HMS Queen Elizabeth is the largest warship
ever built for the Royal Navy by far.
Stretching longer than the Houses of Parliament,
and standing taller than Nelson's Column.
An aircraft carrier so immense
that different sections have had to be constructed
in different shipyards throughout Great Britain,
and then transported by barge to Scotland for final assembly.
It's taken 10,000 workers eight years
to build Britain's first super-carrier.
Putting the great back into Great Britain.
What a wonderful thing to be part of.
But as this gargantuan carrier takes shape and prepares for sea,
there is one vital missing ingredient.
The ship is just a metal box.
It's a waste of time, and it is useless.
It's only when you add in the human component of blood and flesh,
does it become a warship.
This is the extraordinary story of the men and women
who must breathe life into HMS Queen Elizabeth.
How will these Naval pioneers transform her
from floating building site to front-line ship of war?
They'll be embarking on perilous make-or-break sea trials
in which everything must be tested for the first time.
From galleys to guns...
and from power plants to propellers.
One thing is for certain - it won't be plain sailing.
ALARM BLARES
RADIO: Fire, fire, fire.
EXPLOSION
RADIO: Flood, flood, flood.
Casualty, casualty, casualty!
Everything electrical, all the electrical panels covered up.
Hot tray! It's all the rush, you don't know what's going to happen.
There might be a flood or something, and then we have to take off.
It's all the excitement! HE LAUGHS
This is a lot of people's first time at sea, so not only mine,
but we're all up for it.
HMS Queen Elizabeth has already courted controversy,
with questions raised over her expense,
and even her role in the modern world.
But with exclusive access over two years,
nothing is hidden from the camera
as the ship and her sailors are pushed to breaking point.
If anyone thinks it's easy, then they're fooling themselves.
This is tough stuff.
This is the inside story of Britain's biggest warship.
It's May 24th, 2016.
HMS Queen Elizabeth is still under construction
in Rosyth Dockyard in Scotland.
The shipbuilders are working round the clock
to get this super-carrier ready for her critical sea trials
in about nine months' time,
but many of the sailors who will be crewing her have already arrived.
And today, one more sailor will add to their growing numbers.
But no ordinary sailor.
Commanding! Approaching, Sir!
FANFARE PLAYS
49-year-old Jerry Kyd commanded Britain's last aircraft carriers,
HMS Illustrious and Ark Royal.
Right!
Halt!
But they were a third of the size of Queen Elizabeth,
the ship that Captain Kyd will take to sea for the first time.
Right, well, good morning, HMS Queen Elizabeth.
I'm not sure, guys,
there has been a peace time Royal Naval crew
with as much expectation and as much excitement
that currently rests on our shoulders,
probably in the last couple of hundred years.
The world, at the moment, is pretty frisky.
There is lots and lots of turbulence,
security threats everywhere,
and so therefore it is our mission to get Queen Elizabeth
on the front line as soon as we can.
Thank you very much indeed.
The ship, still in build,
is mostly out of bounds to sailors, but every new arrival,
including the captain, is given a short preliminary tour.
Starting to come together.
You can start seeing the fabric of the ship now being finished off.
But many of the new arrivals are baby sailors,
fresh out of training.
Right, just form a semicircle round here, then, team.
You've got a rare treat today.
If you look up on the mast as you walk down, on the aft mast,
you have our medium-range radar
which is turning and burning at the moment.
Everybody happy?
Goggles up, then, team, goggles up.
The whole thing's coming along now quite quickly, isn't it?
All right, good, keep going, yeah?
So, just take a few minutes to just have a look
at the size of your platform
that you're going to spend most of your career on.
Just have a look what you're going to be part of.
What do you think? I don't really know what to think, to be honest!
Absolutely huge, isn't it? Yeah, it's massive.
You look like you're in shock. I am a bit.
I'm sorry if we're getting in your way now...
This is not going to be a bed of roses.
It's an absolute certainty that things won't go as planned.
If you were building a new car, or a new jetliner,
or a new mobile phone,
you'd have hundreds of prototypes,
each one getting better and better and better and better,
until finally the product's accepted.
You go, "That's the one", it's now faultless,
it works, and then you mass-produce it and sell it to the customer.
