When Speed Counts 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.

Aaaah, yeah!

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 come in.

A place of adventure...

HE LAUGHS

Well, that was fantastic.

..wonder...

When you're up there, nothing else matters.

..and danger.

The less you know what's in front of you the better, I think.

It gives you a sense of space and a freedom

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

Every boy's little dream.

In the booming business of civil aviation,

speed and precision are everything.

Thank you, hold the line for five to ten minutes.

Information is India...

Nothing's more crucial to this

than Britain's Air Traffic Control Centre, known as NATS.

Time is money for an airline,

fuel is really expensive and we must be efficient.

971, turn left heading 120 zero degrees.

It's really important, whether the airline is

a commercial passenger one or a cargo one,

that it runs to schedule.

CONTROLLER GIVES INSTRUCTIONS

Every 75 seconds,

a plane is scheduled to touch down at one of London's major airports.

Four Lima, descend. Flight level...

51, route now, direct...

For NATS to manage it all,

every plane in the sky must follow a carefully plotted course.

Anything that disrupts this can quickly unravel

the finely balanced flow of traffic.

And what's the weather looking like out the window?

OK. That's not normal, is it?

OK, thanks, ta.

Today, in the South East,

high winds are heading for NATS busiest airspace.

The Delta 30 zero is just going into the en route hold.

And what have we got coming behind?

My first thought for safety is actually the aircraft in the sky.

The ones on the ground,

as much as they want to be airborne, at least they're on the ground.

The ones in the sky are the ones that I'm more interested right now.

18's been stack swapped, hasn't he?

So 30. How many behind 30? What have we got?

With bad visibility

and gusts slowing down the rate planes can land,

a backlog is building.

We're just putting restrictions on Heathrow,

just so that we can regulate

the planes going into that sector for 15 minutes,

just as it's getting busy, as the weather is coming through.

To ease congestion, Steve cuts the number of incoming planes

allowed to enter Heathrow's airspace.

Now, his priority is to get the planes that are airborne

onto the tarmac.

It's flight 77 gull for...

Heathrow said it's just gone through as a wall and that's it.

ALARM

That alarm that's just gone off is a plane going round at Heathrow,

which is yet another one we've got to put back in, so...

I don't like hearing that noise on a day like today particularly.

Heading for Heathrow, a pilot has aborted his landing

due to dangerous wind shear.

Just hold on one sec, I'll just go and verify it for you.

Wind shear is when you have

a sudden dramatic loss or gain of wind speed,

due to variation in the wind direction,

which can be quite a dangerous weather phenomenon

for aircraft on final approach.

So the pilot's decided to abort the landing and to go around.

Not an everyday event, but it happens fairly regularly.

That's why the delays rocketed up.

Terminal control, GS Airports, hello?

So-called downburst-driven wind shear

used to be a major cause of accidents.

Then, in 1985,

it was pinpointed as the cause of a Delta Airlines crash,

killing 137 people.

Since then, weather science and pilot training has been improved,

removing most of the danger from wind shear.

So get whoever we have and send them down

and we'll take whatever we can, just to clear this through.

All right. I'll go find them now. Thank you, Blaine. Cheers.

Extra air traffic controllers should help Steve get on top

of the growing number of planes waiting to land.

Just because of the unusual ferocity of the weather,

we've requested extra staff.

We'll use them in here as we need to.

That should see us through to the afternoon shift.

We're still holding off the south coast?

Well, they've just cleared. The American Air was the last one off...

And they've got another... Two, four, six...

We're doing what we can.

Good. Thank you.

PHONE BEEPS

GS Airports, hello?

OK.

Erm, I shall not...

I shall not tinker with the rate for the time being, then.

I'm just concerned about the recovery period now.

OK. Good news.

Thanks a lot mate, ta.

The tower have just phoned

saying they think it will improve very quickly

and it might not be for many more minutes.

So we're just holding off dropping the rate,

on the basis that he reckons it's going to get better.

The rate is the number of planes allowed into the airspace.

As the weather front passes through,

Steve and his team can begin to reduce the gaps

between the approaching planes.

But it will be several hours before NATS is back to normal.

CONTROLLERS ISSUE INSTRUCTIONS

Good old British summer!

Adding to the 24-hour world of air traffic,

is the clocklike regularity of the global air cargo network.

Over 50% of all air cargo travels in special planes with no passengers.

They range from windowless Jumbos to converted light aircraft.

Timetables are crucial, as delays can cost thousands.

INCOMING MOBILE CALL JINGLE

Right, so that's DHL now ringing me with a load, hopefully.

Hello?

Cargo Pilot Mark Penarski is a vital link between the Isle of Man

and the rest of the world.

See, it's half past five, so he's pretty good, timing wise.

He delivers everything, from fresh flowers and mechanical parts

to bank documents and human remains.

This evening, his first stop is Dublin.

Then he's on to East Midlands Airport

to make an international flight at 9.30pm.

If we miss that connection,

people in the States don't get their early morning delivery slots.

And we've failed our mission,

which is not good for the company and it's not good for me.

I like to get things to where they're intended to on time,

if at all possible.

What a beautiful night for flying, huh?

Mark's Piper Navajo

is one of the smallest and oldest cargo planes flying.

