Episode 4 Airport Live

what's in the nose cone of an aeroplane? Or what it costs to buy a

state of the art fire engine, or how to train to be an air traffic

controller? Well, wonder no more, we have got the answers here. This is

Airport Live. Welcome to Heathrow Airport. Over

the last three nights we've discovered that this vast site never

stops. It handles 70 million passengers a year and employs 76,000

people. But it is also operating more or less at 100% capacity. It

simply can't get any busier, so what is the future for this airport and

indeed for aviation in general? We'll be discussing that a little

later in the programme. Also over the series, we've been asking you to

e-mail your questions to Airport Live and Jack Langley, who is ten,

did exactly that. He wanted to know whether the airport has its own Fire

Service. Anita, can you answer that? I certainly can. Jack, you will be

pleased to know they don't only have a Fire Service. They have two fire

stations. One is the East fire station, ton other side of the fic

traffic control tower, and this is the one in its shadow. If there is a

situation the crew is called out to, they need to be able to get there in

three minutes. How do they do that? In one of these bad -- one of these

bad boys call as Panther. Here at Heathrow they've got 8 of them. It

certainly is going to be hot Anita. Dallas Campbell is known universally

as Smudger from now on. He is on site and he's put down his

paintbrush and moved to the engineering hangar over there.

I knew you were going to say something like that. I'm never going

to live it down. I'm in North Pen, a huge engineering hangar here at

Heathrow. It is one of those spaces that is so big that you completely

lose any sense of scale, any sense of perspective, but funnel funnelly

yourself -- funnily enough they didn't build it big enough for

today's aircraft. If you follow the gantry at the top, you come to a big

chunk they had to take out of it to get the enormous A380 super-jumbo

tail in there. Next to me is a 747-400 that's in for a service. I'm

going to be getting my hands dirty to see what it takes to keep those

things this perfect condition. Looking forward to that, Dallas.

Thank you. I have spent the series right in the

heart of the airport, here at the air traffic control tower. It seems

that many of you have been rather than inspired to do a bit of a

career change and train as air traffic controllers yourselves. How

hard is it? Dan Snow went to find out.

With a plane taking off or landing at Heathrow every 45 seconds the

mental demands put on the air traffic controllers who work here

are among the toughest in the world. It takes up to three years and costs

over �700,000 to train a Heathrow controller. Approach on runway 278.

You are number two. The men and women who work here are from all

kinds of backgrounds. They need abilities and aptitudes not measured

by normal exams. Analytical reasoning, quick thinking and

calmness under pressure are just some of the attributes needed to fit

together this constantly moving jigsaw of aircraft. A British

Airways 777 entering now. Not to mention learning a whole new

language. Anyone who wants to be an air traffic controller here face as

barrage of aptitude tests and interviews. I'm going to try my hand

at just a few of these test to see if I'm made of the right stuff. Here

goes nothing. The first test is to keep my eye on that ball that just

flashed yellow. Visual awareness is key to making a good air traffic

controller. Come on you little monkey, where are you? Boom! Level

completed. Thank you very much. It soon starts to get a bit more

complicated. It's a bit more realistic. I'm surely be good at

this one. In this task I have to guide these disks through a series

of gates. If they get too close they flash yellow. If they touch, it is

myself. Less than 1% of applicants will end up controlling planes.

Speedbird 923 contact ground on decimal 250, bye-bye. Dave is

prepared to let me test my skills in his multi-approximately pound

simulator. This is an exact replica of the control tower at Heathrow. A

virtual reality version used to put trainees through their paces in an

environment where mistakes can be made. Dave is putting me in charge

of departures, one of the most demanding roles at Heathrow. I will

need to think about everything an air traffic controller needs to

think about - the weather, the planes on the ground, the constant

stream of departures and, most importantly, the size of each Arab

and its weight vortex -- the size of each aircraft and its weight vortex.

I need to leave a safe gap between takeoffs. You need to leave a

two-minute vortex separation. good to go. It is frighteningly

real. Each virtual plane is someone playing the role of the pilot and

the simulator will react to my every command. Speedbird 965, after the

departure of the Boeing 763 Ethiopian, er, line-up 039 right.

Line up 09 right... My knowledge of the technical language may need more

work, but with a few more pointers I seem to be getting the hang of it.

