London 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...

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.

It gives you a sense of space and freedom

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

Every boy's little dream.

London - one of the busiest cities on earth,

and a magnet for business and tourism.

It pulls 3,500 planes a day into its five major airports...

..all bursting at the seams.

THEY DIRECT PLANES

Orchestrating this daily rush is the job of NATS, Swanwick -

the UK's air traffic control hub.

Here, controllers cram the growing number of flights into

south-east England's limited airspace.

We are a small island and we have five major airfields

right in one little corner.

It's a lot of planes to get into a very small space

with limited amounts of tarmac.

303, contact London...

Adding to today's workload,

cloudbursts of heavy rain.

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

Heathrow's just gone into Vis Two holding. Vis Two. Yeah.

Because the weather has now got to Heathrow and the rain

has got to Heathrow we've had to increase the spacing for

all arrivals because the tower

are having difficulty seeing parts of the runway.

So part of the procedure is before you get into

really low visibility procedures we go into something called Vis Two.

We've just gone in Vis Two,

which gives us a minimum of four-mile spacing.

We just need to be aware

of Gatwick movements on the ground.

Increasing the distance between aircraft from three miles

to four has a domino effect,

slowing traffic at other airports,

even if there's no local rain.

Because of the weather that we've had in the airspace,

we've had to restrict the departures,

and so the knock-on effect of all of this

is they're close to running out of stands at Gatwick now.

The space on the ground, the tarmac, is becoming full.

They're now requesting a rate of 16,

based upon the capacity on the airfield.

So do they know they're not going to get 16

for at least an hour and a half?

Yeah, they know. They know how it works. OK. Let's go for it.

Terminal control, Ronnie speaking.

To prevent a jam on the ground, Steve cuts the number

of planes allowed into Gatwick's airspace

from 27 an hour to 16.

Battening down the hatches now until we can get through to the handover.

Staffing looks good for this afternoon.

The weather should be through just after the handover,

so fingers crossed my colleague and his team will have

a lovely afternoon while we go and have my cup of tea

that's still long-awaited from eight o'clock this morning.

It's the job with the highest pressure at NATS,

keeping everyone safe entering or leaving London's airspace...

..one of the busiest patches of sky in the world.

Planes are threaded through a Spaghetti Junction of

invisible highways into stacks above the five main airports.

Manned by up to five controllers,

the biggest, Heathrow, has four stacks,

each filled with up to ten circling planes,

all carrying an average of 200 passengers.

This can put up to 4,000 people in the hands of just one controller.

There are elements of stress. You come out with clammy hands sometimes

and your heart's racing, a bit redder than you normally would be,

but when you start thinking of each of those aircraft

as hundreds of people, which then adds up to thousands of people

that you're keeping safe and alive, ultimately,

I think you'd just lose the plot, you'd go crazy.

So none of us really think like that, I don't think, at all.

It's little wonder the path to becoming a controller is so tough.

Each year just 0.5% of the thousands who apply are accepted,

making getting into NATS harder than

winning a place at Oxford or Cambridge.

Today, after passing a series of aptitude tests,

five applicants have arrived to start the three-year course.

Good morning, guys. You on the 241 Basic? Yes.

Hello. Welcome. I'm Jane Howard. Good to meet you.

Jane looks after new trainees at NATS.

This is our aerodrome simulator,

which is fab.

It emulates looking out of a tower.

23-year-old Tom Finch recently graduated with a maths degree.

It's huge and ridiculous and really,

like, amazing, the whole building.

Make yourselves comfortable.

If you just want to introduce yourself to me

and maybe something interesting about yourself.

I'm Tom. Hi, Tom.

I am from Warrington in the north-west

and I've cycled from Land's End to John o'Groats for charity

and from Warrington to Paris.

As I graduated, I applied for this

because I saw them at the careers fair.

I was just working at my local McDonald's, just trying to earn

some money while I waited, and now I'm here.

I mean, I don't really have an aviation background.

I'm Tim. I'm from London.

I used to do road cycling quite often.

I haven't for a while because of injury from skateboarding.

I was a bit reckless when I was younger and...

20-year-old Tim Christophe gave up his place at university

and has left home for the first time to be here.

When my mum heard I got the job she just sort of screamed

and then hugged me.

She was, like, sad that I'm leaving home

cos I've never moved away before

and now it's like moving away for good, but she was so happy about it.

You've probably heard it from all sorts of people

and I will just say it again - there is a tremendous amount of study

and the first four weeks is quite tough.

After a month of basic training,

they'll be plunged into a series of tests.

Fail any one, and it's off the course.

It is the level of study, the complexity of what they study,

that puts a lot of pressure on them.

Are you ready? Lovely. Thank you.

