超大船舶之尼米茲號

她是全球最強的超級載具人 U.S.S.Nimitz是一艘浮游航母 一艘為75艘毀滅戰艦發射的航母 我們有能力發射飛彈 幾百公里的海岸 她的航班可以在一瞬間變得毀滅 我們不能放棄 我們必須為她帶來一場比賽 一場比賽 最簡單的錯誤可以讓她的船隊損毀一切 沒有其他人在海上 所以這真的是一生一世 U.S.S.Nimitz正在準備戰鬥 而軍方必須知道她已經準備好了 U.S.S.Nimitz 世界上最可怕的戰艦 她的武器是75艘超級載具人 她曾經擔任 多次軍事衝突和戰鬥的支援 在1975年被任命 她是10名超級載具人 現在她獲得了260億美元的優惠 讓她再次成為她的頂尖 領導U.S.S.Nimitz 是28歲的軍方軍人 船長麥可·曼尼茲爾的夢想 U.S.S.Nimitz是我 我的心靈都與這艘船相連 每一位船員都穿著U.S.S.Nimitz的服裝 這是很特別的 這是宇宙上最棒的工作 船長麥可·曼尼茲爾 負責一艘24層的船 從頂層到下層 至於船長 她擔任國防部長 船艙覆蓋4.5平方公尺 她的三艘巨型載具 擁有超過110,000平方公尺的儲存空間 5,000名船員生活和工作 在整艘船上的數百個空間裡 U.S.S.Nimitz擁有2個核彈發射器 支援4個巨型蒸汽機 她擔任這位負責人的責任極大 我認為我的職責 是負責兩艘核彈發射器的 市長、機場經理和行政長官 但船長麥可·曼尼茲爾的主要職責 是確保他的船和船員準備好戰鬥 為了準備她在阿富汗海峽 我去探索這艘船 我必須相信我的團隊 能夠在任何情況下 對付任何敵人 她的團隊是一組 學習繩索和訓練 必須強化的軍人 在訓練的過程中 每個人都會被軍方評估 我們正正在考慮 如何保持訓練水平 這就是我們正在做的 如果訓練水平不達標 尼米茲爾的訓練可能會延誤 可能會失敗 如果失敗 結果會是 我們不會被送回家 我們會進行更好的訓練 成功訓練的關鍵 是學習成為一個團隊 同時發射無停止的波浪船 從浮游的航班 然後安全帶回家 這些訓練 被稱為 循環飛行 對所有人來說 是高風險 對飛行員來說 是大氣壓 這就是每個航空員 都期待的 循環飛行 這就是我們期待的 29歲的時候 麥克斯托克隊長 是軍方的頂尖槍手 他的號召標誌 辛迪 是一種慚愧的提醒 他作為一名專業飛行員 犯下了錯誤 他在整個飛行船上 包括登陸警察 和一些飛行船的 隊長和人員 所以我之後 被稱為 查看你不丟垃圾 所以辛迪 成為了我的號召標誌 這個號召標誌 一直陪伴著我 幾百次的飛行後 辛迪是一名驕傲的戰士 他非常瞭解 發射無停止的壓力 航空船沒有航空船 是另一艘船 航空船是 發射能量前進的 我們是 當我們停泊一艘航空船 在一個國家的岸邊 他們不怕船 而是怕 那75艘航空船 他們要發射 並帶武器 到他們的家鄉 Nimitz 是一種強大的 威脅工具 在她的30多年來 在海上 她曾經駕駛過 數百萬公里的航空船 並且最常被派到 警告可能的敵人 美國的商業意義 她也見過 軍事衝突 伊斯蘭戰爭 沙漠戰爭 伊拉克自由戰爭 但是準備戰爭 並不像戰爭 那麼危險 自從她被指派 Nimitz的20多個成員 失去訓練生命 航空船 崩塌在航班上 高度緊繃的線材 斷裂了 在這些 目前的訓練訓練 5個成員 在一場 慘劣的航空事件中 訓練期間 有許多方法 可以致命的 尤其是 航空人員 他們必須 被派到 在海上 以免 給你帶來危險 你可以 就這麼輕鬆地 在第一天 在訓練期間 或者在 最後一天 在航班上 離開 這是一件 航空運輸生命的事 這是世界上 最危險的 工作環境 對於 海軍研究員 他們的首要責任 是研究 安全 總是 第一 我們要討論 安全 是第一關鍵 我們必須 準備好 最糟糕的情況 好嗎 我們研究得 做得好嗎 做得好 我們可以 做得更好嗎 做得更好 接下來的日子 可能會很艱難 對於海軍研究員來說 這群人 從來沒有 在過一艘 50毫米機槍 發射過 對於一些人來說 這是他們 第一次在航班上 發射 海軍研究員 他們的手 有些人 非常新鮮 我們有些人 只有在這幾週 纔到海上 來試試 你們可以看到 他們在叫 他們會知道 船長曼西爾 能夠進一步 展示他們 他們做得怎麼樣 最喜歡的武器 在夏天或春天 我們會進行 運動員訓練 我們會提高 他們的技術 我們會進入遊戲 我們很擅長遊戲 這就是 我們做的一切 如果船艙 被攻擊 傷害了船員 所有人都必須 知道怎樣 拯救自己的人命 船長曼西爾 總醫學員 確保他們 擁有足夠的技能 軍人 醫生 我們不夠 We need everyone else to be a basic provider and handle the fundamental emergencies that everyone's going to see in a mass casualty like we had earlier today In training, injuries are simulated, but Mike expects every crew member to make it as real as possible What we're doing here is trying to get teams of four proficient in the eight basic battle war wounds that any sailor can face on a ship The evaluators keep pushing for improvement Real wars don't stop after dark, so the crew has to train 24-7 It's midnight. Up on the bridge, the officers are planning a surprise, simulated missile attack It's designed to test every enlisted person on board In the hangar bay, hundreds mobilize for the grueling drill Matt Oakes' job is to organize damage control teams You could be eating chow, taking a shower, sleeping in your rack, and as soon as those bells goes off, every single person on the ship has ten minutes to get where they're supposed to be The evaluators are looking for precision, organization, and speed We're all by ourselves. There's nobody else out there. There's no one else out there to take care of us. We can't just call the fire department. We're in It's a full dress rehearsal, and the sailors gear up to fight a worst-case scenario They split into teams ready to tackle fires and explosions So really it's life and death, and we will get it right before we deploy forward to be the tip of the spear, as you would say And they will need more rehearsals before heading into a real war zone In the morning, they will face an even bigger test when flight operations begin, the most dangerous training on this ship Super carrier USS Nimitz is preparing for war Within months, she will be in the Arabian Sea pointed at Afghanistan But first, the Navy must evaluate everyone on board to make sure they're ready for combat Many crew members are rookies who have never been in a combat zone And it's kind of an unknown, and they're not sure how it's all going to shake out Some of them are even afraid they won't come back Nimitz carries nine squadrons of aircraft, four of them fighters The rest are support aircraft like helicopters and surveillance planes Each squadron has its own ready room where they plan their missions F-18 pilot Lt. Mike Stock, call name Cindy, is in the top hatter's squadron He's already completed two combat deployments, but there is always more to learn Every day you're out here, you're going to school, you're learning something And if you're not, that's when you're dangerous When you think you know everything, you're dangerous His squadron is getting ready for a new round of training It will be a long haul Eight