Ah. You don't do that with ships. It's just too expensive.
So, this ship is the first of a kind,
it's the prototype and the finished product,
and the one that's going to go round the world for five decades,
all at once.
No pressure, then?
There's never any pressure in the Navy.
Just watch your footing as you're coming up the steps, team.
It is a building site, there is loads of trip hazards.
Right, welcome aboard HMS Queen Elizabeth,
the biggest project the Navy has ever been involved in.
The biggest ship the Navy has ever built.
Queen Elizabeth is split into 17 decks -
eight above the flight deck, and nine below.
She has 5km of passageways
and 3,000 compartments.
This is the operations room.
Everything on this ship revolves around this room.
Fully integrated command system into weapons systems,
and into air traffic control, as well.
This hangar should be able to hold 22 F-35 aircraft.
Just dressing, then, team.
All the other cabins of junior rates are exactly the same -
they have got eight beds in them,
but they're only housed for six members.
So you can flip one of the beds up as a sofa.
Loads of room for stowage.
It is a huge amount compared to any other ship within the fleet.
Good days.
But the sailors won't be moving into their cabins for some time,
as she's still in the hands of the shipbuilders,
the Aircraft Carrier Alliance.
And the man in charge of delivering her, a civilian, not a sailor,
is marine engineer Jon Pearson.
To see her come together, I think is pretty amazing.
It's very difficult to get your head round
how you're going to pull together 65,000 tonnes of steel,
and make something that's quite as impressive as this.
What makes this carrier so different is not just the technology,
but the way she'll be manned.
An American carrier of a similar size needs 3,000 sailors.
HMS Queen Elizabeth will need less than 700.
Called lean manning,
this is a revolutionary concept in the world of warships.
This is the ship control centre, so highly automated.
The way we describe this is,
this controls everything from power to poo.
So all the ship's machinery from propulsion, ventilation,
electrical distribution, steering, is all controlled from here.
In a normal cruising state,
the machinery for the ship will be operated by just six guys.
Six? Mm. Is that it?
Lean manning is not just about efficiency, of course,
but saving money, as defence budgets continue to bite.
One of the innovations we've got to keep the manpower costs down
is the highly mechanised weapon handling system,
a system very similar to an Amazon warehouse.
Most of that ammunition is stored in magazines
that are right down in the bowels of the ship, and traditionally,
that would be manhandled with trolleys
from those magazines to the flight deck.
On this ship, the ship's crew can press a button,
select a weapon, and it's automatically transported up
from the deep magazine on lifts.
So, the whole operation, about 30 or 40 guys can do that,
where an American carrier, to do the same operation,
is about ten times as many people.
Really? Yes.
30 against 300 - that's quite a comparison. It is, yeah.
Right, down you come, then, team. Just muster round here.
But lean manning on a super-carrier is still an untested concept.
These young sailors will be the guinea pigs.
Not so much test pilots, but test sailors of a giant warship.
So, we've just come all the way from the aft end of the ship,
all the way to the front end of the ship, right?
So, from the stumpy end, all the way to the pointy end, OK?
It's that big, we've just come through three different time zones.
Joke!
But what is not a joke is finding your way round
if you're a sailor with only occasional visiting rights.
Steve Prest will be in charge of all the weapons on board.
Steve, do you know your way around now?
Yeah! Pretty much, I'm getting there.
It's a big ship to learn.
And it's also...
It's also a bit like Hogwarts,
because as things get built, and as work's done on board,
the routes you can take keep changing,
so it's almost like the staircases keep moving all the time.
That makes the challenge that much harder.
I've got to go up one more.
But it's great fun.
I still get boyishly excited every time I come aboard.
For the Navy, the ship remains a bit of a mystery.
Can we get through to five uniform this way?
Wait...
I'm lost.
It's blocked off.
See, I told you, it's like Harry Potter, it's like Hogwarts.
Can't go that way today.
We'll go round this way.
Most of the time, the sailors are not on the ship at all,
but living here in temporary container homes
just outside the dockyard.
And they report for work every day to this nondescript office
on the quayside, where they just pretend they're afloat,
from lowliest rating to the captain, Jerry Kyd.
