Conquering the Skies Skies Above Britain

Once, except for the birds, our skies were empty.

Now, they're a crowded place.

It's like chaos, but it's controlled chaos.

Every day, 6,000 planes...

My pride and joy.

There's nothing we can't transport.

..and 600,000 people are in the skies above Britain.

Guiding every plane is a hidden army of controllers...

So we've got no option right now but to stop arrivals into Gatwick.

..performing one of the world's greatest juggling acts.

Unlike a computer game, you can't hit pause.

They're coming.

A place of adventure....

HE LAUGHS

Well, that was fantastic!

..wonder...

When you're up there, nothing else matters.

..and danger.

Unless you know what's in front of you, think better of it.

It gives you a sense of space and freedom

and a feeling that you're part of something bigger.

Every boy's little dream.

'167.'

'2571 Golf to land on a 335.'

There's something about the sky.

Something adventurous and escapist.

The skies over Britain are used by scores of different people

who all want different things out of them.

There are private pilots who fly, there are drones,

there are hot air balloonists, there are gliders,

there's the military.

There's any number of people who all want to use the airspace.

And trying to make all of that work safely and well

is the most important thing for us.

But you never quite know what's going to happen.

At the National Air Traffic Control Centre - NATS -

a team of controllers thread thousands of planes

through our skies each day.

86 Papa, reduce speed to 220 knots.

158, Roger, continue on the heading, flight number 110.

But there are always unexpected challenges.

BLEEPING

He's lost his number one hydraulic system.

He's got no fluid left in it, no noticeable steering.

Shortly after taking off, a passenger jet is reporting a fault.

93 Uniform is a Pam with a hydraulic failure.

One system is completely drained.

So we've got a British Airways aircraft that had left Heathrow

about... probably half an hour ago now.

They got about ten minutes into the flight and discovered it had

a hydraulic leak, and decided the best course of action

was not to continue to Gibraltar but to come back to Heathrow.

Unfortunately, the aircraft's too heavy to land,

and the risk if they land too heavy is they might burst the tyres,

the brakes might fail or lock,

and they might damage the aircraft by doing that.

So in order to get to the correct weight to land,

he needs to burn off fuel.

It's a waiting game, really, for us.

Cheers.

Controllers direct the jet to a clear patch of airspace,

where it can use up fuel by circling overhead.

So there he is. He's over the Channel at 13,000 feet.

After 25 minutes, the plane has burned off enough fuel to land.

But the hydraulic fault means it may not be able to steer

once its wheels hit the tarmac.

The gap behind him would normally be three to four miles.

We're putting a ten-mile gap in just to give us that little bit more room

in case anything does happen, and that allows us to take the aircraft

behind and send it around, if anything does.

BLEEPING

He's on this line here - it's known as the extended centre line.

So he's landing on 27 right.

He's got to be off by now.

OK, so he's disappeared off the radar now,

which means that very shortly, his wheels will be hitting the tarmac.

BLEEPING

Yes, airports?

OK, thank you.

He's vacated the runway,

they're waiting for the runway to be inspected and handed back.

The runway's back, it's all clear.

Problem finished.

The demands placed on NATS go far beyond commercial traffic.

Right next to Heathrow,

the British leg of the International Red Bull Air Race is taking place

at Ascot Racecourse.

PLANE ENGINE ROARS

Enabling people to operate an air race

in one of the busiest air traffic control zones in the world

is bonkers.

If you said, "Oh, look, let's have a massive air race

"next to this incredibly busy international airport",

you probably wouldn't do it.

So we've said to them, not above 1,500 feet.

And that enables us to then jump over the top of them

with our outbound traffic.

Touch wood,

they manage to keep in their own little part of the airspace.

They keep to their bit, we keep to our bit, and everybody's happy.

One of the pilots competing for the top prize is Paul Bonhomme.

Paul first piloted a plane when he was just 12 years old,

and has been flying ever since.

You know, if you're in an aerobatic aeroplane

in a beautiful summer's afternoon,

blue sky, no airspace issues, you've turned the radio off,

fly around and twist and turn and roll and loop.

And it's just... It's great fun.

Paul's day job is flying passenger jets for BA.

But he is also a two-time Red Bull Air Race champion,

and this year is going for a record third win.

I hate losing.

I've never understood the phrase,

"It's not the winning that matters, it's the taking part that counts."

On the other side of the coin, it's the winning that counts.

It's Practice Day at Ascot,

where the 14 competing pilots have a chance

to work out the quickest route around a three-mile course.

The real fun starts when we get to a corner,

cos the aeroplane disappears off round the corner that way.

Your body wants to keep going in the original direction.

So that is effectively squashing you into the seat,

and that feels like a load of weight.

You know, your arms suddenly weigh ten times their normal weight.

You know, your neck muscles are straining to keep your head upright.