The last of its type was built over 30 years ago.

This one is actually quite well suited to the cargo role.

You can also use it for air ambulance operations,

passenger charter and that sort of thing.

They're getting on a little bit now

and sadly, I think, in the next ten years

there probably won't be any of these things flying around.

The age highlighted there by the fact the lock doesn't work properly!

At 6pm, Mark is airborne and on time.

We've got a little bit of a tail wind, which is speeding us up.

The problem is that the Dublin to East Midlands leg,

we've got a round about a 30mph head wind

so, again, that's something which might slow us up

on the flight over towards East Midlands.

So all we can do is pedal a bit faster

and try and get the aircraft there as quick as we can.

To keep costs down, there's no co-pilot.

So Mark flies over 2,500 miles a week, solo.

Doing this, single crew, is actually a fairly lonely sort of job.

You do get times in the winter when it's dark

and it's really cold and windy and generally miserable

and you think, "Ah, I could just do with a bit of company

"or a bit of a backup."

But you do feel privileged to be sat on here, on top of everybody,

at 8,000 feet, doing 250mph and it's my...

It's my gig. You know? It's pretty cool.

When did you first realise you wanted to be a pilot?

Probably I was in primary school

and I was quite embarrassingly

running around the playground thinking I was an aeroplane.

HE CHUCKLES

RADIO: Contact over an approach. Goodbye.

Dublin approach, good evening, Causeway 2102,

flight 880 direct.

INSTRUCTIONS GIVEN OVER RADIO

The hop from the Isle of Man to Dublin has taken just 45 minutes.

But the schedule is tight.

As smooth as a baby's bottom.

There's just 20 minutes to offload and pick up cargo

if Mark is to make his East Midlands connection.

Hello!

The 9.30pm to Cincinnati.

All present and correct, yeah?

So now the problem is, my er...

..nice attire has been ruined by the cargo loading

and now my shirt's hanging out, my hands are filthy

and I'm sweating.

But, hey, that's the life of a cargo pilot, I guess.

RADIO: 2102, runway 08 clear takeoff.

By day, most freight, known as belly cargo,

is carried in the holds of passenger aircraft.

OK, John!

But at night, dedicated cargo planes fly in and out of the UK,

packed with containers known as cans.

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

After Heathrow, East Midlands Airport

is Britain's next biggest cargo hub.

We're going to load the...Cincinnati,

15 minutes before departure.

Everything has to be on the aircraft,

all the doors have to be shut, ready for the aircraft to be pushed back.

OK, Kev, bring it in, please!

Senior loader Tony Parkinson

has had a lifelong passion for planes.

Being a bit of a plane enthusiast, being a bit sad here.

The actual outline of that whole engine, of a Trent 1,000 engine,

if you look at that 737,

the fuselage of that 737 is about the same size as that engine.

I know a little bit.

Enough to get me by.

That's how big it is.

I can literally stand in the engine, I won't be able to touch the side.

If I put my hands out, I still can't touch it.

That's how big it is.

Big.

Tony's father worked in the RAF and handed down his love of aviation.

Very, very young, my dad took me to an air show

and I watched these Tornados all takeoff and I was like...

"Wow!"

I wanted to be a fighter pilot when I was young,

but due to the reality of the real world, it couldn't happen.

So I did sort of the next best thing and came to work here, but...

I'm too old for that now, anyway.

Tony's job is critical.

He must make sure the cans get to the plane in the right order

to be safely stowed and balanced.

To trim an aircraft, say my pen is like a see saw,

each can has a different weight.

We try and keep the heaviest can in the middle

and then, like a Christmas tree, it works its way out

and we try and... Heaviest, lighter, lighter, lighter, lighter.

And that keeps the aircraft nice and trim and balanced.

Despite tight deadlines, there's no room for error loading cargo.

In 2013, a military freighter in Afghanistan fell from the sky...

..killing all seven on board.

The crash was traced to loose cargo moving during takeoff.

I believe it wasn't tied down properly in the aircraft.

So that rolled down the aircraft and it...

The mass, the weight went back, so it couldn't get airborne.

It was pretty horrific.

The video footage I saw, hearing those engines at full bore,

trying to get airborne, and nothing's happening...

All I'm doing there is locking this seal in.

And that actual little karabiner

will stop the seal moving in flight.

So when it gets really turbulent, it'll stop it bouncing,

basically, coming off.

82 Golf descend, 150 level.

Left turning 130 clear for approach. 9 Causeway to 103.

East Midlands is one of those places

that really, really comes alive at night-time.

40 minutes before tonight's Cincinnati plane is due to takeoff,

Mark is on the approach to land.

His 14-hour shift is over.

He'll spend the night in a hotel before making the return flight.

Job done.

Ah, look at this. It's just beautiful.

Far away from the clocklike routine of commercial aviation,

hundreds of recreational pilots are drawn to the skies

to seek out the thrill of speed.

HE LAUGHS

Oh, my God!

Good afternoon, Golf Golf Oscar Sierra Lima.

And this is the Wattisham Zone. I'll talk to them,

to ask them permission to come through.

So they know that maggot on their screen is me,

because I've got that number on it.

So if anything else comes, looks like it's in conflict,

they will tell me about it.