The whole ship's company are in here at the moment.
The bridgemanship and the air engineering here,
the navigation section here.
Essentially, they're all in their little areas of speciality.
Forming relationships, getting to know each other.
Hello, the weapons group! SEVERAL: Hello, sir.
I think you need a GPR for the back island...
Mark Deller will be in charge of all aviation on the super-carrier.
Right now, though, he and his team of deck handlers,
essentially the ground crew,
must work out how to manoeuvre aircraft
on a table-top version of his four-acre flight deck.
Er, well!
This is the hi-tech scenario
for essentially developing our deck operations.
It's got a few cut-outs of the jets, and a few men,
stolen from one of...
One of my deck operations officer's kiddies' toy box.
So, we now have our manning as well.
Right, so, next one comes on this spot here... Yeah.
The deck handlers and firefighting teams
are already working out how they're going to cope
with up to 40 aircraft.
He's not going to be ready before that second man...
How they'll bring fully-fuelled jets up from the hangar,
load them with bombs and missiles,
and line them up for launching one after the other.
Next one, next one out. If he can turn on a sixpence,
he can still see them, do you get what I mean?
There are a number of issues that are coming out all the time...
The fact is, everyone's just making do until they can get on board.
At the moment, this is a stone frigate,
and this is why we're so keen to get on board,
and only then can you really start getting a bond with a ship
is when you move on board, live on board, eat on board.
The primary aim now for me is just to get...
Let's just get on board,
because that's when you get that emotional bond.
THEY CHANT
That bond is essential for these sailors,
who will have to learn their brand-new ship from scratch.
So it's down to you, and obviously Paddy,
to make sure that you're in position.
"Big Bruce" Milne,
who will be responsible for the engines on board,
is helping prepare these sailors
to handle the most modern warship in the world,
and he's doing it his way.
Lift!
Launch!
This is a Victorian field gun,
first used by the Navy in the Boer War over 100 years ago.
And racing them is a long Navy tradition.
The relevance of field gun is it's all about teamwork.
On a modern warship, nothing happens unless we work as a team.
If the teamwork fails, the ship doesn't work.
Launch!
The team is training to compete in the Naval Field Gun Championships,
a contest of skill, strength, and courage.
One wrong move, and it's broken bones, or worse.
BRUCE SHOUTS
Run over 170 yards,
teams have to dismantle and reassemble
a tonne and a half of field gun at speed.
Strict rules of procedure carry costly time penalties.
It's not always the fastest who wins.
It's coming.
We can do this out back and home, easy.
Be the best you can.
You CAN do it. Show everybody else you can do it.
Happy? ALL: One! Cracking.
Well, sailors are not on board yet,
and there might be still nine months to sea trials,
but stores are already being loaded.
This is just the beginning!
There are thousands and thousands of items to go on board that ship.
This is just the beginning. And then what are you doing here?
Fiona Percival,
originally from Zimbabwe, and in the Navy for 25 years,
is the most senior female officer on Queen Elizabeth.
She's in charge of supplies,
everything from baked beans to bullets.
In that corner there, there are the medical supplies.
And over here now,
this is all part of the firefighting and damage control equipment.
Everything we put on board has to be weighed,
because the naval architect needs to know
how much weight is coming on board
to understand where the weight is distributed,
in order to understand how the ship can manoeuvre and handle.
It's amazing how much stuff you need.
You don't want to be going to sea, and then finding...
You've forgotten something. ..you've left the bottle opener at home. SHE LAUGHS
We'd better not have left the bottle opener at home!
You have to have a shot of the toilet rolls.
That is the most important commodity we have on board.
Everything else can run out, but not the toilet rolls.
Not only is the ship being stored up, she's being powered up, as well.
There are six engines - two gas turbines and four diesels.
We've got 110 megawatts of electrical generating capacity,
and to give you a sense of scale, context,
110 megawatts is about what a town the size of Swindon,
or up here in Scotland, a town the size of Aberdeen,
would typically consume.
So, you know, we're effectively a power station
for a medium-sized town.
"Big Bruce" Milne, taking time off from revving up his field gunners,
is about to rev up the main diesel engine for the first time.