months from now, hopefully we'll be on our game and moving at full speed So today is safety, it's kind of the key word Making sure nobody gets hurt doing this, which can happen pretty easily It is early morning down in the hangar bay Where the first stage of cyclical flight operations is getting underway The crew works in an amber glow that makes it harder for an enemy to spot Nimitz at night They're getting ready to send planes upstairs for their morning missions Chief Petty Officer Jason Pick is in charge of the hangar bay He's the Navy's version of a traffic cop Tonight they're going to move a lot of aircraft Our biggest challenge down here is making room without running into a fall kit or another airplane Nobody wants a fender bender with a 70 million dollar airplane When down here in the hangar bay, it's like putting a jigsaw puzzle together You put the pieces in the right place, if you go out of order, everything goes bad But the greatest danger comes from the volatile combination of fuel vapor and hot jet engines in an enclosed space In 1988, a fire during routine maintenance left four Nimitz crew dead My biggest worry is fire Because if there's a fire in the hangar bay, it is able to spread throughout the entire ship So you're putting the entire crew at risk with a fire in the hangar bay ...breaks across the vast flight deck The four and a half acre deck is huge for a ship But tiny for an airport And it's about to get very crowded Lieutenant Commander Jody Smotherman needs to be on his A-game After the pilot, he is the most important person on the flight deck He's a shooter responsible for launching aircraft You say it's four and a half acres And it is. There's a lot of real estate out here, but every bit of real estate counts The 50 planes still have enough room to land them and launch them It makes for a pretty tight environment Four aircraft elevators deliver the first jets from the hangar bay Each can lift two 34,000-kilogram airplanes up to the flight deck in under two minutes Launching and recovering aircraft while 450 people work on deck Makes this the highest risk runway in the world Ten stories up on the bridge Navigation officer Rich Schmeling orders Nimitz to turn into the wind As it blows across the deck The wind will give the planes extra lift when they are launched Jet engines are revved to the max But they still don't have enough power to launch off the runway On land, it takes almost 500 meters to take off Nimitz runway is only 55 meters long They need the help of a catapult to fire them off the deck The catapult connects to the front landing gear of the jet When the catapult fires, it pulls the jet down the track on the runway It takes just two seconds to go from zero to 265 kilometers an hour Shooters call it the cat shot Pilots call it the ride of a lifetime Once the squadron is launched It will stay airborne for hours Performing drills like mock dog fights and in-flight refueling In the flight operations room located in the control tower They track the launches on a replica of the flight deck They call it the Ouija board Nimitz has state-of-the-art electronic tracking systems But the most effective way to keep track of her planes Is with simple colored pins The green pins that you see here That means that they're on the next launch The yellow ones are the preceding launch We call it pinology Things change every second during flight ops It's like working in the middle of a busy superhighway Where one wrong step can be fatal Everyone on the flight deck crew works in tightly defined areas Color coding helps ensure they're where they're supposed to be Purple shirts pump jet fuel Brown shirts monitor the planes Green shirts are technicians working on the catapults That launch the planes And the arresting wires that stop them Red shirts load bombs and ammunition But the shooters in yellow have the riskiest jobs of all They work dangerously close to the aircraft Directing launches and recoveries To communicate they use a complex series of hand signals Because the jet engines are deafening Veteran shooter Jody Smotherman's experience on the flight deck Helps keep him alive It's a world of aircraft chaos Everybody's got their place to go They know the rules how to get there And they're all going different ways Jody takes his life in his hands every time he does his job He could be sucked into the intake of an F-18 engine Burned or blown overboard by a blast of jet exhaust He turns the wrong way He ends up inside the engine It has happened