Amateur pilot Martin Gosling is an air racing champion.

His plane is a wooden Robin DR400,

which he keeps in a hangar at the bottom of his garden.

Within five minute of getting up from the kitchen table,

in the plane.

Made it France, four-seater, 180 horse power engine.

Very well behaved, very good manners,

got no vices

and in which we've had all the fun that we've had.

Martin is a member of the Royal Aero Club.

In 1922, it held one of the world's first air races.

Pilots flew from Croydon to Glasgow and back,

cheered on by crowds of enthusiasts.

During the golden age of amateur aviation,

the Royal Aero Club founded over 60 flying societies.

Today, 94 years on,

it has over 70,000 members.

My pride and joy.

This is the British Air Racing Champion 2013

and the British Air Racing Champion 2014.

Will I have another one here?

It would be nice if I had three in a row.

Winning races is just part of the pleasure

Martin gets from flying.

The plane is his passion,

a way of life for him and his wife Annette.

Each flight is an adventure.

You know, even if it's going down to see my daughter,

or friends for coffee,

you know, one looks back and thinks,

"My goodness, our life would have been so different without flying."

INTERVIEWER: I guess that joy comes at a cost.

Yes. But what hobby doesn't come at a cost?

It doesn't matter whether you belong to a golf club,

you own a race horse, you own big pictures on the wall,

but if you don't have a hobby in the world, you're a dull person.

INTERVIEWER: But do you ever try and work

out how much you've spent on this hobby?

I've no idea of the answer.

If you have to ask, you can't afford it.

At the age of 71,

Martin is the oldest member of the Royal Aero Club

to hold two consecutive titles.

I'm about to commit to aviation.

How does that grab you?

Right, here we go.

In a few weeks' time, he's aiming to win a third,

in the last races of the season.

WOMAN: Rhino 60 Zulu at altitude 4,000 feet.

77 Golf Roger, flight heading 015 degrees.

And the wind forecast? Have you spoken to the Met Office recently?

WOMAN: 104 Echo Victor, you're about ten miles from touch down.

MAN: Scandinavian 2536, climb to flight level 190.

So my expectation is that is going to...

if we're not careful, wipe us out across the south side.

And if the small red stuff is causing us problems,

this is certainly going to cause us problems.

At NATS, operational supervisor Steve

is dealing with more bad weather over the South's airports.

40 minutes is going to start affecting the tail end. Yeah.

In summer, after periods of high pressure,

patches of thunder and lightning can suddenly erupt.

But their precise location is impossible to predict.

So he's going to go in now, which will give us an artificial delay.

To avoid today's storms,

planes are veering off their planned routes,

wrecking the landing and takeoff schedule.

The weather's coming in.

The departures that want to go out to the West or the South,

they would normally come this way,

are going off on funny routes to avoid the weather.

So this aircraft got airborne, instead of coming out like this

and flying just north of Luton,

he's come out, he's got airborne from Stanstead,

turned out to the east and ended up way off track,

30, 40 miles north of the weather we've been looking at all day.

So 12 coming in in this hour.

To make sure the number of planes being re-routed

doesn't reach dangerous levels,

Steve cuts the number of aircraft allowed into the airspace.

They're phoning it through to the tower.

He's under pressure to get everything on track

before the end of his shift.

So we've got six more behind him to come in through Ockham.

It's going to keep us quite busy, I think.

Three-and-a-half hours to handover.

We'd like to handover an average of 15 minutes' delay as a maximum,

but that's very much down to the weather.

Clearly, what you don't want to be doing

is handing over massive delays,

loads of outbound restrictions.

The only way we'll end up with that is if this weather deepens

and becomes more of a problem than it's predicted to do.

So the weather is just coming still over here at the moment.

And then when it comes to handover time,

that's right over Heathrow, Gatwick, City, everything...

At a wet East Midlands Airport,

cargo pilot Mark is starting a new shift.

It's absolutely throwing it down,

as you can see outside the window here at East Midlands

and I believe the Isle of Man is going to be rather windy

and even wetter than it is here, so...

HE CHUCKLES

..it might be one of those flights where it's a little bit bumpy.

With a schedule to keep,

Mark and his little twin-engine plane face a stormy flight.

Midlands, Jersey to 6 Papa Romeo.

8210, please.

Thanks.

Weather affects all aircraft.

If an aircraft's sitting on top of the clouds, it will vibrate a lot,

so they will often ask for an extra thousand feet up

or a thousand feet down, or whatever it may be.

RADIO: Causeway 2101, clear takeoff runway 09.

Clear for takeoff runway 09, Causeway 212.

Commercial airlines, don't want to vibrate their passengers,

because passengers, if they're flying a British Airways flight

and they have a really bad flight, nothing to do with the airline,

it's just the conditions, the weather around them,

they'll fly with Virgin next time.

Now, with a cargo aircraft, that's just got a cabin full of pilots

and a load of boxes in the back,

they don't have that commercial pressure from back.

So they go close to the thunderstorms.

Straight into cloud.

Not really got much of a good view out the window of anything, really.

Visibility is pretty much zero.

But right now all eyes are on the game here,

cos the weather is very, very miserable outside.