Under that pressure, your blood will want to travel this way as well.

The blood pressure to your eyes will reduce,

you will just see this grey shadow coming in,

and ultimately, you can have a complete grey-out,

where you just see everything grey.

Added to the physical challenge of the race is risk.

Pilots must fly extremely close to the ground

at speeds of over 200 mph.

Six years ago, during a race, a Red Bull plane faltered.

The pilot was lucky to crash into water.

Since then, new safety measures have been introduced,

but the course is still designed

to push pilots to their absolute limits.

Jump out.

There's something about humans that make us want to fly.

I think it just represents freedom when you're up there.

Like, you can breathe. It's just...

Everything is just beneath you now, and you're just away from it.

With tens of thousands of people in Britain now owning a drone,

the skies are opening up to more and more of us.

You're not supposed to be there, you know that.

'We are YouTubers, full-time YouTubers.'

So we basically film our lives as parents

for a weekly show that we put out every Sunday.

No! No, no, no! Not that lens, not the lens!

'So we just film everything we do.'

We film ourselves trying to raise a child.

As soon as he bought his drone, online filmmaker Stefan Michalak

started pushing the boundaries of where he could fly it.

One day we decided to go down to the Natural History Museum,

which is this incredibly beautiful building in London.

And it was just dying to have a drone fly all around it and over it.

So I was a bit audacious -

I kind of put my drone down probably about ten metres away

from the building, and then just launched it.

And before I even had it, like, six foot in the sky,

I had lots of hi-vis jacket people around me

telling me to, like, land this thing now.

-I don't think I was allowed to get that shot.

-Put that away, please.

I've got to put this away, so I'll speak to you in a minute.

Maybe from prison, I don't know, we'll see.

They let me out. I'm not arrested, so that's good.

Apparently you need a license to fly a drone.

My plan was to get the drone shot outside,

and then take the drone inside, and film the drone around here,

and fly the drone up into this.

And they said they probably would have shot me if I'd done that,

-so I'm glad I didn't.

-Did they say that?

The fact that you could just buy these in any shop,

I was thinking, "Well, they can't be that illegal."

In terms of how illegal things are, you've got murder,

you've got, like, I don't know, going 35mph,

I thought it might be towards the bottom of that spectrum.

So I was like, if it IS illegal,

then it's probably not going to be a big deal anyway.

I'll just be told not to do it again.

It's a bit of a reckless attitude, I suppose.

Even larger drones designed for aerial filming

are too small to be detected by radars.

Yesterday we had an aircraft out of Heathrow

report a close encounter with a drone.

He estimated it 20 foot away,

and suggested it was in the region of about six foot.

So we're not talking a little pathetic helicopter

you might get down the gadget shop, we're talking a big, proper drone

up there at 10,000 feet.

Another aircraft reported seeing it a little higher.

If you're going to hit something at 260mph,

it's going to do some damage, isn't it?

I'm no judge, jury and executioner,

but if I ruled the world, they should be...

Well, lock and key job, because, again,

it's endangerment of aircraft.

This is Barry just arriving.

This is the guy who's going to help me try and pass my drone test.

He's already done the test, so he's well-placed to know what I'm supposed to do.

For the misuse of his drone, Stef got off with a warning,

but now he can't use it for filming unless he gets an official licence.

In here is all you need to do a flight assessment safely.

OK, so you need to put one of those on, OK?

This thing here just does a scan of the frequencies locally.

So you need to warn people you're going to be flying in the area.

You need to check the wind to make sure it's not too windy.

You need a fire extinguisher.

First aid kit.

To have traffic cones out, and signs...

and pretty much hard hats...

I mean, there's no other way

that I'm going to get the shots I want to get

unless I can jump through all these hoops.

So...I know it's essential,

but it does strip the romance out of flying the drone completely.

I have to carry traffic cones around with me!

I might just steal them off the A3 or something!

Go to 20 metres.

Go to 20 metres high.

The regulations state Stef must keep his drone below 400 feet.

-Oh, great.

-Here we are, 20 metres.

Just bring it down a minute. They do know we're flying, so...

He used to fly close to 1,000.

OK, so if you just go 20 metres forward and then hover,

and then fly back, and as I say, turn the drone round.

If I pass my test, I'll be one of, like,

five legal drone pilots allowed to fly in London

with the CAA, which is crazy.

How does that work? How do you mean, what you just said there?

Because I'm applying to fly in London, central London,

-with the CAA.

-It's not going to be that easy.

Sorry. What you've just said isn't going to be very easy,

-to fly in London.

-Yeah, I... Yeah.

You need to do all sorts of advanced tests,

and have thousands of hours of flying time.

But if I did go to Regent's Park and fly it and somebody said,

"What are you doing?" I could say I'm a fully qualified pilot.

-You...

-HE SIGHS

You... You can't do that.