before There's so much stuff going on If you start to step outside those lines You don't know what's going to bite you next The most dangerous phase of cyclic ops Is bringing the jets home It's a controlled crash When a plane hits the deck The pilot has only seconds to adjust And snag an arresting cable With a hook on the tail of the aircraft Every time a plane lands Jody is on high alert Right here, the arresting cable is right in front of us We have four of them And they try and aim for the middle of them So if you see, the hook touches down Basically right in front of us So they catch the third wire The aircraft approaches the deck at 265 kilometers an hour When the tail hook catches The cable spools out Fighting to stop the jet's powerful forward momentum Every aircraft is brought to a complete stop In less than 110 meters There's a limit to the number of breaks You can have in the cable And so we're making sure that That number's not exceeded That's why each 5 centimeter thick cable Is replaced after 100 landings just in case If a cable snaps under the strain It'll crack across the flight deck Like a solid steel bullwhip In 1996, a cable broke during cyclic ops Killing a sailor After 2 hours of cyclic ops It's time for the pilots to take a breather The timing is perfect No pilot would want his aircraft Involved in the next exercise The evaluators are getting ready To put Jody and his team through a catapult drill They're being tested on how they would handle A disastrous malfunction called a hang fire Are we confirmed? A hang fire is caused When the shooter commands an aircraft to launch But the catapult fails to fire at full power When that happens, there's certain things I mean, you want to make sure That that airplane doesn't go off The front of the ship accidentally Because you've already commanded The catapult to fire The evaluators expect Jody to react With split-second timing He has to use exactly the right-hand signals To shut down the catapult Before it dumps the plane in the ocean So there's a set of procedures We'll go through and we'll practice those To make sure we're doing them right Jody gives the signal But the catapult is not responding To his shutdown order Something has gone wrong In combat, a 70 million dollar jet Would have just crashed into the sea The team wants to know Who just made a fatal mistake USS Nimitz is gearing up To head into a war zone And the training is getting intense Something has gone wrong During the catapult drill Things never happen The way you expect them to in a drill Lieutenant Commander Jody Smotherman's job Is to direct pilots As they launch off the flight deck He was supposed to shut down A malfunctioning catapult To prevent a jet from crashing into the sea But the catapult did not respond We just want to let you know We've hooked up the signals to the plane He mixed up his hand signals I don't have the plane to respond to It's hard to have It's hard to come up And then trying to call up there So that's my fault It was a signal Instead of giving this and then this And then this It was just Basic didn't give the signals Exactly the right order It is a simple mix up But it could have accidentally Launched a 70 million dollar jet And its pilot into the sea Jody has let the team down Everybody takes a lot of pride in what they do So they want to make sure It's done right every time And so when you don't do it perfect It's hey I didn't do it well And I'm bringing down everybody Because I didn't do it as well as I could have The evaluators step in They'll keep Jody and his team On the flight deck for hours Making them practice the drill Until every detail is perfect That's the most important part Is that we acknowledge That the mistake was made We're correcting it And we're going to redo it again Finally Jody nails the drill And it's time to head below At the end of a long hard day It will be good to get home If you can find your way Down here is a 7 kilometer maze of corridors Even if you've been on board for weeks You can get lost Communication specialist Fermain Wilkes Has been on board for two years And he's still impressed Man this ship is huge man It's a big chunk of metal I couldn't even tell you How many feet it is But if you got to walk From the aft all the way From the back of the ship To the forward of the ship You're pretty much upset with yourself For Kenneth Lyles An aviation technician From a small town in Texas The sheer size is pretty overwhelming I grew up around shrimp and boats That were 1 