You are clear to take off on runway 09 right. Indicate that on the

strip. Who is going after whom? 7451 you are clear to take off on

runway 09 right. Good. KLM clear for take off. And there he goes. Nice.

Enjoy Amsterdam, my friend. It seems even I can manage to get planes

airborne every two minutes but at Heathrow it is not good enough. To

satisfy the extraordinary demand they have to squeeze as many planes

as possible safely through the season. What we want to do is cut

down the two minutes, so we arrange the traffic into the best order.

not leave a gap, and it doesn't matter what order they take off in

If we do it in a first come first served basis we'll depart 30

aircraft in an hour. If we shuffle best route and best type we'll do

45-50 an hour. We are trying to balance the heavy aircraft and the

medium aircraft. Grouping them direction in different directions if

we can to minimise the amount of delay that we would have to build

into it. If I can organise the queuing traffic by weight, and if I

alternate the departures between those heading south and those

heading north, I can theoretically safely clear planes for takeoff with

just a minute's separation. Looking for a northbound now, is there a

north bound we can have? Easier said than done. Can he go? Are you asking

me or telling me. Dan, look out the window, what's happened? Oh, dear,

what have I done now. What's that aeroplane doing up there? Which one,

where? He's airborne. What does your runway look like now Dan? It is

clear. What are we going to do? There are thousands of people

waiting. Somehow I think I'm not quite hitting that 45 planes an hour

target. Maybe I'm not cut out for this after all.

You are quite a tough teacher. I'm up in the visual control room, which

is why I'm talking to quietly, because people are doing air traffic

control as we speak. And this is not an easy place to get to is it Dave?

How many of your applicants get here, do you think? Very small, we

get 16,000 applications a near to NATs as a whole and out of that we

get 100 into training and out of that we lose 30%. Wow! What about

Dan Snow. Would he be a likely person to end up in one of these

aloed chairs? It was an interesting time with Dan. We had some fun. In

the aptitude test, he did a small bit of aptitude test, but it prove

that he is quite accurate. However, in terms of speed and reaction, I'm

not sure. I think we saw that in the simulator. So perhaps not an ideal

creeper choice for him I think Dan Snow is a great TV presenter.

are right. We should quickly mention the weather, because yesterday you

had us all rushing for our waterproofs and you said there was a

chance of thunderstorms but it seems to have been a quiet day. I think

there were cumulonimbus clouds over London but they haven't developed.

The MET said it was only a 30% chance. Hopefully a nice calm day

for air traffic control. And a perfect day one would think for

training. The you've got Lisa behind news training. Is this one of her

first days in the visual control room? She is in the early stages of

live training, so she went through that simulator process that we put

Dan through, but she was there for a good five or six weeks, until she

got into a Stade where she can come up into into a live environment, and

Richard is listening to her every word and coaching her. Is she doing

well? The signs are good for Lisa. It will take another 12 to 18 months

before she is on her own. You have to be really dedicated and want to

do this. Back to Dallas. Thank you, I'm with Derek cogs well,

you are the supervisor here. We are not doing a full stripdown of this

plane, this is more a quartly MOT and service for an aircraft? It is

like a 60,000 mile service for your car. It happens every three months.

How long have you got to get this done? It is 48 hours to get this

check. 1,000 man hours of work to be done. And 50 guys on the shift to

get it done. And presumably when it is done another comes in?

Absolutely. The next one is from Boston. We are just over halfway

through it. We've checked the fuselage, the fins, checked the

windows and changed a few things. I'm going to help you later, but in

the meantime I will let you get on with it.

Have you ever wondered what's in the nose cone of an aircraft? Phil Roud

is in charge... You can tell us what you are in charge of here. Here we

are at the front of the aircraft. This is the eyes of the aeroplane.

We've got a whole secret world this here of interesting things. What's

this here? This is a couple of things here. This is the eyes of the

aircraft. The weather radar dish at the front. This is what pilots use

to look in front of them for inclement weather and rain.

Yesterday we knew that Charles de Gaulle was closed because of

weather, so this is what the pilot would use to spot thunderstorms?

Yes. These are components of the instrument landing system. A

localiser and the glide slope antennas. These are used when the

crew are bringing the plane into land, keeping the aeroplane on the

glide slope to land on the sweet spot on the runway. This nose cone

is made of composite material, but the metal strips, what are they for?