The only way you'd to be able to fly in Regent's Park

is if you close an area of Regent's Park

that doesn't allow people to go within 50 metres of you.

It's that difficult.

There's one guy in the UK who can fly to within 10 metres of people,

and he's an ex-army guy

who's had many, many years of flying these things.

So, yeah, it's not as simple as you think.

I feel like my heart's broken a little bit.

If I'd known at the very start of buying a drone that all of this was going to come,

there's no way I'd have picked up that drone and bought it. No way.

But now I'm overcommitted.

I may as well see this through, because I'm so far down the road.

56 Charlie. Speed 20 knots. Ascend, flight level 120.

Flight level 220...

Every day, air traffic controllers guide a relentless flow of planes

through their patch of sky.

5060 Zulu. Speed of 180 knots.

Second by second, they must plot safe routes,

keeping all planes perfectly separated.

You could have 10, 12 different aircraft all under your control,

and we have to rely on all the information there.

We're not just looking at our radar picture.

The papers computer-generate strips

that tell us the course of the aircraft, where it's going,

what level it's going to be at.

We use, we formulate this plan,

so it is like a 3D picture in our heads.

RyanAir, 8-0, golf, Charlie, heading two, niner, five.

A controller needs to be calm under pressure. Also a perfectionist.

You want to do everything you can do to the best of your ability,

to the optimum level.

89, 003, turn left onto 115 degrees.

Climb to altitude of 6,000 feet.

Controllers are a nightmare to live with.

I feel so sorry for the other halves.

We are all very similar people.

We are OCD - most controllers have the tidiest,

immaculate houses you'll ever see.

We are control freaks.

0-9-5 degrees.

And much as they strive to impose order,

controllers must always be ready for the unexpected.

You get all kinds of things.

Cracked windscreens, pressurisation problems, bird strikes,

medical emergencies, pilots will report they've had a laser shone at them.

The one thing you don't want is fire.

Smoke in the cockpit or any kind of fire,

that's the one thing you do need to land with straightaway.

1-0-6-0...

Contact now. 1-2-3. Goodbye.

Perfect analogy is a computer game that you can't lose.

I think if you sat there and thought, "That's 200 people,

"that's 300 people," I think you'd probably go crazy.

Climb now. Altitude 5,000 feet.

The only time it ever hits me is if you go to a big airport...

Shamrock 911. Continue present heading.

'Then the reality is you go, "Goodness me."

How many lives you've got on your hands, ultimately,

day-to-day, sitting in front of the radar. It really hits then.

Statistically, travelling by air is the safest form of transport.

But more than one in four of us has a fear of flying.

Lynne hasn't been on board a plane for 17 years.

My main fear is it...

grips you so badly that you just,

I want to scream and I want to just shout, "Get me off!

"Get me off!" I feel so sick, I feel my heart...

It's not just palpitations, it beats so, so strongly.

But now, Lynne needs to take a trip to the other side of the world.

My mum came from Australia, and when she passed away she wanted her ashes

sprinkled on St Kilda beach.

And it's something that I have to do, I've got to do it.

The Malaysia Airlines flight for the two seats

comes out at £1,798.60.

The Malaysia Airline is the one that went missing.

It did, yes. I mean, that was just an unfortunate situation.

-Yes, yes.

-If you're not comfortable what that particular airline, we can

probably look at Cathay Pacific or Singapore Airlines.

My mum's driving me forward, saying, "You've got to do it."

She's on your shoulder saying, "You've got to do it."

-Thank you very much.

-You're welcome. Thank you.

-Thanks for coming in.

Bye-bye.

Oh, I want to go.

I've got to get... I've got to do it.

I want to do it, I want to do it for my mum,

I want to put that to bed and I want to be able to move forward.

I can't move forward...

with the grieving process, I can't move forward until I've done it.

Lynne is planning to take a two-day fear-of-flying course.

The aim is that by the second day

she will be sufficiently confident to be able to take a short flight.

I don't think I can go in.

As a first step to conquering her fears,

her best friend has suggested she attempts a trip

on London's cable car.

They look a bit scary to me.

I'll go have a look. The problem is, if I get in it,

I can't get off again until the other end,

and I don't know if I can do it.

They don't get stuck.

-These things...

-Yes, they do.

I've seen them. I've seen them get stuck.

-What, this one?

-Look, if that one got stuck in the middle, OK,

then that's it. You're up there

till they can get you back down again. And I couldn't do that.

You could say that about anything, couldn't you?

Anything you go on could get stuck.

I can't...

No, I can't go on it. I don't want to go on that.

I know I will scream to get off.

-You're not going to scream.

-I will!

No.

Oh, I don't want to go.

Oh, no.

Look at it.

SHE SNIFFS

I'm scared. Um... But I want to do it.

Do you just go on it?

INAUDIBLE

I don't want to go on it.