From the point they leave here,

which will hopefully be in nine months' time, they'll actually start

working with live traffic, but with a valid controller by their side.

Good morning.

It's massive. It's a huge responsibility.

Historically, I had one guy that was doing fabulously well

and he came in one day and said,

"I can't take the responsibility,"

and withdrew from the course.

Pressure on NATS is partly the result

of an explosion in budget airlines.

20 years ago, they carried around five million passengers a year.

Now they fly well over 16 times that number.

Today, Fergus Rak, a pilot for low-cost Norwegian Airlines,

is scheduled to make two round trips to Europe in his Boeing 737.

We fly low-cost airline and the aircraft need to be in the air

for the longest possible time.

So the name of the game for us is to be very efficient,

all working very solidly. There's no pausing.

We're going to try and aim to leave here at 8:05. OK.

OK, so you can start your briefing now, if you like. OK.

Between flights, the cabin crew clean the passenger compartment,

while Fergus does standard safety checks.

I'm checking that everything is where it should be,

making sure there's no hydraulic leaks, no fuel leaks.

I'm also doing a security check at the same time

for stowaways and bombs

and devices that may have been...

set on board the aeroplane.

During the 30-minute turnaround

26,000 litres of kerosene is pumped into the wings,

while up to 227 litres of waste is sucked out of the tanks.

And before taking off, 125 safety checks are ticked off.

We're just about ready to go now.

We're just finishing off our last bit of paperwork

and we can get ourselves under way for Berlin Schonefeld.

I've asked them to request that the fueller comes out immediately. OK.

If we can avoid having to do monitored fuelling, that will help.

The stubby-shaped 737,

affectionately known as the pig,

is the bestselling civil aircraft ever built.

Somewhere in the world, one takes off every five seconds,

and Fergus is flying one of the latest.

Once the flight is beginning I quite often say to the first officer,

"And now we can relax."

We've got away from the very busy, pressurised time on the ground

and we're now just going to fly the aeroplane.

Oh, my God!

Whoo!

Oh, look at that traffic jam on the M25, eh?

Getting behind the controls of a jumbo jet means starting small...

Easing right...now.

..in one of the thousands of light aircraft

registered to fly in London's airspace.

We're on Myrtle Avenue, just watching the planes go over.

It's amazing. It's so good.

I don't how much it would cost to live here,

but I would definitely love to.

It's so cool.

Ah! I love it.

Lizzie Metcalfe has been learning to fly for the past six months.

So far it's cost her ?5,000.

I've not flown for about three weeks

and it actually feels kind of like stuff's missing.

Like, I'm going to the aerodrome all the time...

PLANE ROARS OVERHEAD

I'm going to the aerodrome all the time just to be there,

just to be around the planes and be a bit of a scally

and hitch lifts with people just to get in a plane,

just a back seat and see what people are doing.

Cos after a week of work

it's kind of like, you kind of...

I don't know, you just kind of get this feeling in your stomach

that you just want to fly again.

And it actually feels like something's missing in your life

when you're not flying.

Currently working as a designer on a magazine, for Lizzie

becoming a commercial pilot goes back to childhood.

My dad was in hospital throughout my whole life,

always in and out.

He got leukaemia when I was a baby.

His dream was from when he was a very young boy,

he wanted to be a pilot.

But it was only when my dad left behind this list of things

that he wanted to do

and one of them was be a pilot that I thought,

"I'm going to honour him. I want to do this for him,"

and I got into flying.

Shall we wave?

That was a beast. Absolute beast.

I don't know when the day is that I'll get there,

but I think on that day I'll feel like,

"Yes, I've finally made it. I've finally achieved this dream."

Not just my own, my dad's dream.

Lizzie's notched up 25 flying hours at Elstree Airfield.

It's one of the most wonderful places you can go to because

there's so much chance for adventure, you know?

And I'm, like, crazy jealous of all the people

that have their own planes and they can just go off somewhere.

They just go, "Mm, I want to go to France for breakfast.

It's such a crazy lifestyle that these people live. It's exciting.

It's freedom, definitely.

But before the freedom of flying solo...

Make sure it's not too tight.

..Lizzie, with instructor Ivan, must master the hardest part.

My landings are awful.

I just bounce my way down the runway like no tomorrow.

But everything else is fine. Everything else seems to be great.

You know, getting up there, going around.

It's just nailing those landings

that's biggest challenge for me at the moment.

Oil pressure in the green arc.

Golf, Bravo, Foxtrot, Lima, Uniform, ready for departure.

Golf, Bravo, Foxtrot, Lima, Uniform, take off at your discretion.

OK. We're ready to go.

Gently raise the nose.

Let it get up in the air. Get speed.

65, staying alive. Excellent.