It is not conductive so we've got metallic strips which are bedded

into the structure. These absorb any lightning or electrical activity and

discharge it to the rest of the aircraft. The thing I love here is

look how close we are to the window? That wall is really thin, so if you

are sitting in first class in seat 1 K, I think that is, there is a whole

secret world of radars and ILS. So when you are enjoying your gin and

tonic, bear that in mind. Over the last few days a myriad of systems

here, I've been learning to fly the A380 and today I've got to try and

land the thing. This is an A380 simulate o one of 17

flight simulators BA use for training their pilots at Heathrow.

It is so realistic that an already experienced pilot can qualify to fly

an A380 simply by training in here. This is a typical Heathrow landing,

which like in a real A380, begins by using the autopilot to line up for

the approach. What is happening? airport is off to our left, what you

will see on my screen here is the instrument landing system. What I

can do is we have preprogrammed into the computer, telling it which

runway we are aiming for, then I armed the localiser. That is the

thing that keeps us straight down the runway, and the piece of

equipment on the ground is sending out a beam, and the aircraft will

pick up that game and follow it down the centre line, keeping us in the

centre of the runway. We are hands-free at the moment, it is

doing it by itself. I am going to go for a bit more flap, it makes the

wings bigger, we get that much more lift, so we can land at a nice, slow

speed. We will take the landing gear down now. It takes a little while on

an aircraft like this, a lot of wheels, but is also helps us to slow

up a little bit. We are about 500 feet above the ground, shortly you

will push the red button, that will switch the autopilot off. Keep it

nice and stable, we are coming down nice and smoothly, we want you to

concentrate on keeping it nice in the centre line. We have two whites

and two reds on the left-hand side telling us we are at the right

angle. That is lovely. Keep aiming for that centreline, fabulous. Keep

it coming down. We are at 100 feet now, at just below 50, you need to

ease back on the control column. Lovely. It means retard the thrust

levers, you need to keep it straight now. We have reversed on the

engines, that will guide us nicely off the runway. Can I just point out

we are all still alive! All pilots have to spend at least four days a

year in similar it is like this to stay qualified on the aircraft. They

really practice simple landings. Can we do it at night? We even have the

constellations! Let's make it hard, let's go to thick fog, AEP is super.

We can do that? We are completely blind? We are 500 above the runway.

We don't need to see the runaway... Almost all aircraft can land in

almost zero visibility. Once locked onto the landing system, the

autopilot takes over and with a few exceptions such as lowering the

gate, controls every aspect of the landing. I am not go to do anything,

I am monitoring the aircraft, make sure nothing will go wrong. We are

only 100 feet above the ground, still can't see anything outside.

still can't see any flair. Now, retard, reduced the thrust. The

thrust is coming on, the brakes are working. It is saying rollout. We

have a lot of brakes on there, we are slowing down quite quickly, we

can see the centre of the runway. Here we go, some green and white

lights. We wouldn't have needed to see anything at all on the runway

because the autopilot and the breaking was doing everything. Now

we need to find a stand! We can stop and ask someone! I am still in a

cockpit, a real cockpit, but still with captain Dave Thomas. He is

letting me sit in the captaincy because my landing was so good. What

do you think, beginners luck? think you deserve the seat, there is

obviously aviation in your genes! The second landing we did wasn't

quite so good, have a look at this. Just after it shouts of defeat at

you, ease back on the side stick. -- 50 feet. Retard! Retard! Sorry, that

was a bit of a bumpy one! That was just to show how good your first one

was. Dammit! Almost as bad as my painting yesterday. If you thumped a

plane down as hard as that, with there be raised eyebrows? The funny

thing is that this looks familiar because the commented on is that my

dad was also a captain, a 747 400 captain, so this is all very nice. I

used to sit in the seat when you could. You are an Airbus man. How do

you decide whether you will be an Airbus man or a towing a man?

is some sort of choice, you bid for what you want, it can tell when you

have been in the company. With Boeing, you have the central

control, with Airbus you have the side stick. But there is a whole new

generation of aircraft coming through from the big manufacturers.

How do the lines themselves decide what they will buy? You have the

really huge process, it it is dependent on fuel efficiency, as

into comfort, a whole string of things. The produce ever changed in

aviation. We have some more tweets and e-mails. This is my favourite

bit! They are not that hard. This is from Keith Stafford, who wants to

know, do you have ignition keys per your playing? No ignition keys, no

furry dice! The fasten seatbelt sign has been turned on. Down there!You

told me you didn't know where it was! That is cheating!