There you go.

SHE SOBS

The cable car travels at 6mph at 300 feet.

-It's not that bad.

-It isn't, is it?

It's really slow.

Lynne may have conquered her fear of the cable car,

but her next challenge will be 10,000 feet in the air,

in a real plane.

Hello, and welcome to Ascot, Berkshire,

in the heart of the English countryside.

At Ascot, the air race is about to begin.

'You can feel the excitement, the tension is building...'

This is high-risk, high danger.

I mean, that's why we come and see it.

You don't go to see someone throwing paper aeroplanes, do you?

You want to go see someone doing the backflips. They've got

these big hurdles, slaloms. You want to see some action.

Danger is one of the things that makes it

absolutely amazing, you know? It adds that extra factor to it.

For starters, I can tell you for a fact that Paul's going to win!

Go on, Paul!

CHEERING

Well, the quintessential English gentleman, Paul Bonhomme, very calm,

very cool, very calculated,

and that describes his flying style as well as his personality.

Paul is aiming to repeat last year's victory,

before retiring at the end of the season.

'I generally don't like race-day morning.

'I'm a bundle of nerves.

'That's nerves, firstly of not doing very well,

'cos nobody wants to lose in a race but, equally, the danger side.

'You don't want to put yourself in any danger.'

And this one too, please.

'It's a really fine balancing act.

'You want to keep the fans happy, but at the same time I am not here

'to keep them happy by doing selfies and, you know,

'pictures and signings.'

I'm here to keep them happy by winning a race.

Sorry. We've got... We've got to go.

Paul!

Sorry, guys, we've got to dash.

'I'd love to be the Stig of air racing.'

I'd love to just turn up, hide out the back,

go racing, and then just disappear. Sadly, that's never going to happen.

'The media spotlight and the sponsors.'

But it would be so nice just to race.

We kick-start the race action for the weekend with the qualifying.

So important for the pilots to fly well here.

Each pilot must try to set the fastest time.

The quickest can get round the course in just over a minute,

but there's a time penalty for any mistakes.

Behind the scenes, Paul prepares for his turn.

A lot of racing is down to observation.

You know, have you noticed the fact that the wind at gate four is swirling

around a bit? And then if you've noticed it,

do you know what to do about it,

and if you know what to do about it, do you know WHEN to do that?

When you close the canopy, I like the solitude of it.

I love being alone in an aeroplane.

So...it's just heaven.

But after just one flight, Paul's plane has a major fault.

What happened?

If he doesn't get back up in the air within 30 minutes, he'll miss his

second qualifying run, which could stop them getting through to the next round.

It's got that funny feeling that it's going to fail at any moment, so

hence the change.

Two screws and four little ones.

'Any distraction is bad.

'It's a frustration that something is, in my mind,

'conspiring against me winning.'

The screw that goes on the firewall is on the firewall.

'The rehearsal of going through the track, every single movement,

'is absolutely key because it's probably hundreds and hundreds of movements

'in one minute.

'And you have to rehearse that in your head.'

Is everybody happy about...?

Yep, we've had a look.

Do we think that was the problem?

I mean, it's our best bet for now.

I hope it works.

Yeah, I hope it works too.

The rapid repair gets Paul airborne again, just in time.

The light goes from red to green, by over a quarter of a second!

Through Champion's Corner,

the British fans on their feet once again as Paul Bonhomme...

Two from two in qualifying!

Bonhomme sets himself up as the hot favourite.

Oh, the crowd are on their feet.

The fans are loving it.

Paul makes it through to the knockout stage of the race.

I have to say, that's what you call a...

mental challenge.

Forget the flying, that was the mental challenge of all mental challenges.

But, you know, we overcame that and here we are. It's thanks

to the team. If I hadn't got a brilliant team, I wouldn't be here.

Descent altitude of 4,000 feet.

INDISTINCT

'Mayday, mayday, mayday, November 1-1-0...'

When emergencies happen, it is vital that air traffic controllers

-respond quickly.

-Tell me anything you need.

'We're just over the French coast at this time.

'We have an explosive decompression on board.'

Each year, there are tested to see if they can handle unpredictable and

time-critical situations.

We just want to get down to 100, over.

From another room, an ex-pilot simulates a range of real-life scenarios.

'We'd like to make a slight turn to the left.'

Then a slight turn to the right, to make sure my aircraft,

the integrity of the aircraft is normal.

There potentially could be two or three emergencies a day,

but they could be anything from a sick passenger to something seriously wrong with an aircraft.

That's good. We'll start again and do something else.

I tried to make it as realistic as possible

by using an American aircraft and using an American accent.

-IN DUTCH ACCENT:

-Well, if I was a KLM pilot, I would put on my Dutch accent,

of course. We fly to Newcastle and have a landing.