The high-winged Cessna 125 single-engine plane

is light, agile and sturdy -

ideal for learning.

This turn that you're doing, no more than 30 degrees.

Just medium-level turn. Yeah.

Sorry, I'm used to it being like a fighter jet.

Well, maybe in the future.

It's just this feeling of being entirely free.

You control everything that happens,

like realising a dream.

All of the chaos that goes on in daily life,

once you take off you can just

leave all of your problems on the ground,

and that's a great feeling.

INDISTINCT RADIO COMMUNICATION

As Lizzie comes in to land

she needs to get the plane to stick, not bounce.

Looking good.

Let's go a little bit on this side.

And pull back.

Gently raise the nose a bit more.

That felt good.

It felt good, and it was almost there.

It was a bit bumpy.

But, yeah, I'm learning. We're getting there.

The sight of a 450-tonne jumbo streaking across the sky

inspires wonder in some.

But for others, it's pure terror.

The last flight I went on when I was coming back from Spain,

I couldn't stop crying.

28-year-old Sarah Howley, who works as a civil servant,

suffers panic attacks when she gets on a plane.

The last time we went away was three years ago and I feel like

I'm now at a point where I would have loved a holiday this year,

it would be great to get away,

but I didn't want to get on a plane.

Now Sarah might have found a solution.

I just finished doing hypnotherapy sessions

and I just felt it wasn't working for me.

And I kind of thought there must be

some other way of curing this.

I mean, I've heard of people being cured

so I thought I'd go on YouTube to see if there was any sort of

expert in that field and that's how I came across Christopher.

It says he's a breakthrough expert.

"He can rapidly and effectively take a client from extreme flying phobia

"to them booking their overseas trip with passion and excitement."

It sounds good.

I suppose I was looking for this magic cure

and I feel like I might have found it.

In an attempt to break through her fears,

Sarah's booked a session in London,

but she's got to fly to get there.

It's one more flight.

And if it's only one more flight that I have to do

to be cured of this then it's not too much to ask.

I am nervous cos...

..it's a pretty windy day as well.

I think what I'm most nervous, like,

what I get most nervous about is turbulence.

And a windy day says to me there's going to be a bit of turbulence.

Sometimes it can be quite manic and she can be quite upset,

but other times she can be really quite quiet.

I wish I knew what to say or what to do.

I just feel a bit helpless, really.

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

I'm thinking, you know, that's some other flight that

nothing's happened, so the next time something's going to happen.

How are you feeling? Aye, getting a little bit nervous.

It's a bit real now.

Proper fear really kicks in when I get to the airport.

It's like a big knot in your stomach.

You're all right? Yeah.

I suppose you feel out of control a little bit.

You're putting your life in somebody else's hands.

You're trusting them to fly that plane.

Please place guaranteed cabin bags and smaller items

under the seat in front of you.

It's struggling, isn't it? Yeah.

10,000 feet above Kent,

on his return leg from Berlin,

Fergus is struggling with turbulence.

It has no problem getting up to 41,

it's just... It's a 10 or a 15.

We lost 12 knots now and probably lose another 10 or 15.

There is a strong headwind - the tail end of Abigail,

the storm that tore through Britain days before.

CONTROLLER: Reduce speed to 180 knots.

50-mile-an-hour winds plus,

it brings something extra to the day.

It's a good opportunity for us to exercise our skills

and to fly the aeroplane.

Golf Victor, turn left, heading 285.

When established, descend on the glide path.

500.

With the autopilot off

and air traffic control guiding him through final approaches,

Fergus manoeuvres his fully loaded 737 toward Gatwick.

All the way down that final approach into landing

you're wrestling with the controls of the aeroplane to make sure

that you put yourself in that best position to land.

You're thinking about whether or not you can land the aeroplane

or go around and have another go.

There's a lot of pressure

but there's also a huge amount of satisfaction.

200.

100.

50.

40. 30.

20. 10.

Well done, Peter. Thank you very much. Cheers.

For me, personally, a day like today is perfect because I like

that extra challenge of something different.

You don't want to be flying like this every day

because it is very tiring. You can probably tell

by looking at me that I'm probably looking a bit weary,

but a good day's work.

2584, climb to altitude 6,000.

Never stops.

PHONE RINGS Terminal control, Op supervisor. Hello.

At NATS, the routine of keeping

thousands of passengers safe continues.

HE DIRECTS PLANE

We've got a lot of weather problems on the Midlands sector.

Roger.

And training to become a next-generation

air-traffic controller, it's Tim's turn on the simulator.

Welcome to aerodrome. I know it's your first one, so no worries.

We'll get you confident and everything else. All right.

Are you happy about how to look around the airfield?

If you had to look at the apron, how would you do that?