It is not just aeroplanes that are constantly evolving. Airports have

two as well. When he throws first built, the passenger terminal was

simply a row of tents and now it is the biggest international transport

hub in the world. But it still needs constant updating. That is not

without its challenges. Since the day it was built, Heathrow

hasn't stopped growing. Once just a row of army tents, huge passenger

terminals now. The skyline. These gateways to the world have

transformed a grassy effort into the international airport we know today.

A brand-new terminal two is the latest project to rise from the

tarmac. With a 5000 strong labour force on site every day, it is a

small city in itself. I have come to meet John, Heathrow 's developer

director, to find out how to build a terminal fit for the 21st-century.

Good to see you! Welcome to terminal two. How is it going?Very well. And

to drink there is nearly a year till it opens to the public, we are

getting on fantastically well. -- considering there is nearly a year.

Work started here in 2009. Designed by architect Norman Foster, 26,000

tonnes of steel and 46,000 square metres of glass maker the imposing

structure. You can see all the way through the building, it is very

open! It is. We have tried to make it is. We have tried to make it as

simple a journey for tried to make walking distances very short, we

have tried to make it so there are very few bottlenecks, and everything

happens on one level as much as possible, that is the simplest and

most intuitive journey for passengers. It is a huge departure

most modern in the world. It stands in the footprint of Heathrow 's

oldest passenger terminal. Building opened by the Queen in 1955. It was

a glimpse of a jet set future, restaurants, a cinema and a rooftop

viewing terrace. They made Heathrow a destination in itself. But as

package holidays opened air travel to everyone, passenger numbers

soared. Terminal two began to creak at the seams. Designed to take just

over 1 million passengers a year, by the end of its life, seven times

that number were squeezing past its check-in desks. The new terminal

hopes to serve 30 million passengers every year. The opening of Heathrow

's terminal five in 2008 made headlines with its teething

problems. To make sure this new building can cope, every part of it

is being mercilessly tested. That includes all 43 air bridges. What

we're doing here is a test to make sure the air bridge can adjust.

rather than having a whole aeroplane here, you can see we still have work

going on behind us, the small fuse a large is a mock-up of a shorthaul

plan, and the other mock-up we have got is more like a 747 or an A-380.

I love the way it caused -- concertinas out. Why go to these

lengths? You are doing it for the next year, just testing, testing?

is an amazingly compact holding, everything has to work perfectly. --

complex building. The chance of something going wrong on opening day

of very high. The terminal was like most iconic feature is the engine

rating 54,000 square metre roof. The north facing windows bringing

natural light without overheating the building. That is amazing!

looks huge, doesn't it? You can see a perspective of the whole terminal.

It is a bit like being at sea. is! The roof offers a unique vantage

point, chance to see the airport 's past and its future. The original

airport was a cluster of buildings in the middle that slowly grew out

and that became inefficient as the airport got bigger. So people would

start adding on a satellite here, and a pier there, that is what

created this -- these long walking distances, this confusion for

passengers. What we're doing is the airport with this new layout, with

the main building and the satellites, terminal two will be a

mirror image of terminal five. affectionately as the toast rack

because of how it looks from above, this modern layout of neat parallel

rows allows planes and hasn't is to move around the airport more easily.

-- planes and passengers. So you have a row of these buildings on the

same axis heading off into the horizon? Also, you see it that

planes can move into the northern runway or the southern runway,

without getting in each other's way. It will completely change the look

and feel of the airport. Dave has just come up with a new

name for our programme. Landing live! While we are standing here, we

can see the beautiful, and electing roof of the new terminal. --

undulating. We all know that builders cause a lot of mess and

chaos in our houses, but that is not an option at a very busy airport, is

it? The airport is under a bit of transformation at the moment, a lot

of the works projects, the airport is to go to extraordinary lengths as

the dust and debris that those works can cause. This can be quite costly

to airlines. While we are here, can we get a sense of what this old

layout, what the challenges present to you as an air traffic controller?