-IN SOUTH AFRICAN ACCENT:

-If I was a South African pilot,

then I'd be going down to Durban

and I would fly from Heathrow down to Durban at about 40,000 feet.

Contact London. 1-2-0...

One of the rarest situations they may have to deal with is a pilot losing

consciousness through lack of oxygen.

Let's say, for example, as happened some years ago in the States,

there was a business jet,

and it developed a very tiny hole or crack in the windscreen

and so air coming in, but so quietly that the pilot didn't hear it.

He started slurring his words, taking wrong turns,

the aircraft went over a large body of water, and unfortunately

there was nothing anybody could do.

2-0-6, turn left.

Heading 0-5-0 degrees.

Should we do a French accent?

-If you wish.

-OK, let's do that.

London, Bravo, Romeo, Sierra, 4-6-3-9.

..Bravo, Romeo, Sierra, 4-6-3-9. Pass a message.

The air traffic controllers have no idea what they will be faced with.

I am not feeling very well.

Descend now. Flight level 1-3-0.

3-1-0?

Flight level 1-3-0.

He's just doing his own thing.

He's just dropping in there.

And I'm still going to simulate turning the aircraft to the right.

Because I'm really not in control of this aeroplane.

I think he sounds as if he's got a bit of a lack of oxygen.

He doesn't know where he is or what he's doing.

He sounds very incoherent.

I need to land as soon as possible.

Romeo, Sierra 4-6-3-9, that is understood.

It will be best to land at Gatwick.

The controller guides the pilot down to a safe height.

Because of the fresh air I've introduced into the cockpit then I'm gradually

getting all my faculties back, and there we are.

It should be a happy landing, hopefully.

This training is massively important because it gives them the ability in

the simulator in a safe environment to practise the skills that they've

learned. It helps everybody to refocus on what they could have done, and could have done better.

6-3 X-ray...

Bravo, reduce speed. 165 knots. Maintaining for four miles.

Air traffic controllers never know when their training will be put to the test.

Thank you, number two. Contact tower now...

Goodbye.

Amanda is in charge of flights in and out of Stansted.

BEEPING

An unidentified flying object, an infringer,

has been spotted close to the Stansted flight path.

That's the airport there, that square.

And this is the return there, which is quite faint.

But there's some doubt as to whether that's an aeroplane or not.

I can hear the controller speaking to the tower controller to see whether

or not that is, you know, an actual return of an aeroplane or not.

If the object is real, there is a risk of collision.

The mystery infringer remains unresponsive.

As she's not sure she's taken the safest option,

there will be no more departures from Stansted until this contact

either disappears off radar or we establish that it is an aircraft

and get it out the way.

It vanished. It vanished about a mile west of the airfield

and never reappeared.

It's a judgment call. If there's any part of you that thinks it could be

real, stop your traffic.

Because you don't want to be the one person responsible the day it is real.

Whether a light aircraft or just a flock of birds,

air traffic control will never know.

Today, Stef aims to become an officially licensed drone pilot.

Oh, God.

I'm feeling - oh, my God -

like a disaster, basically!

If I pass, it's going to be a miracle.

-Right.

-OK, Stef. Welcome to the showground, where you're going to do your flight assessment.

Obviously this is the flying area, the field we can see.

Let me get my sexy hi-vis on.

Ooh!

Stef must show he can identify every safety risk.

Considering we're in a big field and there's nothing around us,

I think an emergency landing is going to be fairly safe around here.

I can see some sheep over there too.

I've warned the farmer.

Once he's assessed the area, he can attempt to take off.

No. No, no, no!

Why?

Why?

-OK, I'm just going to...

-Forget about

this as a flight assessment and it is important to you -

is it safe to fly this aircraft, given the things you're experiencing at the moment?

The call is yours, Stefan, ultimately.

Because you, as the pilot, have got to make the safe call.

OK. In a more complicated flying environment, with more elements against me,

then I would not take the fight.

-OK.

-On the basis of it being in a field, I feel I can do it.

OK, then, we'll carry on.

I'd like you to fly to the centre location, which is the small cone.

God, Stef. Man up!

Come on. I've never been this scared in my life.

Either clockwise or anticlockwise.

Lower the aircraft through 180 degrees.

Initiate your fail-safe.

Bring it back to the centre for me, please.

What I'd like you to do now is land your aircraft for me, please.

OK. And as the sun's come out...

-Congratulations, Stef.

-No way!

-You've passed your flight assessment.

-Oh, my God!

No way! Are you serious?

-Yep.

-Can I cuddle you, please? I know you're a military man but...

-Couple of...

-Yes!

I can't even explain

how good this feels right now.

To hear him say I passed now is just...

It's opened up this to me.

It's finally opened up the skies.

It sounds cheesy, but the sky is no longer going to be the limit.

It's an 18,000 strong crowd here in Ascot.