Weighing just over three tonnes, Mark's Piper twin

is a hundred times lighter than a Jumbo,

making it much more susceptible to turbulence.

The annoying thing for us is that, on this particular airplane,

tonight we don't have a weather radar.

So I can't see any bad weather.

So I'm relying on reports from other aircraft

and from air traffic control to help us out with that.

I love being on my own when it's nice and sunny and light outside.

But when you're on your own and it's this,

you have just an extra adrenaline kick, I think.

As long as it's not the kind of turbulence that's going

to throw me out of my seat and bang my head on the ceiling

and knock me unconscious!

As he crosses the Irish Sea,

Mark stays in contact with air traffic controllers at NATS,

updating them with his position and heading.

But flying solo means the risks are always greater.

If something went wrong in one of these aircraft,

for somebody who cares about you,

to think about the possibility of that, could be quite horrible.

Problem is, you know, if you've got friends and loved ones,

they kind of have to put up with you doing this job.

Cargo 108 report your high speed to East Midlands approach on 134.175.

We've got one outstanding on the en route hold

off the south coast still.

So what I've just been told

is that there was an issue with the Met Office data

and it wasn't detecting the lightning.

So they're just about to issue a thunderstorm warning.

Lovely, okey doke. Cheers.

They're saying the warning's just about to go out,

but their systems, there's something wrong with them.

So, this is the Met Office system, not Farnborough?

This is the Met office.

At NATS, a new storm has suddenly bubbled up

and is now visible on radar.

It's basically this whole line up there, isn't it?

That's just sitting right above us. Yeah.

1,500. So what can we do...

Thank you. Can you just let us know what they are? Kevin:

As we're finding now, the weather's worse than we'd anticipated,

worse than the Met Office briefing,

and if it remains like that, then we're going to be looking

at increased delays beyond my plan for the handover.

It's over the top of Heathrow,

so there's nothing we can do about that lot, is there? No.

RADIO: Good morning. Kestrel 10, heading 19...

Having safely crossed the Irish Sea,

Mark is on his final approach to land

on a wet and windswept Isle of Man runway,

the most dangerous part of his journey.

Getting a little bit rough now, so...

Crosswinds make it a fight to stay on course.

Crosswind landings are a little bit hairy at the best of times.

There's various different techniques to deal with it.

RADIO: Kestrel 2478 Scottish, good morning.

Climb for level 270.

MARK REPLIES INAUDIBLY

That does, er...

put hairs on your chest.

Yeah...

The trick... You know, a lot of airline passengers

will sometimes complain that the landing was a little bit hard.

Well, there's a reason for that.

If you're trying to land in a crosswind,

kind of got to be a bit ballsy and plonk the aircraft,

you know, fairly firmly on the ground.

If you let it sit there and float too long in a crosswind,

you can sort of land sideways and rip the tyres off!

CONROLLER GIVES INSTRUCTIONS

What's the weather looking like out your window, then? OK.

OK, thank you, ta.

It's the end of Steve's shift.

The weather is easing,

but planes still aren't landing at the normal rate.

So we've got 20 minutes to handover.

As predicted, we're not handing over where we'd like to be,

with 15 minutes' delay and the weather through.

The delays are now average 20, 25 minutes.

There's a lot of people I need to buy a pint and say thank you to.

But, yeah, it's gone OK.

Thanks, Ronnie.

See you next time. Enjoy next week.

As Steve heads home,

the cargo crews at East Midlands Airport are just getting started.

Every night, 150,000 parcels

travel through the warehouse

before being sent to freight hubs around the world.

With the explosion of online shopping,

express cargo is growing fast.

Internet's just gone silly.

In another five, ten years' time, everybody...

There won't be shops, I don't think.

Everybody will be selling through the internet.

OVER RADIO: 'Go ahead.'

Yes, can you check that reset button?

Senior sorter Graham is responsible for the smooth running

of eight kilometres of conveyor belts.

Er... Just tell the guys not to load until it's empty.

But tonight, Graham's got a problem with one of the belts.

The only thing that does stop this place is breakdowns.

And it adds on effect all the way around the world, it could do,

cos if you've got a flight that can't come or go,

then it affects wherever that's going or coming from.

So, you could literally stop the whole world by...one box wrong!

And that's how cool it sounds, but that's correct!

We can stop the world moving!

Offload supervisors,

secondary three is coming up to three quarters!

RADIO CHATTER

OVER RADIO: 'Go on.'

I'm trying to just fill the bays at the moment,

try and move the flippers along, fill these bays up

as much as I possibly can.

Belt keeps tripping, Jerry.

And Mick's now on one belt, but he's stopped the whole system.

He's walking on this belt, yeah.

He don't know. He's just going to have a look.

The idea is keep the machine running.

It's got to keep running at all times.

And if one gear stops, everything stops.

As parcels pile up,

aircraft queue on the tarmac, waiting to be loaded.

As you see, we've got an Airbus just come in from Belfast,

that's just arrived.

At the present moment, now, you've got the Edinburgh, Belfast, Shannon,

Dublin, Aberdeen... Milan's already been here...

The Leipzig 777.

Sean Ives, can you just steady the flow down to secondary three, bud?

We're almost full, mate.