Down below us is a good example. This 1960s airport look, we have a

big cul-de-sac. We have aeroplanes in that cul-de-sac, it is a one in,

one out. If something pushes back there and has a technical fault, and

something is waiting to get in, the rest of the aeroplanes are waiting,

you end up with a couple of thousand people not going anywhere. So this

toast rack layout we heard about, how does that improve things?

western end of the airport now, as you describe it, the toast rack

element, it allows us to move the traffic more efficiently on the

ground. We are looking now, with a beautiful view of Windsor Castle, we

are looking now at terminal five, this is the newest part of the

airport. You do get that real sense the British Airways one. That is not

a cul-de-sac. If there is traffic inbound behind him, it just fellows

much better. It is much more efficient for us. What is the plan?

Is the idea to try and turn the whole of the airport into this much

more sort of grid-like pattern? think that's the airport's plan to

modernise, get away from that 1960s style. And the new Terminal 2, it

has lots love environmental benefits as well. The idea we think is that

the idea will go "Toast Rack" all the way up and be far more efficient

for us on the ground. Would be very happy air traffic controllers

wouldn't you? Very much so.Back to Anita, who is down there with her

firemen. I am indeed, in the Panther with Keith Howard, the station

manager. He's been an airport firefighter for 27 years. You are

good Keith? Thank you very much Anita. Why don't we see Panthers on

the streets of Britain? They are designed for aviation firefighting,

so you see them at airports around the world. We are buying eight of

them as we speak and modernising our fleet. Aircraft off and on-road.

know they are expensive, they cost �700,000 each. What makes them so

special? As you can see, they are modern, this is all the pump-work

and the pipe work. This is environmentally friendly. Water very

environmentally friendly for firefighting if, and foam. We can

reach speeds of 75 miles per hour, and carrying 36 tonnes of weight.

You are going ate 7 5 -- you are going at 75 miles per hour and you

have massive aeroplanes. You have to be very careful don't you? . Even

when we are on blue lights aircraft have the right of way. You don't

want to be playing chicken with a 747. They can turn on a penny as

well, these things, can't they? are a fantastic piece of machinery.

We can turn around in 36 metres, thanks to the rear axle. It helps us

reach the stands. You have impressed me with the stats. Can I press some

buttons and maybe fire your cannon? Yes, here we have the lights and the

blues. All the blues are on. Gosh! Don't worry about the door. How far

can this go? 80 metres up to that grass area. And there we go. Let's

see... I will do the pump pressure. Woo-hoo! That's fun. You've made

your own rainbow. That's fantastic. I could push over a car with this

can I? You can push over a car and knock it down. And people would be

like skittles. That's beautiful, that rainbow. Keith, I'm having so

much fun. Dallas, you are not the only one who gets to play with

expensive toys. I've moved from the front of the

plane to the table. This is called the stabiliser and controls the

pitch of the plane, nose up, nose down, if you like. Because it is a

moving part, it needs maintenance, particularly greasing. So I'm going

inside the stabiliser bay door into the tail itself. Here we are inside

the tail of a 7 747-400, with Derek again. The This is amazing. This

isn't a pressurised compartment is it? No, no pressure at all.And this

is where the passengers are? Just behind the toilets. We've got a

screw jack, and this controls the stabiliser? That's right. The pilot

inputs during the flight, so we have move it by hand? No, the we have the

power on and we (Inaudible) into position. Am I going to get covered

by grease? Quite possibly. A piece of rag for you, so if the grease

comes urgent, you can catch it. we go.

I'm holding it like this. Has it moved down, the grease is going in,

is that right? Keep going, Phil.How many times does this have to go up

and down? We'll do this up and down (Inaudible)

That is incredible. Amazing. A huge myriad of complex systems on board a

747. How many of them need to be greased like that? How many moving

parts? There are hundreds, especially on the wings and the

undercarriage. We have a team of mechanics, four on each shift, eight

hours in the morning and eight in the afternoon. Greasing the wings

and the undercarriage. Live from the tail, Kate, I have a souvenir for

you. I will give it to you later. I can't wait. Thank you.

As I said at the beginning of the programme, Heathrow is running

pretty much at 100% capacity. It simply can't handle any more

aircraft, and yet demand continues to increase. There are possible

solutions. One is to build a third runway here. Another is to build

another whole new airport in the South East. But what do the people

who live right on Heathrow's doorstep think?

A million people live in the five boroughs that border Heathrow. The

airport is an unavoidable part of daily life. For some, it is the

reason they moved here. We looked at several places to buy and Heathrow

was a good spot. Others have had to build a life around it. Hounslow has

thousands of families who depend on Heathrow for jobs and employment.