It's the first knockout round at Ascot.

Paul is ranked favourite,

but due to the race format, he's now up against his biggest rival,

who he didn't expect to meet until the final.

-I'm furious.

-Oh, really? Why?

-Well, this stupid format.

-Because you're up against...?

-Yeah, I'm up against Hannes. So well done, Paul(!)

-Love the format(!)

-OK, then.

-But in terms of your performance?

-Great. Loved it. Absolutely loved it.

A great day's flying.

The format sucks.

Thank you.

'Any distraction is bad,

'let alone one that raises your blood pressure

'and gets your temper going.'

It's part and parcel of the competition. You know, I'm there to win and

it's a frustration that something is, in my mind, conspiring against

me winning.

Paul's rival, Austrian pilot Hannes Arch, is first to fly.

Up he goes! This is the fastest,

cleanest run we've seen from the former world champion all week long

as he heads for home and stops the clock with a scintillating time.

Paul needs to be faster than 1 minute 6.2 seconds.

He said it himself, Mike. The pressure is on.

And out of Champion's Corner.

It's not looking that good.

Red light, no green.

Four-tenths off the pace.

230mph.

Has Bonhomme been beaten by Arch? Watch the clock!

Oh, he's missed it!

Arch has beaten Paul Bonhomme.

Paul is nearly a whole second slower than his rival.

Paul Bonhomme is beaten out on the Ascot racetrack.

I absolutely detest it when I don't do well.

Maybe it's just in my, you know, in my make-up.

I did horrendously in the first batch of school exams I did when I was 16,

and that dreadful feeling of opening your exam sheet

to see that you'd failed eight out of nine exams.

For me, that was heartbreaking.

Bonhomme will go through as the fastest loser!

Bonhomme is still in the competition.

It will all come down to who can fly fastest in the final round.

Every year, thousands of people in Britain begin the journey towards

becoming a pilot.

INDISTINCT

That's pretty cool, isn't it?

Just kind of eager to get up there now.

When he was a boy, Ross Proctor was told that because he had restricted

growth in his legs,

he would never achieve his dream of becoming a pilot.

These seats are a nice height.

The pedals are still miles away but, you know... I bet that's fun,

pushing them all forward.

I bet it's nice being right up, like, 32,000 feet in one of these.

Like, above the clouds and everything.

I bet it's nice.

Do you want me to lift this thing up?

Now, age 31,

Ross finally has a chance to learn to fly a specially adapted plane.

It's like the World's Strongest Man, isn't it?

It's not actually difficult.

The aeroplane is only going to do what he makes it do.

The same as it will do for you or for me.

He's got to be able to do it.

Bloody hell. Right, OK.

The usual foot pedals are replaced by an extra hand control.

'He's got to operate the brakes, the rudder,'

the throttle and the flaps with one hand.

Want to add anything onto that?

I think that's an achievement if he can do that.

So you now need to be able to work that one, that one and that one.

If you're an octopus, it's easy.

It's a sort of a strange feeling.

It's... Yeah, it's a little bit nerve-racking, isn't it?

But, no, it's great. It's cool.

'You're in this machine that, really, you think, how does this thing fly?

'The excitement and the adrenaline of pushing the throttle forward and

'revving it up.

'I think if most of us could pick a superpower, we'd pick to fly.'

Before he can take flight,

Ross must master manoeuvring the aircraft on the ground.

Whoa, whoa, whoa...

Right, yeah.

Once he's familiar with the controls, Ross can attempt takeoff.

Whoa-a-a!

'I think the world looks different from up in the air.

'You know, it gives you a sense of space and freedom and a feeling that you're

'part of something bigger.

'Maybe it gives you a little bit of faith back in yourself when you do it.

'Maybe you think, "You know what?

' "I believe in myself and I know my talents, I know my abilities.

' "Can I fly an aeroplane? Can I do it? Yes, I can!" '

..Three Foxtrot, on 3-3-0 degrees.

So... # Thunderstorm and lightning, very, very frightening...

# Galileo! #

Today, severe thunderstorms are forecast to hit the crowded airspace

around the south of England.

The weather is the real killer today for us.

We're going to see bad weather hitting Gatwick probably in the next hour,

and then moving its way up to Heathrow, and then...

Stansted and Luton, of course. Because we deal with all those airports here.

Thunderstorms make life very difficult for NATS,

as pilots can swerve suddenly off their flight paths to avoid flying

-though storm clouds.

-So, the calm before the storm...

-Yeah.

-Pretty much.

To make matters worse, during bad weather, fewer planes can land,

which means a traffic jam can build up in the sky.

My concern is, it's going to get worse, we're going to get multiple weather avoidance,

so I think the rate needs to come down, otherwise we're going to end up with carnage everywhere.

To limit potential disruption,

Steve decides to reduce the number of flights allowed into London's

airspace. But this will lead to delays and cancellations all over Europe.