16th the size of this And it's just crazy I thought that was the biggest boat Of my life until I joined the Navy The hangar bays are the size Of two football fields And can hold over 75 aircraft My high school is probably the size Of hangar bay 2 And Nimitz's amenities Rival anything his hometown could offer And just knowing that this 1,000 plus long boat Holds 5,000 people And it's got everything you need It's insane It's hard to figure out How they managed to make All this fit on something this size Life on a super carrier is super sized Nimitz has 8 kitchens That serve 20,000 meals a day It goes through 800 loaves of bread 2,300 liters of milk 180 dozen eggs 280 kilograms of hamburgers There's a post office That processes 450 tons of mail each year A gym and two convenience stores But there's no cash on board Everyone pays with their Navy debit card But haircuts are free The barbershop trims 1,500 heads a week The laundry washes Two and a half tons of clothes a day So you know we don't want Nobody walking around here stinking So it's good to have this open Hygiene is a big thing on the ship, man Some people don't take showers In a couple of days Cause it's just they don't have time Or they're working Or they're just lazy It all depends on the person The crew's sleeping quarters Give new meaning to the word compact So this would be where I sleep Right here It's about a three by six And then we got to put our clothes In this locker So you have to fit Almost anything that you would wear Inside this little locker The enlisted crew Share compartments that sleep six We sleep three up There's one person down there There's a person right here in the middle And then there's a person on the top And as you can see It ain't too much space to get changed So you either wake up Earlier than everybody You wake up later than everybody Or you wake up at the same time And you're just frustrated Cause everybody's trying To do the same thing The crew works long hours With shifts around the clock This airport never closes For me, for the galley in a whole Yes, the 24-hour operation We are underway We do breakfast We do lunch We do dinner And we do mid-night rations As they call it So yes, there is a meal Every 24 hours There is a meal going all day 24-hour service Is important for the pilots Who often fly at odd hours And always come home hungry They tend to stick with their squadron At mealtime A tight knit bunch With a lot in common The pilots are the only crew Who leave the ship While Nimitz is at sea And that gives them A unique view of the world When you're 12,000 feet overhead Circling the land It puts it in perspective Out in the middle of the ocean Blue as far as the eye can see And you look down And there's your ship That's what you're going to land on That's where you're going to sleep tonight That's where you're going to eat And carry out your life The pilots have perks That most of the crew don't Like extra space We're in the top-hatter ready room here Again, this is our Basically our living room While we're out at sea It's just like a clubhouse And movie nights here Are a chance to relax and bond These 15 guys, their faces We're going to see for the next year So if you don't like them, tough You're going to get to like them It's like a family Whether you like it or not But fighter pilots Never really slack off Precision is part of life Even when it comes to Starting the movie on time Tonight, it's Cindy's turn To fire it up Wait on XO's call 5, 4, 3, 0 It's a brutal crowd You've got to be on and on Here all the time They need to let off steam If you're not flying That's probably the second best thing Is to let your mind go for a while Not focus on all the stuff that we All the work and everything We need to do out here Tomorrow, they'll fly again And everyone will be on high alert A rookie pilot Will attempt his first ever mission On Nimitz It's the season final Of Iron Chef Australia And this contestant Has an ego bigger Than all three Iron Chefs USS Nimitz is cranking up For her most dangerous Training exercise so far Today, a rookie pilot Will perform his first ever Take off and landing Not a job for the faint hearted During cyclic ops Jets come and go every 45 seconds Making this the busiest airport In the world Most important part of flight ops today Is as everyday Is to have just as many people At the end of the day That you started with Out on the flight deck Jody Smotherman is preparing To launch aircraft With yesterday's catapult Drill behind him He's