And also the whole community is built around Heathrow being there.

But for some, is expansion threatens their way of life. This is all I've

ever known, and my business is here as well, so I would lose everything

if the runway came through here. Sipson is home to 1,000 people, a

hairdresser's, and a village shop. It sits on the airport's northern

perimeter. A third runway could wipe Sipson off the map. Jackie has lived

here all her life. Seven years ago she set up a hairdressing business

with husband Danny. But living under the threat of Heathrow expansion has

altered village life. Everything was great. We had a really profitable

business until two or three years ago. Three years ago the airport's

owners started buying up the houses here. It was quite depressing at the

time. A lot of friends and neighbours that I had known all my

life were suddenly leaving the village. But Jackie and Danny

decided to stay. Is We lost about 30% of our trade that year, so it

was difficult for us. We decided it was probably best if Danny got a job

somewhere else. Ironically Danny now works at the airport, like 30,000

other locals. I feel torn at times, because I can see from an economic

point of view why Heathrow want to expand, but from a personal point of

view I don't want it to come here, I don't want it to happen. But for

other airport neighbours the economic benefits outweigh any

disadvantages. Pub landlord Cliff deliberately chose to move to

Longford, next door to the northern runway. With a We decided to buy

this pub because of Heathrow Airport. We thought it would be a

good starting point for the business. For him and his regulars a

bigger airport is the obvious Joyce. Just about every customer I've

spoken to who lives locally is for it and they want it to grow. You

can't complain too much, we've had a good living out of it. Every small

business around here needs that airport to generate business for

them. It is not just small businesses that benefit. The airport

is worth 9. . 2 billion a year to the British economy. Something has

got to happen, the airport has to be expanded or another one is built,

and Heathrow expansion is the obvious thing for me. It is for the

greater good, surely. Expansion would mean more money and jobs for

this Europe. It would also mean more crowded and noisier skies. Aircraft

noise already affects over 725,000 people and generates the most

complaints. At Hounslow Heath infant school planes skim just 600 feet

above the playground. When I'm reading, I can't hear what I'm

reading because of the aeroplanes. It is noisy and it distracts me when

I'm reading. The head teacher is concerned about the impact that

noise has on her pupils. Every 60 or 90 seconds you've lost 25 seconds of

the teaching time, so half of what the children are hearing and half of

what they are saying is lost. school has had to adapt to its noisy

neighbour. These unusual look domes provide protection for the children

when they are playing and learning outside. Inside, aircraft noise is

reduced by 17 decibels. You can still hear the aircraft in the

distance but you don't have to raise your voice or move closer to the

person you are speaking to, so it is not impacting on the learning.

Heathrow's neighbours may never agree on the plans for the future

but they do see eye to eye on one thing. It has been going on for such

a long time now, a lot of us are battle weary with talking about it

and living with it on a daily business. I would like a decision to

be made. If we have to move on, we have to move on. So there clearly is

no simple neat solution, but I've been joined by Simon Calder the

senior travel editor at the Independent. Lovely to see you.

Thank you for being with us this evening. We know the Government set

up the Davies Commission to look at exactly this con um drum. The

residents and here are not going to get an answer until 2015 at the

earliest. What do you think might happen? I am a betting man. I've

been brought up innive yaismcts I was born at the end of the -- I've

been brought up innive yaismcts I was born at the end of the runway at

Gatwick to. Be here at the tower of power is fantastic. Nothing is going

to happen for 8 or 10 years. Governments keep saying doing

nothing is not an option and they keep doing nothing. If we can get by

with Dave and his friends upstairs squeeze squeezing a quart into a

pint pot for a few more years. And there is lots of capacity in the

South East with Gatwick Airport and Stansted. We'll get a second runway

at gait wick in 2022 and after that a third runway at Heathrow, but not

at Sipson but Stanwell Moor. That's where my money is. One thing isna is

ir refutable really is that we do love flying. We are so dependent on

the aircraft industry. Because that is because it is the greatest force

of the modern age amounts what brings us all together and takes us

to the end of the earth. I came here tonight on the Tube, trundling

through the suburbs here of West London, thinking people here are

going to be walking on the beach of Rio in the morning or hugging their

nearest and dearest in South Africa. That is miraculous and we need it.