I'm the one who holds the accountability for the safety of the operation

in this ops room. So I'm the only person that can make the decision on the traffic numbers in.

I've got lots of sources of information,

but ultimately, if it's wrong, it's my fault.

I've just decreased the Heathrow rate.

When the weather hits in the next hour-and-a-half,

we don't end up with planes all over the place.

No-one knows exactly when the storm will hit, or how long it will last.

So, Steve has to constantly re-evaluate his decision as updates come in.

Is there any way you could shorten the timeframe, do you think?

But this is battening down the hatches before it all hits.

If you think it's the right decision, then fine.

I think it feels the right decision for now.

-That's no worries, but I'm just warning you that...

-Yeah, OK.

That band that's coming through, it's due to hit in the next half-hour.

There's Heathrow, there's a nice big cell.

There's the bad weather, as it has drifted up to the north, to Luton, Stansted.

He won't know if he's made the right call until the storm arrives.

Thunderstorm and hail warnings for all around the TMA.

I've got Biggin Hill, London City, Farnborough, Luton and Stansted.

Yeah - what time?

We've all been on planes where... "I'm sorry for the late departure, this flight is air traffic..."

It's never air traffic just cos we're being miserable.

There's only so much concrete in the south-east of the country,

and an awful lot of aeroplanes that want to land on those bits of

concrete. And physically, you can only get so many down.

So, sometimes, when the demand is really high,

or like we have when there's bad weather,

you have to reduce the amount coming in.

The weather front has reached London's airspace.

So, it looks like it's dissipating, doesn't it?

But the storms have eased.

It's not been as bad as it was forecast.

So, what we've done is obviously lifted the regulations as soon as we can,

we've made sure that as few delays as possible have been incurred by

everyone along the way. Weather is so unpredictable.

We even had the Met Office forecaster here with us today,

but even THEY can't be 100% accurate with the ferocity, if you like,

of the thunderstorm-type activity.

If we'd hit bad weather, we've got all those planes -

potentially 25 planes in the sky - that we'd need to divert.

And it's just not a pretty place to be at all.

I still stand by all the decisions that we've made so far.

Sainsbury's, here I come. Cheerio. Ta-da.

When I came away from the cable cars, I was very encouraged,

and I thought, "Yep, that's good."

But I woke up this morning, and

my heart keeps going up and down, up and down,

because I know this is it now. It's real.

Tens of thousands of British people have taken

one of the fear-of-flying courses run by the major airlines.

Now, Lynne is joining them.

-Goodbye.

-Goodbye!

Good luck!

The two-day course aims to get aviophobes ready to fly.

If Lynne makes it through, it will be her first flight for 17 years.

What I'm about to teach you will make the impossible possible...

..and totally within your grasp.

It begins by putting the risks of flying in perspective...

All right, which one of these is the odd one out?

You're absolutely correct!

You're more likely to get killed by being kicked by a donkey than any of

the other disasters put together.

..then uses a range of psychological techniques aimed at removing fear.

Whatever your fear is,

you're going to play that negative mind movie in your head,

freeze the frame in your mind.

Three, two, one...

And scratch!

Bad movie just rips and splits into two,

and now what's really important is that you create

the GOOD movie. Now, this is so important.

This is the movie telling the brain, "This is what I want."

Whatever that is for you, make that bright, colourful, three-dimensional,

powerful.

That's good.

I have this fear!

I know...

Bigger - here we go!

Even though I have this...

I know...

Top of the head, top of the head, top of the head!

Eyebrow point - eyebrow, eyebrow, side of the eye.

Underneath the eye. Remember,

these are just mind games that you were playing inside of your head.

But you know what? The game is over.

What worked for me was that picture.

I have a picture in my head.

And I've broken it and I've got a picture of what I want to do.

And that's what's going to work for me.

After dark, a skeleton staff are still at NATS...

..keeping watch over the remaining planes and passengers in the skies.

Hello, good morning, it's the TC ops supervisor here.

7-9-2 inbound to yourself...

Er, he would like some policemen to meet him on arrival. He's got

a disruptive passenger on board. I know no more details yet. I'll get back to you when I do.

He's out of Spain, so it looks like a bucket-and-spade flight coming back,

erm, with holiday-makers on board.

So, entirely possible that someone's been drinking all day long,

and just getting a bit lairy.

Or it could be something entirely different.

..heavily intoxicated.

At the moment, he's calm and relaxed, and situation under control.

Heavily intoxicated - air-traffic speak for "pissed as a fart".

At night, one danger to pilots and passengers is at its greatest.

Laser pointers are tech toys that can be bought for a few pounds

on any high street.

Two hours into the shift, it's a lovely, clear evening,

and we've had four reports of laser attacks on aircraft.