ready for action Think about it You learn from it But I'll be sitting here going Man, I can't believe it No, you won't Because if you do Then you'll know I don't screw it up again He safety checks The arresting cables Make sure that they're in good shape Ready for recovery The top hatters squadron Is getting ready To break in their rookie We have a brand new guy They usually call them FNGs or nuggets FNG is slang for F in new guy The new guy is 27-year-old Lieutenant Dan Marta So they get their A little bit of time in the squadron They get to wear the proud FNG name tag Lieutenant Marta is so new He doesn't even have a call sign yet He was a star in fighter school But out here among the real top guns He'll have to prove himself all over again Being a new guy I feel like a lot of times I don't even know What I don't know And you learn a lot Tons from the senior pilots In the squadron From hearing what they say to us And from going out and doing it You can only prepare so much For something you've never done It's up to the senior pilots To give them the other piece Of the puzzle there To continue that education It's like drinking From a fire hose for them Things that they haven't seen Are going to pop up Almost every hour And certainly on every flight They're flying a sickle gun Before they start flying Another critical safety check Hundreds of sailors Cover every centimeter of the deck Looking for foreign object debris FOD for short FOD is very deadly to air crew And also personnel on the flight deck Debris could cause an engine to blow up Pilots or deck crew could die Because of something as small As a stray rivet or bolt All over the ship Squadron commanders Are briefing pilots on their missions And the many hazards They will face today There is pressure on all of the pilots But the rookies are feeling it most A squadron's only as good As your newest guy Your least experienced guy And especially right now As we're starting to push And move towards deployment Where we'll be going Into combat operations Everybody has a vested interest To make sure that these guys Are up to speed And that they're also Staying tactically proficient Get it done guys Dan has to prove He can handle the stress of cyclic ops On a super carrier His mission A mock bombing run Every eye will be on him As he attempts his first carrier launch You can't be sloppy out there It's not a long runway It's a very small landing area 500 feet So many little things That we can screw up That can have a big impact On our mission And obviously we want to Iron that out now It's show time Roars down the runway And lifts off From zero to 265 kilometers an hour In a brain-rattling two seconds But it's not just the rookies Who are constantly tested and graded Cindy isn't happy With his training report card Right now he ranks In the bottom half Of his 16-man squadron He has close to 300 Successful carrier landings But lately he's been having problems I didn't do so well Getting back into it here So I'd say I'm number 10 In the squadron right now Usually much better than that So I've got some stuff to work on Cindy is up next His G suit Is a sophisticated piece of equipment But it's the helmet That is truly space age All right, basically What we got here Is the latest and greatest in technology It's called the Joint Helmet Mount And Cueing System This computerized system Projects data onto the helmet's visor Enabling the pilot to aim And block weapons on a target Simply by looking at it Something like this is about $150,000 So you're wearing quite a bit of Quite a bit of bling on your head I guess you could say But it's well worth it And the benefits of it Are incredible We're gonna go flying right now And always look forward to cat shots It's a one-of-a-kind thrill That acceleration When you get launched off the front end And you're in a $70 million jet Flying 300 feet off the water Accelerating out to go Do some cool stuff in the air There's nothing else like that But it's a thrill That can quickly turn to terror So if you're sleepy If you're having a bad day Getting shot off the front end That'll change it all real quick Cindy's mission is a simulated dogfight In an F-18 that can reach Mach 1.8 Almost twice the speed of sound On the bridge Captain Manizier has a lot to oversee But recovery or landing the F-18 safely Is his job number one There's a management of airplanes landing Malfunctions Managing the safe recovery conditions Information from the officer of the deck I typically concentrate on landing