Oh, you can do the... That makes me feel dizzy, but... I know.

Do it nice and easy, yeah?

All right. Let's have a play.

Golf, Alpha, Sierra, Lima, Victor,

taxi to Stand 33, crossing Runway 17.

So where's he going from? He can do that.

There's no-one in his way and he doesn't need to cross

a runway or anything.

He must show the instructor he understands the unique

controller-to-cockpit language.

Can you shorten his call sign now?

You can now you've established two-way communication,

just like on Basic, yeah? Nothing's changed.

Is there a speed limit on the apron? I don't actually know that.

He won't. He won't do 100mph, so you can just follow him.

So when you've got a lot of aircraft landing, how will you manage

to fit ones crossing the runway?

It's all about sort of key words

that mean really important things to the pilots.

Happy? Yeah. It's not difficult, is it?

It's just new.

When you first get into it it's daunting,

but now I know what to say, it seems really fun.

Now you can tell everybody else how much you enjoyed it.

I thought it was going to be really scary

because I haven't got a clue what to say

cos the phraseology is different to what we were doing before,

but when you've done about two, three sentences' worth of stuff

it's all just repeats.

It sort of clicks and you know what to say

and it's so much less scary than I was thinking.

It wasn't scary at all once I actually got into it.

Staying calmly confident in life and death situations

is something each trainee must master,

but right now there's a huge amount of new information to remember.

OK. 80 minutes. Good luck.

Four weeks in, they're sitting their first exam.

The stakes are so high, you know,

you've got to have people that

have got that tenacity.

They've got to really want to do it because you're talking about

40 aircraft in an hour in a sector, with 300 people on each aircraft.

That a lot of people. It's quite definite -

if you don't pass at this stage

then this is probably not the right job for you.

The wind's just picking up, and it's 42.

I don't think it's going to be tenable. I think we're going to need to go down to 38.

My course started with 23 people on it, from memory.

I think six are still in NATS.

Some left to go to work in other climates after qualifying

but pretty much I think we were slayed by 50%

before we left the college.

An hour later, the test is over.

It was difficult.

Did you leave any questions? No.

Even if you don't know, just fill it out with something,

which is what I did with a few of them.

So do you feel like you might have passed? Yeah, I think I did OK. Yeah, I think I've passed.

Yes. Yeah. By the skin of my teeth. Hopefully.

It will be close. Nah, it'll be all right, I think.

I think I knew enough.

The problem is now we'll all compare each other's answers

for the rest of the day until we get the results.

To pass, the trainees need a mark of 75% or higher.

Right, cut to the chase.

Four of you did pretty well, two of you were not so good.

Kieran.

Here you go.

Anybody particularly surprised?

Obviously a little bit disappointed, maybe.

I got 73%,

needed 75% to pass.

I didn't pass the exam.

With 73%, Tim is in danger of failing.

I'm quite shocked at that, really.

A few of the questions went straight over my head.

I didn't know them at all.

I call my mum up after every exam, so when I go home I'll have to

call her and tell her I didn't pass.

Tim and Matt must resit the exam.

I have to be a bit worried, because if I fail, I'm out.

The number of passengers flying through London

has more than doubled in the last 40 years to 165 million.

You're looking at the busiest patch of sky on the planet.

The airspace is congested, there's no getting away from that,

and whether we can expand any more,

I'm not sure.

This explosion in air traffic

is meeting increasingly strong opposition,

and at Heathrow, where passenger numbers are at bursting point,

the airport has become a target for pressure groups.

We arrived for a morning shift that starts at seven o'clock

and we found out that there was a polar bear on the runway.

No third runway! THEY CHANT: No third runway!

As the sun came up you could clearly make out

there's a group of people who were on Runway 27 Right,

which at that time of the day is normally being landed on with 747s.

THEY CHANT: No third runway! No third runway!

Probably one of the weirdest things that I've ever seen here.

Environmental protesters closed a runway at Heathrow this morning

after breaking through a perimeter fence and chaining themselves up.

This is just the latest protest from the network of activists

known as Plane Stupid.

Here they come, here they come.

THEY CHANT: No ifs, no buts, no third runway.

As soon as we were set up on the runway we rang the police to

let them know we were there, to make sure that they knew

that we were staying and that planes couldn't land there.

Sheila Menon belongs to the protest group Plane Stupid.

They oppose growth in aviation, which they believe is

the biggest growing cause of air pollution and climate change.

All I remember seeing were the feet of the 60-odd police officers

who were around us, all just standing around looking at us

as if we were some kind of weird science experiment.

They actually decided to remove us from the runway

whilst still with our arms locked together in tubes.

So they put us onto stretchers and drove us off and then took

an axle grinder to the tubes that were joining our arms.