So much of our food comes in this way. It seems that we can't do

without it but the Government also has a serious target to cut kits CO2

emissions by 80% by 2050. If it allows ming seemingly never ending

expansion, doesn't it make that target meaningless? Absolute, unless

we are all driving around in electronic Maglev cars. No, things

will change. Not too much, because London is the world centre of

aviation. Heathrow isn't by any means busiest airport in the world

but add in all the others and we are way ahead of Paris, Tokyo and New

York. We are going to see incremental improvements. On

Wednesday British Airways gets its first Dreamliner, two years late,

which will replace the old smelly Boeing 767s. I'm responsible for

this partly as well, but we are addicted to air travel. We love it

and we are not going to stop flying. Simon, thank you.

Let's go back to Anita. Safety is paramount at airport as.

The reason we are kept so safe is down to rigorous troughed you've

seen Dan train to be an air traffic controller, Dallas trained to land

an A380. Now for some procedure hard graft. I'm going to train to be a

firefighter. I've been put with Matt Collier, who

is teaching me a handy bit of first aid before... And it is action

stations. OK, I need to put that on. Yes. Let's do it. With a potential

serious incident, it is imperative to get there quickly. Because of

this, the fire service is able to get to any site on the airfield in

under three minutes. Just because they are on a call doesn't mean the

airport comes to a halt. The drivers have to be wary of any aircraft

manoeuvring. This is what is lovingly known as the Green giant.

It is designed to simulate Boeing 747. Here they have replicated in

engine fire and fuel spill. Before we have even stopped, they are

getting water on the fire. It is important to move fast as aviation

have to get here and react as quickly. The water cannon smothers

the flames while the crew get the hoses out. And they put their

breathing apparatus on. This is your headgear? Yes. The fire engines

being used here can hold over 12,000 litres of water each. If this was a

real engine fire, the team may also use a file or dry powder in addition

to the water. The firefighters moved in closer with hoses, which given

greater control when tackling the flames. Within a couple of minutes,

the fire is out. The team keeps spraying the engine with water to

cool it down because any residual heat could cause the aviation fuel

to reignite. How similar to the real thing is this? With training, it is

gas, so it is a clean burn. If you start getting a lot of smoke it

start interfering with air traffic control, and bringing the planes in.

As far as a real fire, they would be a lot of black smoke. As well as

having to deal with the people and everything else involved. Our main

priority is to make it as safe as we can for the passengers that will be

coming out on the shoots, so that is something we need to consider when

we position ourselves. We don't want to be in the way they should come

indelible when we are firing a monitor, with about 6000 litres per

minute. That can do some damage! well done! , help me roll up some

hose? I would love to. I will definitely be leaving the

firefighting to the professionals. How do you find out if there is a

situation at Heathrow? The captain will tell the tower, they will tell

us, we are all linked up, we are alerted by the system. So the pilot

will tell them and they will tell you. We have had a good look at the

Panther, what is this? This is the aerial ladder platform. We need this

to land A-380s. So will it be able to land at Heathrow if you do not

have one? No, because you need this to land and A-380, we used this as

part of our safety. How high can this go up? This is 42 metres in

height and over 20 metres in reach. As a benchmark for you, that red

light... There is no way as I'm going to go that high! Maybe we

should have a of a go. I don't know how brave am going to be, but let's

see. We have heard a little bit about

this new generation of aircraft that are coming in, that are more fuel

efficient, less damaging to the environment. But noise pollution is

Imagine flying to the edge of space. Faster than twice the speed of

sound. So quick, you could travel from London to New York in just over

three hours. This is the future of waited for. It pushed the boundaries

of what we thought was possible. The first passenger jet to make the

sound barrier, reaching speeds of over 1350 mph. But in 2003, Concord

's time in the air came to an end. Today, this is the closest we can

get to supersonic travel. I have come to Brooklyn 's Museum in

Surrey. I am quite excited about this. John, it is tiny! It is like a

little tunnel! It really was a small plane, it was like a flying pencil.

Only 100 people could fit on this, who would apply on it? It was really

an aircraft for the elite. It sounds so glamorous. How much would it cost

to buy one of these seats? It would have been several thousand pounds,

perhaps �10,000 in today's money. Because of the time difference and

the speed of Concorde, you could leave London at 1030 in the morning

and be in New York at 10am. The fundamental point is the price of

jet fuel. Concorde, as you could imagine, was a gas guzzling machine.

