to practise and
practise again their core task: getting airplanes into the air
fast, and, once they land, getting them off-deck quickly.
It's time for take-off.
♪
They just opened the canopy...
Teddy: Every job on the ship is important, but the true test
of an aircraft carrier is launching and landing planes.
Paul: If you do that correctly, you're just fine.
If you don't do it right, you
might lose a part of your body in the process.
(Whooshing)
We were just standing here and we felt the hot exhaust of
the jet engine behind us,
and then we were pushed with an incredible force.
Everybody's okay, but it just illustrates how important it is
to be vigilant and safe when you're here.
(Engines whining)
Take-off and landing is
the most dangerous part of
any aircraft flight, from any position.
And if you don't get to that
airspeed, you're gonna fall into the water.
Man: 401 on that!
Chuck: We put a lot of trust
in everybody else's piece to know their business.
If you've ever been on one of the rollercoasters that kind of
starts level with one of those magnetic launchers,
it's a little bit similar to that,
just more aggressive.
(Whooshing)
Patrick: It's a tremendous, tremendous, exhilarating ride.
♪
Once we're airborne, we'll look to execute basic fighter
manoeuvring, which is kind of a visual 1B1 dogfighting.
Teddy: The planes could be called into action at any time,
day or night.
Landing a plane on a short
runway on the rolling sea is hard enough during the day.
Try doing it at night.
The pilots on the Nimitz do it all the time.
And it's still terrifying.
The crew prepares for a night mission.
Less visibility means more room for error.
The captain reminds his crew that flying in the dark brings
new challenges.
So, prepare accordingly.
Captain: ...inherently risky,
so, let's make sure if you're
involved in all those, you get out there and you're hydrated,
get your meal tonight.
And then, if we get going in the night, you're ready to go.
Watch out for each other.
We still have a fairly new team.
Let's back each other up.
Proud of you.
That's all.
Teddy: Lieutenant Tom Booth,
call sign Alf, is a rookie in the Warhawk squadron.
Definitely scared, nervous,
but excited at the same time.
Teddy: Anticipation can be the worst part.
Tom: Sitting out on a dark
catapult and turning the light switch on and knowing in about
six to seven seconds, there's gonna be a very strong cat-shot
into a black, black hole.
Teddy: He's off.
Alf rockets down the runway and lifts off into the night sky.
The deck crew is working in minimal light that makes it
harder for an enemy to spot the ship.
The waves are picking up
and the flight deck is pitching heavily.
Alf's landing just went from
risky to downright dangerous.
There's a hundred different things that can go wrong and
we always keep an eye on them.
So, hopefully, they don't cost us any people
or parts or things.
♪
(Chatter over radio, unclear)
Teddy: Alf's training kicks in.
(Signal wailing)
Man: Little power.
(Swooshing)
Teddy: The arresting cables do their job.
A solid landing in tough conditions.
Today, on the Ford, they're
practising landing during the day, which is still
pretty stressful.
(Whizzing)
You basically look at the end of the runway, which is in
the middle of the ship.
So, that doesn't move very much,
compared to the back end of the ship.
Stopping throws you forward in
the cockpit in your seat and everything.
It's just a very rapid deceleration.
It's a little bit different on the Ford; both those are
a little bit smoother than the old steam equipment
on the Nimitz-class.
(Whirring)
It went exactly as we briefed it this morning.
So, pretty much to the letter.
Teddy: The training flights
are a success, thanks to spectacular execution by
thousands of people on the USS Gerald R. Ford.
Now, they need to do it over and over and over again till they
can prove to navy inspectors that they're battle-ready.
It's absolutely critical to
be ready when we're asked to go serve.
It's our responsibility to sharpen our sword and make sure
we're ready, so when a call comes, the air wing's ready to
deliver ordinance on time with lethal accuracy.
That's our job.
Teddy: It's clear during our visit that this crew is on
the cusp of full readiness to take on a very dangerous world.
The skills that they learn are unbelievable, and then
the willingness to put themselves in challenging
situations, and potentially into harm's way,
it's really inspiring to me. It's the best job in the world.
No doubt.
♪
(Engines whooshing)
♪
(Musical flourish)