We halted somewhere between 13 and 22 flights.

That's a sizeable amount of carbon that we stopped from

being emitted into the atmosphere on that day.

It wasn't a decision that I spent a long time deliberating over.

If you think too much about it

maybe you might convince yourself not to.

I studied maths and business management

at Kings in central London

and I went on to work in the City for seven years.

And it's only really when you step out of that

that you can actually see that

that's just one way of approaching life.

The runway sit-in led to prosecution and a court case.

But while awaiting the verdict,

Shelia continues to stir things up.

That's going to say "# No new runways,"

that's going to say "# No ifs, no buts."

We're hanging a banner.

There's no law that says you can't hang a banner.

We have the right to protest

and we are exercising that right to protest.

We've chosen this spot because it's in front of

the Houses of Parliament. We want to send a strong message.

Today's stunt is designed to coincide with a Green Party event

against runway expansion.

With the picture that we take

we'll able to send that out on social media.

They're carrying it. They're doing it. They're doing it.

Now it's getting really windy.

Wow. It's amazing.

That banner is so big

and it's amazing how much it just gets swallowed up

by the size of the bridge.

I mean, it's 15 metres long and three metres deep.

That's just incredible. But it does look good.

But our weights are not heavy enough

and it's not hanging down.

Clearly we haven't done this before.

40 miles from London, the once peaceful Tudor village of Penshurst

now finds itself right underneath Gatwick's flight path.

Bang. Superhighway over your head.

Technically a plane a minute.

They try and land 55 planes an hour at Gatwick at the moment.

They even boasted recently of a world record for a single runway.

That plane there's about 4,500 feet.

I wish I didn't know that.

And usually they're lower than 3,000,

and it makes a massive difference. Noise is exponential.

t doesn't disappear proportionally -

if it comes down twice as near it's more than four times louder.

It's really... It's not good.

Photographer Martin Barraud leads a group taking on

the Civil Aviation Authority,

claiming they allowed Gatwick flight paths

to change without consultation.

Well, we've done newsletters, we've done a leaflet drops.

I've been on the radio,

but there's nothing like a road sign.

Just remind them every day, every day, every day.

The legal fees for his campaign could run to ?100,000,

so he's organised a fundraiser in a field.

Everyone's really concerned about this.

But it's Sunday afternoon,

they might have had a drink, it's a bit cloudy.

"Shall we go, shall we not go?"

You've got to get them down here.

We not only get the arrivals, we also get departures.

So we get the concentration of both and they're very, very low.

I mean, they're passing at sort of 2,700 feet,

and when you're at an elevated location as well that's very low.

If you asked this question to my wife

she would say it's extremely irritating all the time.

I practice yoga myself and a spot of meditation,

so I'm to some extent able to live with it.

What happens is that when you allow it to annoy you

then it really does annoy you.

If every person here gave ?100

we would be home and dry.

We'd have 60 or ?70,000 in the bank tonight.

I need you to be engaged.

So I want you to start humming what I say go.

I want that hum to turn into the sound of a thousand easyJets,

and I want it to get louder and louder and louder.

Let's start the hum. THEY HUM QUIETLY

Think of those easyJets.

Louder, louder.

Bring it up. Louder. Louder. HUMMING INTENSIFIES

HUMMING CONTINUES TO INTENSIFY

HUMMING STOPS

Now, the aviation industry thinks it's their sky.

I think it's our sky.

Whose sky do you think it is?

THEY SHOUT: Ours!

I have not given up a year of my life for nothing.

And we will stop at nothing to bring back that tranquillity.

Come towards the middle, everybody.

There's a sort of gap in the middle.

Those of you at the gate end, keep coming in.

THEY CHEER

In Manchester, Sheila and Plane Stupid

are making their own stand against aircraft noise.

It's about four o'clock in the morning.

It's quite late. It's very quiet.

We're here to make some noise,

quite literally.

They're in an alley behind the hotel

where Conservative Party Conference-goers are sleeping.

RUMBLE OF AEROPLANE ENGINES

In the bin, a speaker plays the sounds of low-flying jumbos.

The point to bring it here and put it outside the rooms of the hotel

where the conference members are staying

so that they get a taste of what that actually feels like.

So that noise, real people

are having to deal with that reality every day,

seven days a week.

But their jet-powered wheelie bin attracts the police,

and it's over.

It's just a shame that it wasn't louder

and it's a shame that it didn't go on for longer,

but it was still a point well made, I think.

Climb to altitude 6,000 feet.

639, cancel the halt, turn left.

Bird strike on departure.

Aeroplane out of London City had a multiple bird strike on departure.

The aircraft's just called us up and is quite happy to continue.

So there'll be a smell of roasting duck or something down near Thames.