Obviously, the pilots deal with that, make sure they're flying the aeroplane safely,

and they'll let us know that they've been targeted by a laser,

and we'll contact the local police.

The danger is fairly significant.

Clearly, the immediate danger to the pilots' eyes.

You know, you sense something flashing here,

the natural human instinct must be to look at it.

Police have tracked down some of the culprits.

Over 150 people in the UK have been prosecuted for directing lasers at aircraft.

Yesterday, we had a Virgin Atlantic aircraft leave Heathrow,

and it was attacked - I think is probably the right word -

by a laser, which got one of the pilots in the eye.

The crew decided that they weren't prepared to continue

with one of them having potential damage to their eyes,

and so the aircraft turned back and came back into Heathrow.

It's a very serious thing.

Laser strikes at aircraft are pretty much idiots on the ground firing

these things about. I guess they may think it's a jokey, fun thing to do.

Well, it certainly isn't - it's very, very dangerous.

And it's illegal as well, and you can be charged, prosecuted and thrown into jail.

At Stansted, it's the morning of Lynne's flight.

Along with the 96 other passengers, she's due to board a plane...

-Thank you so much.

-..and find out if she's cured of her fear.

-I can't lie, I'm very nervous right now.

-What are you nervous of?

That.

-Tell me how you're feeling.

-Really anxious, and my heart... I can't stop beating.

It's going, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

Oh...

-Hello.

-There's crew in the middle as well to help you get settled.

In a few moments we'll be taking you through the safety features

of our Airbus 390, and we would kindly ask for your full attention.

'Ladies and gentlemen - a safety card is in your seat pocket,

'showing the exit routes, oxygen masks, life jackets,

'and brace position that you must adopt if you hear "brace, brace".

'We wish you a pleasant flight on easyJet.'

I just... I go... I've got to see...

I've got to get the... the image in my head.

And I'm just sticking on to that.

That's it. That's very powerful -

the photograph I've got is a really powerful one.

It's the beach where my mum grew up, and...

She has... She wants her ashes sprinkled there.

And that's the reason I'm doing this, so that I can do that.

Erm, and yesterday, when we, er, were doing that image, erm,

two or three times, I was...

I found myself standing on the beach.

And right at the end of it, I could see a picture of my mum.

That's what I'm going with - I'm going with that.

That's going to get me there - up there - and ultimately to Australia.

'..But they've also got that visual indicator as well, so, a slight crosswind.

'The wind is out of the south.

'And now, of course, the engines' thrust is increasing,

-'the volume is increasing...'

-Oh, no!

Oh, no!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

At Ascot, it's the final of the air race.

Are you ticklish?

With retirement looming,

this year is Paul's last chance to win an unprecedented third

Red Bull championship.

He was born just a few miles up the road, here in Berkshire.

There is a lot of Paul Bonhomme fans here,

people he's drunk many pints in Berkshire with.

Well, today, I'm looking for Paul to win, of course.

I mean, you can't ask for any more than that.

Ah, he's just the best.

-He's just the best.

-He's a British Airways captain...

He didn't do these sort of manoeuvres in a jumbo.

-No!

-But he should have done.

Paul is up against three other pilots.

And here comes Matt Hall.

A two-second penalty for Matt Hall through gate ten!

Oh!

The time to beat is one minute and nine seconds.

There is one pilot left to fly - the current world championship leader,

17 wins, 42 podiums, but most importantly to the British fans

here today,

it must be penalty-free, it must be faster than 1:09.024.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Over 20,000 people applauding, on their feet.

Here comes Bonhomme, here comes Bonhomme, looking to bring

a British success at Royal Ascot.

'The great thing about an experience of flying an aeroplane on the limit

'is doing it knowing you're in control of that.'

And I think what is great is the ability to...

to plan well enough so that you can go right up to the limit,

and then stop there.

You know, I think for me, that's a great challenge.

Hall ground-affected... Needs a good line-up here.

146 is a good speed for gate number one.

Nice and straight.

Psychologists would probably tell you what it's all about,

but I quite like the idea of being on the top of the hill, and I quite like the view.

And I quite like the view from an aeroplane.

Yeah, it is just the ultimate.

Here he comes, Mike. This is the tricky

gate, this is where Matt Hall had problems.

He's into gate ten. No worries for Bonhomme -

just bobs over the oak tree!

Now he's in Champion's Corner, and he's looking like the champion!

In Champion's Corner, into the penultimate gate, gets those wings level.

Here comes Bonhomme! Come on, Bonhomme!

And it is there.

1:06.416!

Whoo!

-Next time...

-Look at me in my beautiful big balloon.

..the skies beneath the clouds.

Ah, ha-ha!

Hello, sick bag!

When you're up there, you don't think about anything else.

Nothing else matters.

If I make one slight mistake, the chances are Willie will bang into me, and we'll both be dead.