It was expensive to fly, so ticket prices were very high. Now everybody

is watching their wallets that is why we have seen low-cost airlines

develop. So if speed is no longer to put the agenda, what is? What is the

future, where are we heading? future today is based on the need

for people to travel cheaply, comfortably, we are looking at

bigger aircraft in some cases, we have the double-decker Airbus

A-380, but smaller aircraft that fly further and more comfortable it, we

have the Dreamliner. Fuel efficiency is also key to improving

performance, that is the way forward. But it is not just soaring

fuel prices driving new aircraft technology. Airlines increasingly

have to consider the environmental impact. The industry has set targets

to reduce aircraft noise by 65% by 2015. At the Airbus noise technology

Centre at the University of Southampton, this professor and his

team are professing -- developing technology to combat noise

pollution. What is noise? It is basically undesirable, unwanted

sound. There are two types, engine noise and air freight noise. --

airframe noise. That is the noise caused by the physical structure of

the plane. Engines are only part of the problem. The landing gear also

generates a surprising amount of it faces the oncoming airflow, the

landing gear generates noise. If you have a clean stream of air, like

what I am blowing out committee wouldn't hear that. But if you place

an obstacle in the path of that flow, you would hear the noise. That

is what happens when landing gear comes down. The team is using a wind

tunnel to see exactly how much noise landing gear generates. Shall we do

the experiment, give it a go? There are hundreds of microphones

built into the walls and floors of the wind tunnel, measuring the level

of noise generated when airheads the landing gear. -- air hits the

landing gear. The team collates the data to late a sound map. The

darkest spots tell them which are the noisiest spots. It is quite warm

in here! OK, now you see the noise hotspot outside. That is caused by

this sharp edge. It is bad news ever done it with. If it was smooth, they

would be less noise? Correct. We could cover this. Covering part of

the landing gear makes it more aerodynamic and therefore quieter.

It is much smoother. Now you see the difference. On the left-hand side,

this is the original configuration without cover. You see the high

level of noise. On the right-hand side, this is with cover on, you can

see the level of noise is significantly reduced. Change like

this is never simple. It can't happen in isolation. Safety, fuel

consumption and mechanics all need to be considered. Nevertheless, the

professor is quietly confident about the impact his work will have on

aviation noise pollution. With all this exciting technology

development, future air planes will be much quieter, and I think a large

part of the community noise problem we experience today will be

eliminated. It is a small change every year but there is change,

there is reduction. A fascinating film. We are definitely entering a

new age of aircraft design. I had no idea that airframe is made so much

noise, the landing gear and the flaps. Also down here looking at the

undercarriage, I am with Derek. When I take my car in for an MOT, what

gets me is the brakes, how do you guys do the brakes on a 747? This

aircraft has 16 break packs, one for each main wheel. That is where most

of the weight of the aircraft sits. I know the nose gear works very

differently, doesn't it? We don't have any brakes on the nose gear,

the advantage it would give you, you would have to have a heavy

undercarriage. It is not worth the effort. How'd you get the wheel to

stop? Shut the undercarriage doors. These are the doors that the landing

gear will retract into? They are just retracting now. You can see two

brackets in the ceiling of the undercarriage bay, some brown pads

on them with black marks, they are called spin pads. As the wheels

rotate up, they are spilling out... They will contact this pin pads and

come to stop. So it is just friction that stops them spinning? That must

generate an incredible amount of heat. You can see bits of rubber and

heat damage, it must get pretty warm. Does it come up with a thud?

The first-class passengers, they are totally unaware of this secret world

going on beneath them! You can hear a rumbling sound. If you can hear it

in the seeds, it is only a couple of feet below your seat. It might

disturb your drink, but that is about it! The amazing thing that I

realise is that this plane will be going out of here at 230 tomorrow,

it will be in the air at 515 and right behind it, another plane is

coming in. It is an incredible conveyor belt. That is it from the

engineering bay. I have made it into the platform and

the firefighters are two hours into a 12 hour watch. They will carry on

the 24-hour 's, seven days a week, 306 to five days a year. -- 365.

Since we came on-air on Monday, 5400 planes have arrived or departed

Heathrow, carrying 870,000 passengers. On Monday it was edge

traffic and troubles Mac easiest day of the year. -- air traffic control

's busiest day of the year. It has been busiest -- dismissed as usual.

Thank you to all of you. If you would like to know more about the

airport, you can do that through the open University. Now here at