OVER RADIO: 'Yeah, will do, mate. Erm, I'll drop a few...'

Maintenance have solved the riddle of the rogue conveyor.

Well, basically,

somebody has put a box on the belt that's too big for the system.

There's bends and curves in the system,

so the belt just blocked up on the corners.

Maintenance then have to go down, walk down the belt, clear it,

clear the trap.

Don't load the top belt!

It's only been a five-minute stop,

but with 18,000 packages an hour to load, time is critical.

BELT BUZZES

Judged by financial value,

40% of all goods transported in and out of Britain, now go by air.

From cars to animals, there's nothing we can't transport.

Hong Kong, China, South Africa, Australia.

It's a Cartier watch.

We've done gorillas, we've done rhinos and tigers...

France, Mozambique...

Wedding rings.

Divorce papers.

Amsterdam, Charles de Gaulle... Mauritius. All over the ockey!

OVER RADIO: 'Coming down your left-hand side, Hamish.'

'200, do not have you in sight.' 'Wilco.'

With the Royal Aero Club's final races approaching...

OVER RADIO: 'I'm clear now.'

...recreational pilots around the country whizz beneath the clouds,

clocking up flying hours.

OVER RADIO: 'Lovely afternoon for flying now.'

Two times winner Martin, off to visit an old racing buddy,

puts his plane on autopilot.

Today, it's a ?100 hop across the Essex county border

for a cup of tea in Suffolk.

HE LAUGHS

Roddy, hello! Hello! Welcome!

Thank you! Have you had a nice flight?

Lovely flight, and I hope now we can have a cup of tea.

Well, I don't see why not.

Martin and fellow pilot Roddy

have flown together all over the world.

' "Aqui vive un peli...piloto..." '

'Si! Aqui vive un piloto.'

What have you done since we went to the Baltics together? Estonia.

And tomorrow, I'm going to Senegal.

And how long when you're down there? Is it... Turn and come back.

Is it just to there and back? Just turn around and come back.

Anyway, a cup of tea? Love a cup of tea.

Let's do that. Yeah.

Cheers, Roddy. Oh, and good health. It's good to see you.

So, how many hours have you done this calendar year?

Oh, about 230 hours...

Private flying hours? Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: That's almost an hour every other day!

Something like that. Yes, the main this is to have your own aeroplane, close to the house,

where you can get into it in all weathers and...

and not very far from the bar.

Roddy, thanks very much indeed, have a good trip to Senegal.

Come race day,

old hand Martin will be competing against a crowd of hopefuls.

One is Roger.

INTERVIEWER: Why the hell do you want to fly?

It's in...it's in your bones, isn't it?

My desk at school was full of aeroplanes.

My father and I used to build model aeroplanes together.

All I ever wanted to be doing was getting up in the air,

so it was something that was going to happen.

Roger, a dentist, now has his own plane,

bought specially for the upcoming race.

Built from ultra lightweight aluminium,

his Van's RV-6 can top 210 miles an hour.

For his maiden flight in his powerful new toy,

Roger has taken up flying trainer Justin.

At full throttle in a straight line,

it does about 190 miles an hour, I'd say.

But if you put it in a shallow dive,

it can exceed its maximum airspeed within two or three seconds,

and that's the point at which it starts to malform, erm...

and break up.

Roger needs to get a feel for the plane's limits.

One of the dangers is a stall in mid-flight,

which could cause his aircraft to spin out of control.

ROGER: 'It's going to be one of the fastest aircrafts in the race.

'Things are going to happen quicker.'

I need to learn to have more finesse,

but at the moment I'm thinking about flying it.

I need to put the hours in to make sure that that becomes

something I don't need to think about because it's natural.

RADIO BLEEPS Yeah, I'm up to Juliet right

and Hotel left is on the aircraft as we speak.

Away from the high-speed thrills of light aircraft,

cargo loader Tony is starting a new shift.

Kev, I think we'll bring one straight to the aisle, then, mate.

For the past 19 years,

pilots have put their trust in Tony's loading skills

to balance their planes.

OVER RADIO: 'Right, mate, you've got four...'

Now he's aiming for promotion to become a loading supervisor.

OVER RADIO: 'Yeah, go on.' INAUDIBLE

It's my er...

My interview date for a supervisor's job.

INTERVIEWER: What will you have to do in the interview?

INHALES DEEPLY: Sell myself. Literally.

If I need to, I'll get on my hands and knees and grovel.

I'm not that good at interviews, I really am not.

I get very nervous.

And sometimes I start stuttering and mumbling my words.

If Tony is successful at his interview,

the new job will involve more paperwork.

A challenge, as he suffers from dyslexia.

There's many different types and forms of dyslexia.

People get words mixed up, people get letters mixed up.

If they stare at it too long, they start...they actually do...

It's weird, they start moving around.

I think it's a... One of those kind of things where...

I'm dyslexic, I'm happy, I'll stay as I am.

But now it's like,

"No, I want to move on, I've got to move on," so that's why.

It's... Won't hold me back.

OVER RADIO: '0-0-1, climbing altitude...'

2-7-8-3, descend to flight level 7-0.

At East Midlands Airport,

45 freight planes fly in and out each night.

89003, turn left on to 115 degrees,

climb altitude 6,000 feet.