So, exactly the same format as earlier in the week.

18 questions.

At NATS, trainees Matt and Tim have one chance to retake

the test they failed last week.

Right. Good luck.

This is actually a job I really, really want.

It's a whole career, not just a job.

It's, like, my life from now on if I get it.

Continue on the heading and speed.

Delays about five to 10.

It's a fantastic job.

It's different every day, talking to different planes, you're working in different sectors.

But the thing that makes it a really great job is the people

that you work with, really.

One, two, three, Roger. Continue on the radar heading.

Why did you want to become an air traffic controller?

Do you want the truthful answer? Yeah.

The money. How much do you get paid?

About ?110,000 a year.

PHONE RINGS

Hello? Hello, Mum.

Hello, dear. Hiya.

I got the resit results.

Yeah?

I got 99.5%.

Oh! That's bloody good news.

Felt good saying that.

Being able to say "99.5%" and tell my parents that I passed.

They know how much it means to me,

so it means a lot to them, of course.

Ah!

Look, no hands!

You can see for 50 miles, perhaps.

And you can just enjoy the countryside.

At Elstree, it's the day of pilot-in-training Lizzie's

first solo flight.

I think my heart's going like... IMITATES FAST HEARTBEAT

I'm feeling very excited because hopefully

I'm going to be soloing, if the wind is all good.

Finally, after so long.

So I'm getting my plane ready

and then we're going to see if I can go fly.

And solo, finally.

She's spent the last six months working towards today,

to fulfil one of her late father's ambitions.

INAUDIBLE

'It was kind of strange,

'because there was this one moment when I was in the air

'and I was looking around and I was thinking,'

"I hope he can see me here. I hope he can see what I'm doing.

"Cos I feel it, and I feel like he's there." You know?

Ivan's jumped out, but my dad's jumped in.

You know, I don't...

I don't know if there is such a thing as guardian angels,

but I believe that he's one of them.

Because I've done so many great things, and aviation is one of them.

This first solo landing, it's quite a stressful event for a pilot,

so I'll be happy if she has a good landing.

As I was coming into land, I'm looking at the ground, thinking,

"I want to really show that I can do this."

And then I pull up.

WHEELS CRUNCH

And I can just feel the wheels hit the gravel on the runway

and it was just like, "Yes! I've done it! I've done it!"

It's one of the most amazing feelings,

that you've managed to do that.

That was a very good landing.

RADIO: '..very nice.'

Even the controller approved.

Hello. I'm alive! How was it? Yeah, that was really good. Excellent.

It was really good. And the landing was very good as well. Yes!

Excellent. How did it feel inside?

It felt good, it felt really good. Yeah? Yeah.

I don't think there was any wind on the last one, so it was even better.

So I was really lucky. You're very lucky, yeah. Aah!

OK. Well done again. Thanks.

Lizzie is a small step closer

to winning her dream of a commercial pilot's licence.

SHE LAUGHS Woohoo! Woohoo!

This is it, your First Solo certificate.

Thank you. LIZZIE LAUGHS

This is awesome. (Thank you.)

I can't explain it. It's just...

It's a great feeling, going up there on your own and just...

Yeah, it's amazing.

Now take that...

LIZZIE LAUGHS

Thanks! This is cool.

Officially, you're a Top Gun. Thank you.

I'll see you in a bit. You'll be fine, I know you will.

Yeah, I will.

Next time I see you, you'll be looking for a flight.

SHE LAUGHS Let's hope so!

Back on the ground in London,

Sarah's off to meet Chris, an integrated therapist,

who claims he can cure her lifetime fear of flying

in one short session.

Hiya. I'm Chris. How you doing? Nice to meet you. I'm Sarah.

How you doing? Grab a seat.

Right, you focus on the tip of this pen.

Just allow your eyes to go from left to right

as you think about that event now.

The treatment involves an unconventional blend

of mainstream psychology and more experimental techniques.

Be with it.

In front of us... OK.

And we're going to expand our awareness so it can still see

both fingers, but we're looking straight ahead, if that makes sense.

And now I want to talk to the part that stores all your emotions.

The aim is to uncover the key event

that triggered Sarah's fear of flying.

When I was at primary school... Mm-hm.

..thinking about going up to high school.

It's change. Change. I don't like change.

Fear of change. OK.

'Very often, it's not related to fear of flying at all.

'It could be a fear of control, it can be a fear of letting go,'

but the unconscious mind has made those two the same

and when you untangle one,

often the other one will start to untangle and fall away.

With me. Mm-hm. Focus on that event.

Just tap here. "Even though I need to relax."

Even though I need to relax.

"I totally love and accept myself."

I totally love and accept myself.

Notice what thoughts and feelings come out,

notice what comes into your awareness.