airplanes The first planes have completed their maneuvers And are heading back The deck crew is always on alert for possible trouble You don't know if they're going to come too low Or too high or right on the spot Some of them come so low It looks like they're about to hit us You never know You always got to hit on the swivel Stay on your toes Look out for each other Here hits the deck A carrier pilot has to fight the instinct to brake They have to push their engines to full power So if they miss the wire They will have the speed to get airborne fast It's called a bolter Nimitz's flight deck is angled at 14 degrees To the rest of the ship That allows bolters to get back in the air Without smashing into planes It's parked on the forward sections of the deck Missing a landing can be disastrous In 1987 A jet slammed into the flight deck And skidded over the edge into the sea The accident killed seven crew on deck And now the deck crew waits As Lieutenant Dan Marta gets ready To attempt his first ever carrier landing He's been airborne for an hour and a half And is about to face One of the most nerve-wracking moments of his life The arresting cables are set for his F-18 The landing signal officers, LSOs Watch his every move ready to grade his landing But Dan is not in for an easy ride The deck is pitching close to three meters And he's fighting a sharp crosswind Challenging conditions Dan's training has paid off His landing is dead on The squadron's newest member Has passed his first big test Now Cindy the veteran Gets ready to land after two hours Of dogfighting practice He's performed hundreds of landings But this part of the job is never routine Whatever you did in the air doesn't matter You know you're about to come crashing down On a boat somewhere in the middle of the ocean Some nights you really are I can't believe I'm about to do this And this is one of those nights On his approach Cindy runs into trouble He radios that he's having problems With his oxygen mask But then the radio goes dead His plane is approaching fast And no one in flight control Knows what's going on It's been a full day of flying on USS Nimitz Now the jets are coming home But one of them is having trouble Lieutenant Mike Stock Call sign Cindy Has lost radio contact with flight control The last thing they heard Cindy was having trouble with his oxygen mask Now there's no way to communicate As he approaches the flight deck At 265 kilometers an hour Cindy's approach is a little too high He misses the arresting cable And is forced to bolt Off the end of the runway Suddenly his radio starts working again And he's able to re-establish contact With flight control It's a huge relief Cindy circles his Super Hornet around To make another approach He fights to keep the plane In the crosshairs of the flight deck His tail hook grabs the arresting wires And Cindy is brought to a bone-raffling stop It turns out that Cindy's problems Were caused by equipment failure The LSO evaluators arrive To review his flight performance All right 204 First pass Overshooting start Underline but no count there For the lack of oxygen with the hose The evaluators cut him some slack Because of the problem with his mask Welcome back But his squadron Isn't going to let him get off that easy Any little thing you do wrong You can bet that every other guy In the boat is going to make fun of you for it So Cindy is going to get the bolter's booby prize A fighter pilot's dunce cap Cindy share First of all show it Show it here Here we go Then we pull this on This is your name tag Take it like a man Oh that's some Now I'm mad It's a bonding moment for the squadron The veteran Cindy has to take the heckling While Dan the rookie Basks in the afterglow of a successful flight The cat shot was really what blew me away Yeah I was not expecting that I mean I'm usually a very quiet guy in the jet And I screamed like a little girl Back on deck The crew prepares for a night mission Less visibility means more room for error The captain reminds his crew That flying in the dark brings new challenges So prepare accordingly Tonight flight ops tonight Inherently risky Let's make sure if you're involved in all those You get out there and get hydrated Get your meal tonight Then we get going in the night You're ready to go Watch out for each other We still have a fairly new team Let's back each other up Proud of you That's all Lieutenant Tom Booth Call sign Alf Is a rookie in the Warhawk squadron It's his 26th birthday And he's about to spend