Unlike Heathrow, where, to limit noise, departures stop at 11pm,

here, operations continue round the clock.

Asian 250, you are clear.

2783, roger.

Hello, my name is Mrs Sharpe.

I'd like to complain about a particularly noisy aircraft.

If you could respond to me, please,

I would be very grateful.

Sitting right under the flight path

is Rex and Sheila Sharpe's house.

You can see them sometimes actually lining up,

way into the distance, about three or four of them,

coming in to land.

When they go down onto the runway,

you hear a "whoosh".

The backdraught from the jets,

rushing by, don't you?

Yeah, and it actually lifts the tiles and the tiles slide down

and, in some cases, come off altogether.

I never sleep through the night, ever.

Usually, round about half past three, 20 to four,

there is one always wakes me.

Not invariably - always.

It was after Rex and Sheila moved in, 40 years ago,

that East Midlands airport transformed into an

all-night, global freight hub.

I don't think people want to wait for anything.

Years ago, you would have shopped locally and the pace of life

was a lot slower.

Nowadays, they want things more or less immediately.

I've never ordered one single item through the internet!

Mainly because I haven't got it.

I haven't got the internet,

haven't got the internet facility.

Under the more tranquil skies of Bedfordshire,

one man is putting the finishing touches to a slow,

almost silent air freighter called the Airlander.

This happens to be the largest aircraft in the world.

We call it the Airlander 10.

There's nothing, no internal structure, inside that.

It's just helium, so that makes it ultra-light and, therefore,

ultra-efficient and, therefore, very green.

We're also going at a fairly slow speed,

so, we're not using fuel to punch through the air,

we can just potter our way nicely around the world.

To get airborne, the Airlander uses a million cubic feet of helium.

Once inflated, it dwarfs even the biggest jumbo jet.

It drifts along at a leisurely 90mph,

designed to stay airborne for up to five days.

This is the cockpit.

Very comfortable ?15,000 pilot chairs.

And, if you happen to be lucky enough to be an Airlander pilot,

this is where you end up.

We could put showers in here, we could put a microwave,

you could even have a bath if you wanted.

It'd be quite fun, good way of travelling.

The Airlander's maiden voyage was a short test flight in New Jersey.

American military spent ?60 million on the prototype,

but defence cuts meant it was never completed.

Two years ago, its British manufacturer brought it back

and now Chris needs to convince the world it needs the Airlander.

How many are... How many are there?

There's 12 or 11 or something?

Today, The Honourable Company Of Air Pilots are giving the

aircraft the once-over.

Welcome, first of all, everyone.

If we gather round here to start with...

It's quite something, isn't it?

The Titanic,

that would fit in the hangar,

with the exception of about ten feet.

The bit where Leonardo DiCaprio is leaning out,

you might have Leonardo out the front.

We get called up quite regularly by people saying,

"Could you follow blue whales?",

either as a tourism venture or as academic research.

We'd also look at, maybe, semi-perishable foods that need

to get there quite quickly, but maybe not super-quickly.

This is 92 metres long.

You know, we could easily build two or three of these

in the hangar when we hit productionisation.

How the heck do you cope with icing?

The ice doesn't form in the same way it would form on a wing.

The structure kind of constantly flexes.

How do you go about identifying where the leaks are?

That's a very good question. So, if you can put a spaceman in space,

and not have a leaky space suit,

you can probably make a non-leaky one of those.

I think it always is a challenge, isn't it?

When new things come from the experimental bench,

just to convince the people that it's going to be a success,

is very, very difficult.

I'm really impressed.

I think it's a fantastic, innovative project,

and I knew a little about it, but actually seeing it in real life,

the size of it, the scale of it and the technology behind it,

it's just amazing.

The Airlander's embarked on a series of test flights in summer 2016.

I genuinely worry for the drivers on the A421 ring road around Bedford.

They're going to look up and see this 92-metre

alien spacecraft silently floating above them.

The first British test flight was a success, but, on the second,

the Airlander crashed on landing.

RADIO: No, no, no, no...

To compete in the Royal Aero club's last races of the year,

pilots head to the tiny island of Alderney, in the Channel islands,

perched right on the fringes of British airspace.

Welcome to Alderney, everyone.

You will be flying close to other aircraft,

so be vigilant at all times.

There must be no climbing or descending incidents.

Among them, new plane-owner Roger and reigning champion Martin.

Can I follow you Geoffrey, so I know where to go?

Oh, you can do if you like, Martin. SUZIE: Yeah.

Will you slow down then?

We'll keep an eye on you, so you don't get lost.

You'll keep an eye on me, will you? Catch me up on the second lap?

We have to look after the older generation, Suzie.

Right, that's right!

Ha-ha-ha!

Martin's main rivals are Baron and Baroness Geoffrey and Suzie Boot.

It's all down here. It's really smeary just here.

Hold on, yeah.

I've done that.

'Are you competitive?'

How do I answer that? Yeah!

Competitive?

I have to be competitive,

otherwise we wouldn't be air racing.

I mean, we bought this aeroplane specifically for air racing.

There's something, it's down here...

Yes, I can see something...

Taking part is good,

but the reality is, you don't race if you don't want to win.