Just lots of worrying.

People telling me I'm being silly, but...

Just still can't forget it. Yes.

Tapping on acupressure points claims to remove negative emotions.

If you'd never gone to high school, what would you have not had?

So if I hadn't went, I wouldn't have...

Yeah, I wouldn't have gained an education, I suppose, yeah.

And so when it comes to your fear of flying,

what would you tell yourself?

That future you that HAS got over it.

Just relax and enjoy yourself, and make it part of your holiday. Yeah.

Make it an enjoyable part of your holiday, and it CAN be.

Feels OK. It doesn't feel...

It doesn't feel bad.

Thank you very much for coming. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

The true test will be Sarah's flight home.

I just feel really...

I just feel really relaxed and...

..the thought of the flight tonight...

Just, it's not really bothering me.

So how's it going? You all right? Yep. I'm feeling fine.

Looking forward to getting on the plane and reading my book.

It's not bothering me at all. Let's go. Yeah? Yeah. Let's do it.

Yep, let's go. Yeah!

People at work bring these back when they've been on holiday. Nice.

So I'm going to do it this time,

cos I'm coming back from the airport.

We just lost contact with this outbound.

The last we heard from him, he was climbing towards Tamar,

going to 5,000 feet.

How far apart are those two aircraft going to be?

Is there a QFE for...? The QFE? Yeah, it depends on the QFE.

What does the QFE give you?

It gives you the aerodrome elevation. The aerodrome elevation?

Which is it? The runway elevation or the aerodrome elevation?

The NATS trainees are facing one crucial test after another.

The next is in two days' time.

Can't remember. Mm-hm.

Have you passed him the shovel or what?

This is basic stuff, guys. Really is basic stuff.

I think that's a bit of a kick up the arse.

A bit like kicking a puppy at the end, to say,

you know, they've got one shot, but they have.

If they don't pass this, they're off the course.

You know, and they're potentially looking at a P45.

It feels really important now.

You have to explain that you understand

all the pages and pages and pages

that we've had thrown at us over the last seven weeks.

If they see anything that they don't like, then, you know...

..there's a chance that you'll be gone.

Pressure's also mounting in the operations room.

What's the latest weather map? The wind's just picking up, and it's 42.

I don't think it's going to be tenable.

So we could be into a runaway change

within the next hour, hour and a half. Oops.

A small change in weather is set to disrupt the landing patterns

of every plane coming in and out of Heathrow.

Aircraft need to land into wind,

so they need to land with the wind pointing at them

so that they can land slower,

because the last thing you want to do

is land at a higher speed than necessary.

Cos obviously you want to stop on the tarmac.

So when the winds change direction,

we have to respond to that so that the operations can continue safely.

Operational supervisor Steve must pick the right moment

to change the direction of takeoff and landing

of every incoming and outgoing plane.

10.45 is... 10.45 is the time of change. Right.

We've still got the team after the hour. After the change.

Have you put the change in yet? Yeah, that's the change in. Oh, OK.

That's with the change.

After you. Thank you.

I'll just communicate the plan round the room now.

Swiss 5 on top.

NORTRANS 2873, turn left, heading 3-2-0 degrees.

The change affects 150 planes,

so the switch must be precisely synchronised.

NORTRANS 2873, descend - flight level 1-1-0.

As the first re-routed planes touch down,

a reminder of which direction aircraft are landing

is moved into place - a miniature Concorde.

A finely balanced juggling act.

Everyone has an opinion. HE LAUGHS

And wants to express it to me!

You listen to everyone's opinion, and you juggle them in the air

and you think, "Which one actually matches the situation?"

Cos, ultimately, the airfield will have a view,

the customers will have a view - so British Airways, for example,

will have a view, easyJet, whomever else -

and, of course, my overriding thought is for safety

and the accountabilities I have for the service provision of this room.

Facing charges of aggravated trespass

after blocking a runway at Heathrow,

it's the final day in court for Plane Stupid and Sheila.

We heard closing speeches from our lawyers this morning

and we're about to go back into court to hear the final verdict.

We're not sure whether we're going to get sentencing.

I think it depends on the severity of the sentence.

If we get sentenced today, then that's a good sign -

that means that they're going...

Lower. ..leniently on us.

A typical punishment might be community service, or just a fine.

But prison is a possibility.

Well, Judge Deborah Wright told all the defendants

that they should expect that they will go to jail -

something that came as a surprise to many in the dock.

Are you shocked?

Um, I... We think that the sentence is very harsh.

The lawyers are quite surprised.

But, as I said, you know, the legal system comes down very hard

on people that take a principled stand on these issues.

Would you do it again? Absolutely.

'I don't want to go to prison.

'I don't want a criminal record.