it Doing the riskiest flying there is It's his first night flight off a carrier Commander Mark Preston Helps him prepare mentally I told him that I said you better be scared And you better be nervous And if you are both Then we're going to have success tonight If you're not If you're not that way Then you are in a big world of hurt Definitely scared, nervous But excited at the same time Anticipation can be the worst part Sitting out in a dark catapult Light switch on And knowing in about 6 to 7 seconds There's going to be a very strong catch Out into a black, black hole He's off Down the runway And lifts off into the night sky In primary flight control Air boss Eric Wright is on high alert He's like a super air traffic controller Overseeing both the planes and the flight deck My job basically is to coordinate The landing of the airplanes And the launching of the airplanes And keep it safe, keep it important It's a very, very hazardous environment The deck crew is working in minimal light That makes it harder For an enemy to spot the ship During his two-hour mission Alf hones his firing skills in the F-18 Now it's time to head back to base Commander Preston can only hope That Alf has absorbed everything He's been taught about night landings Landing on a carrier Is the epitome of a controlled crash You basically slam the thing down At 700 foot per minute rate of descent Right into the deck The waves are picking up And the flight deck is pitching heavily Alf's landing just went from risky To downright dangerous There's a hundred different things That can go wrong And we always keep an eye on them So hopefully it won't cost us Any people or parts or things In this blackness There's no horizon line It's disorienting Alf will have to rely on instruments And training to land on a rolling deck He cannot see On his 26th birthday Rookie Lieutenant Tom Booth Call sign Alf lines up to land But the flight deck on USS Nimitz Is pitching in the dark Flight control is concerned Out here the seas often are calm But tonight they were pitching Between 8 and 12 feet Just below deck The crew manning the arresting cables Are ready for anything It's Alf Alf's training kicks in The arresting cables do their job A solid landing in tough conditions Happy birthday, Alf We went out for our first fleet night trap For a young Lieutenant J.G. Booth Call sign Alf And he did fantastic Most memorable birthday Yeah, definitely To Alf the most exciting part Was the catapult shot I think taking off by far was the... It's because you don't know what to expect And it's... And you have no control You have no control It's just a complete ride You got zero to 170 miles an hour And you have zero visual reference You've got... It's just absolutely terrifying Still wired from the ride But his flight deck crew Bring him back to earth It's after midnight And Dan, Cindy and Alf Are all safely home on board Nimitz But they're all still wide awake And Dan's initiation isn't over yet He still doesn't have a call sign I mean, usually you get a call sign From either doing something stupid In or out of the jet Or your last name just rhymes With something that's kind of amusing So... Whenever you get too big of a head Or you do... You start thinking big of yourself Every time they call you your call sign It's like, oh, yeah, I did that as well I did something stupid Cindy has come up with an idea For Dan's call sign Marta goes ahead and says I'm a quiet guy But I scream like a little girl Going down to the cat shop Which if you take those letters Into slag, screams like a girl You make a nice little call sign I think in England it's also a... Dan Marta, call sign slag He's now officially one of the squadron Electraining will go on for months Nimitz will launch and recover aircraft Until the Navy is satisfied She can go to war When she's ready Captain Manizier can deliver Nimitz To the North Arabian Sea within a week Her F-18 screaming into battle the enemy The excitement for deployment For those that have been on deployment before The excitement of going on deployment Is pretty high We're supporting troops on the ground We're fighting the global war on terrorism They're doing something that's important That's bigger than them And they like doing that It will be a six-month deployment But with her two nuclear reactors This mighty ship can stay at sea indefinitely Till she does go Her crew will keep on training But when the call comes USS Nimitz will be the most lethal Efficient fighting machine on the planet