The 120-mile course runs across open sea between outlying islands.

RADIO: OK, roll out, now, now, now, now...

During each race, the 18 planes will fly wing-to-wing.

Some of these turns are quite difficult.

The Casquets Lighthouse in particular, you can see it's almost

a 180-degree turn.

And overtaking an aircraft at close proximity

is something you would not normally do.

It would be not allowed, in fact, so, it's just, erm...

making flying a bit more skilful and a bit more entertaining.

Before racing begins,

each competitor has an hour to get to know the course.

More than anything else, everybody must know

where the turning points are.

Everybody's going at high speed around the course

and you don't want someone wandering off into an unknown area.

When we're racing, it can be a bit hairy.

The last thing you want to do in a race is run in to an aeroplane.

Not healthy.

With just 12 hours of flying time,

Roger's still finding the limits of his new plane,

and sharing the cockpit will be his navigator, Dom.

My job is to keep Roger straight and level.

Dom will be basically be whacking me if I'm not performing right.

Yeah, there you go, further down.

The practice run is a chance for Roger and Dom to see how fast

they dare to push the plane.

OK, let's practise this, because this is going to be hard.

Oh, I've turned way too early, but let's just see how I go.

Keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going.

Losing height, losing height, losing height, roll out now.

That was much better, though.

Beautiful, Rog.

Are you nervous?

Always nervous, yeah. Very much so.

That's why I haven't really smiled today.

I'm nervous because you're flying the aircraft at the upper end

of its limitations

and we're flying in close proximity to other aircraft

and I want to get home to see the family.

In 2010, during the same racing weekend, two planes collided.

There were two fatalities.

You can't help seeing other incidents that have occurred before.

And I don't think you can help studying them,

because you've got to learn how and why, and it helps

stop you going the same way, I suppose.

I guess the thing with flying is,

if anything does happen, you don't have small...

You don't have small accidents! No, no, you don't.

No, you're right, that's... That's it, yeah.

That's... You cannot cock up.

KIDS: See ya! Bye, Tony! See ya!

Bye-bye! See you later, dude.

Today is cargo loader Tony's interview for a supervisor role.

Drinking plenty of coffee and,

erm, just thinking about what to say.

I'm just trying to relax myself, cos if I get think about it too much,

you get yourself stressed out too much and then you get...

Then you start panicking and you start thinking, "Oh...!"

Last time, I didn't get it and I was quite upset.

I worked really hard to get up there and then to be knocked down

through the years...

Every time I fail something, I take it to heart.

Twice before, Tony's been interviewed for this promotion

and been unsuccessful.

Break a leg.

Errrrr...

Yeah, it was good. I was all right.

You can see I'm sweating a lot...

Honestly, not really, not really. Erm, no, it was good.

First time, actually, I was relaxed, I wasn't actually nervous or...

Well, I was nervous, but they've asked me some different questions this time, where...

I think I did all right. I think I did all right. We'll see.

We'll see how we go. We'll see if it worked or not.

In a week, Tony will find out if he's got the job.

Phew!

Inside the warehouse at East Midlands,

the flow of freight never stops.

Every night, as well as sorting 150,000 parcels,

the staff must scan each one.

Customers can follow it up, where it is.

They go on the internet and it's got a piece ID number,

and they can follow this from here to when they receive it.

Dianne Prince has worked here for nine years

and personally scans 6,000 parcels a night.

I'm crap at geography.

I'm not very good at geography at all.

All I know is that, it would...

I do this every night

and I would really like to go to one of these places! Ha!

I'd like to go to Hong Kong.

Food's nice, isn't it?

But, ever since I left school, all I've ever done is warehouse.

I've worked in a soap factory,

I've worked in a biscuit factory,

I've worked in a pot factory,

and then I come and do this!

But we have a laugh, and I do like that.

And I actually find the job interesting, as well.

Yeah, I love it.

You get people here that will last... I've seen them come within

an hour and they've gone home, cos they can't handle it!

You've got a box, you've got to put it on the belt.

You've got another box, you've got to put it on the belt.

But that's the nature of the business.

With the amount of cargo moving through East Midlands on the rise,

Graham has recruited new staff.

But he's having teething problems.

Dianne!

16 missed scans, that is normally zero.

Who's responsible?

Agency.

Oh, everybody blames the agency!

They weren't scanning, was they?

Two agency over there last night

and every one of them is down to them. Wow.

We've never had 16 in a year, let alone a night.

Somebody's got to have something said, then, ain't they? Yeah.

That's been zero. Now you've got a new staff member and it's 16!

I think they're going to need to be bollocked, I do. Ha-ha-ha!

Yeah!

How are you, Rob?

To get to grips with the problem, Graham gathers his team.

I'm cheesed off with this, to be honest with ya. 16 missed scans.

TEAM: Oooh!

At the moment, I'm under pressure

from bosses coming to me and asking me questions.

Next week, I don't want it past 16 by Thursday.

For the whole week.

If we can do that by the end of the week, I'm happy enough.

When something like that happens,

it takes the buzz out of the good weeks.

It's very hard to motivate them and that's why we have the board.

If we get a zero, they're all in the happy zone.

It's the only thing really you get out of the job.