'Having a criminal record for the rest of my life'

is not something that I...

..am taking lightly.

It's a huge price to pay for us as individuals,

but, right now, we need to be doing everything that we can

to stop pollution, for everybody's sake.

At NATS, the trainees face their verbal test.

Each air traffic scenario must be answered correctly.

Morning, boys. TRAINEES: Morning.

Looking nice and smart. Very good, very good.

'Today's their final assessment for the basic course,

'and this is their final chance.'

Passing the course, basically,

comes down to saying the right words today.

Just relax.

As you've done all the work, all you've got to do is talk.

Their plans, their hopes, their dreams for their career

all depend on the next 30 minutes.

I'm a little worried,

but I'd panic even if I'd got every single thing right,

so it's just the same either way. Hopefully, it'll be nice.

Good luck, Tom. Good luck.

So if you've got... Say you work it out at 2,400... Yeah.

..you'll also have a flight level at 2,500.

You're not separated, but...

It's a bit of a weird one, because the UK's the only place

which doesn't provide the separation with the lowest level.

'I'm nervous, but I think I'm as ready as I can be, really.

'Heart thumping in my chest.'

Just cramming every single thing I can find into my head,

just reading through the book over and over and over,

going through my notes over and over,

writing them out about ten times each to make them stick in.

I'm just really, really nervous, to be honest.

But I think I'll pass. I'm confident of it.

It's more pressure now, just sat here, like, "Please pass me."

Just staring at those doors, like, "Come on, surely you can pass me.

"I've done enough." Hopefully I got enough right.

For six of the sections, I'm like,

"Yeah, nailed that, didn't get anything wrong."

One of the sections, I'm like, "Oh, God, I got two things wrong.

"What if that failed me?"

Classroom four. Classroom four? Right.

OK, so there is good news and there is not so good news.

For those that have been successful, Tom...

well done.

Yeah, well done, Tom. Well done. Cheers, thanks. Good effort.

You can go, and I'll see you on Wednesday. Yeah.

Tom is on to the next stage of the course.

Oh, I was over the moon.

I, like, walked out and did a little fist pump.

Couldn't believe it.

I'm so happy. I'm so relieved!

Pure joy, walking out of that room.

I can go home and have a day off tomorrow, like,

for the first time in nine weeks.

Like, actually feel like I deserve a day off.

HE CHUCKLES It's quite nice.

There is a process that kicks into place now for you guys

but, at the moment, your training is suspended at this point,

until we go through the formal process.

Tim and Ciaran haven't been so lucky.

Disappointed I didn't pass.

This bloody sucks.

Yeah.

That sinking feeling. You open it... I'm looking through and it's like,

"S for satisfactory, S for satisfactory, U..."

As soon as you see that first U, you're just, "Oh, crap."

Your heart sinks. Cos you get one, they're all gone.

I don't want to get a normal job.

That's what I wanted to do in my future, so I don't know...

No idea what I'll do now.

"Gatwick campaign wins review of 'intolerable' flight paths.

"Campaigners have won the right to bring an appeal court challenge

"against new Gatwick flight paths

"they say are causing intolerable noise."

Well, it's good news.

For Martin and his supporters, the campaign was a success.

After an independent review,

Gatwick proposed to widen the flight paths to disperse the noise.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Plane Stupid were spared jail and are completing community service.

Tim is going back to university.

You see those two boxes at the bottom?

That have got levels running up? Yeah. They're called VLSs.

So they're the vertical stack...? Spot on.

Tom is on course to becoming an air traffic controller.

LIZZIE: So I got through the first stage,

and if I get through the other stages, I've got a fighting chance.

And Lizzie has taken her next step

and enrolled on the easyJet pilots scheme.

In ten years, I ideally want to be a captain.

(A captain!)

That would be the most amazing achievement.

And I think I could look at myself

with absolute pride that I've made it.

I'd gone through this crazy adventure

and gone through all of these avenues,

and I could look at myself and think, "Yep, you know what?

"I did it!" It would just be wonderful.

Really wonderful.

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

If most of us could pick a superpower, we'd pick to fly.

I think it just represents freedom.

THEY LAUGH

You can breathe.

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

It's almost like you're still,

and the Earth is just rolling beneath you.

ENGINES ROAR

Fly around and twist and turn and roll and loop. It's great fun.

Yes!

Climb skyward like a homesick angel.

You can do anything. It is...ungodly.

SHE GASPS

A lot of things we do in life these days,

often we're doing mundane things.

But I know that flying...

It's going to be anything but mundane.

Ah-ho-ho!

It's like realising a dream.

Life without feeling that excitement would be no life at all.

HE LAUGHS

A beautiful day like today,

all you want to be doing is playing with the clouds.