On the island of Alderney,

the Royal Aero Club's last races of the season are about to begin.

Good morning, Geoffrey.

I suppose we wish you the best of luck. Yes.

May the best man win! Yes.

And we wish you, too.

I'll give you a kiss. Ah!

Gratuitous kissing before an air race!

You know what we said.

Yeah. Keep it quiet.

At stake, prizes for the two Channel Island races

and trophies for the whole year.

The reigning champion is Martin.

Well, I've had a bad race last time,

which knocked me off the top spot

and I'm now about fourth.

So, it's just possible.

If I have two good races, I can maybe do well or maybe not,

but there are a lot of other people with the same ideas.

Current favourites are the Baron and Baroness Boot.

Leading most of the race tables at the moment is a bit

of a worry because we've got it all to lose, as someone said earlier.

I can fly and aeroplane, Suzie, but I can't undo a life jacket.

I'll do it, darling.

DOM: I think the aircraft is over here.

It's the first race for Roger in his new plane.

'How we doing?'

ROGER: Good.

Got our brains in gear.

Roger is good. He's quite quiet.

We tend not to talk as much about other things other than flying,

just so he stays focused on what he... The job in hand.

MARTIN: Here we go.

Now!

SUZIE: Now!

GEOFFREY: Race on!

DOM: Keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going.

Keep going, keep going... Watch your height.

With planes flying at over 200mph,

each attempting the most direct route,

collision is the biggest danger.

DOM: You got it? ROGER: Yeah.

And that's the race over. Race over.

DOM: Good racing.

ROGER: Yeah, shame we're such a long way back, but...

It's just, it's just... You know, it's just different. Just how it is.

Yeah. Ha-ha!

Roger and Dom's cautious race places them twelfth,

at the back of the pack.

Yeah, it's all right. It's all right.

We weren't fast, were we? Ha-ha!

Martin bagged fifth.

Well, Martin!

Hello, Mr Boot! You beat us.

What? You beat us, I believe.

Did I beat you?

Never mind, don't cry about it.

I won't cry yet. No? OK.

Tomorrow afternoon, I'll reserve to cry.

Ha-ha!

With the favourites pushed down the league table,

the championship comes down to the final race.

It's all to play for. This is the last race of the season.

There's no going back, the result today is it.

ROGER: Running into prop wash.

Argh!

DOM: Beautiful turn.

Keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going.

Get down to 300, shall we? OK, Dom.

This time, Roger and Dom are going full throttle,

right in the middle of the pack.

DOM: Keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going...

MARTIN: Bugger me!

Martin's falling behind.

If they can catch and pass the plane in front,

Roger and Dom will take third place and win their first trophy.

I got him.

Yeah! Yes!

We bloody did it.

We bloody did it!

This is the end of the weekend, our prize-giving time

and it's also the end of the season,

so, lots of things to announce, really.

First, the prizes to today's races.

OK. So, the main event of the weekend was, er,

the Schneider Trophy race.

In third place, Roger Scholes and Dominic.

DOM: Well done, son!

So, we came third.

That's brilliant. That's all right, we're pleased with that.

Next, the championship prizes for the whole racing season.

Bob Ellis took the championship with 849 points.

Martin Gosling, with 844 points, came second.

I beat the little man!

Well, I beat Geoffrey.

I came second in the championship,

so, yes, that makes me very happy!

RADIO: Cargo 108, report your high speed...

Inside the warehouse at East Midlands,

there's also cause for celebration.

Choc-chip chunks.

I set them a target at the beginning of the week for 15 mis-scans.

They did two on Monday,

zero Tuesday

and three today.

So, they deserve something to say thank you.

Here you are, service with a smile!

Everybody says you're a number.

Which you are, really - it says it on the back of my pass, I'm a number.

Scary!

I should have five or six, the way that's sticking out!

Cheers, guys. Thank you!

I can go tomorrow and nobody will miss me,

cos they'd fill your job straightaway.

To me, giving it out means everything.

This is all I can do.

This is, for me, going round everybody and saying thank you,

means they know how important they are.

BEEP

My birthday and I've come to work.

Aren't I good?

At last, Dianne's having a trip away for her birthday.

Erm, I'm going to Cornwall,

to an '80s weekend,

with me husband,

me best friend and her husband.

So, I'm looking forward to that.

Thing is, you know when they've been told that I'm 60,

nobody's not once said, "Oh, you don't look it!"

OK, just give me one second, Neil.

RADIO: Yeah, that's no problem.

It's a bit foggy, a bit misty,

so, I'm just now trying to find my counter freight.

And on the apron,

there's a new supervisor.

I was never too sure how people would take to me being

a supervisor, but I've been quite touched, actually, by

a lot of guys on the ramp and warehouse and...

I actually spoke to my dad and he was absolutely over the moon.

I've worked hard and I fought for it and it's what I want to do.

I'm happy. I can say it, I'm happy.

Next time...

Whose sky do you think it is?

CROWD: Our sky!

London's skies, the busiest in the world.

CROWD: No new runway!

Every time I get on a plane, the worse the fear gets.

We're ready to go!

When I'm up there, it feels like absolute freedom.

Bring on the planes.

A garden takes time to perfect.

It needs patience to get just right.