What we're doing now, we've turned the engine,
pushing air onto the pistons, just to prove it works.
This is all part of the pre-start checks.
Good to go for the main engine.
So, as in good naval tradition, stand clear of intakes and exhaust,
about to start HMS Queen Elizabeth's main engine.
Press the button. Ready?
METAL CLANGS
Oh, diesel's just starting up.
That in itself is quite exciting, just to...
You know, you can almost feel the vibration through the deck.
That'll be the heartbeat of the ship for the next 50 years.
On conventional warships, engines drive the propeller shafts directly.
But on here, the engines generate power for the ship as a whole,
and what's needed for propulsion is syphoned off
by high voltage or HV cables carrying 11,000 volts.
But this is a brand-new hazard in the event of flood or fire.
We've got the HV compartments,
and if you start throwing water round in there,
potentially 11,000 volts.
There's not going to be a lot of you left if you get electrocuted,
so people have to change their mind-set,
especially the older sailors of us,
that have come from traditional ships
that you haven't had an HV element.
You've got to have an awareness.
you can't just come in here and be blase about it,
cos it will kill you.
So danger in the belly of the ship,
but potentially even greater risk on the flight deck,
in many ways, the Achilles heel of any aircraft carrier.
Whoa!
A floating airfield
for warplanes loaded with fuel, bombs, and missiles -
the risks are enormous.
Ready to taxi.
Computer simulation helps the air crew plan for the worst.
Launch the jet.
Whoa!
Maritime aviation at its best.
Operating at sea is not rocket science,
but operating at sea is bloody dangerous.
You know, there's a whole load of people who've gone before us
who have learned the hard way as to why you do certain things.
I'd be a bloody fool to ignore what our forefathers did.
That's nice, there you go.
Look at that, we've solved the problem.
It's probably worth just explaining about an airfield.
An airfield has a 10,000-foot runway,
OK, and we know what's going to happen on the runway,
that's where the jets are going to be taking off and landing.
At the same time on that airfield,
you're going to have to have a bomb dump,
you're going to have to have a fuel dump,
you're going to have somewhere where you're going to house everyone,
and there'll be an HQ section,
but all of those in a 2,000-acre estate are spread out.
You keep the bombs away from the runway,
you keep the fuel away from the runway,
you keep the fuel away from the accommodation.
Our ship, which although the biggest thing the Navy's ever built,
compared to this 10,000-foot runway, our ship is there.
We've got a metal box.
In there, there'll be a magazine, there'll be the fuel,
and if you think of the flight deck area,
and all the armed aircraft up there
that are both operating, rearming, refuelling,
there's a lot of potential risks that we have to manage.
In 1967, on the USS Forrestal,
an electrical fault led to the discharge of a missile on deck,
setting off a train of events that killed 134 sailors,
and injured many more.
In that scenario, it was all about time.
It was all about how quickly could they contain it.
These are aircraft handlers that are now moving in
to try and rescue the air crew.
What started as a single incident
suddenly became a cumulative incident.
A rocket into an armed aircraft then became a fire,
then became a fuel fire,
then created the heat to cook off the live ordnance
that was sitting on those armed aircraft,
that then created a greater explosion,
which then meant more aircraft impacted.
They almost lost the ship.
They did control it in the end, but they lost a hell of a lot of lives.
Handling aircraft on the deck of a carrier
requires great skill and courage.
One mistake could lead to the loss of not just an aircraft,
but the whole ship, and everyone on it.
That'll be no less true of the Queen Elizabeth
as it was of the Forrestal.
That's why deck handlers need constant practice.
Bringing aircraft in, seeing them off,
and then parking them on an ever-crowded flight deck.
But at least by June 2016,
the Queen Elizabeth handlers have graduated from table-top training
to something more akin to the real thing.
This dummy deck in Cornwall
is still only a third the size of their own,
and the old decommissioned Harriers might not be able to fly,
but at least things are moving forward.
There will be things we're getting wrong,
but they're ultimately... this is our practice.
When we do it on the deck for real, with the ship manoeuvring,
with a bit more sort of operational pressure,
we can't afford to get it wrong.
So we'll get all our mistakes out of the way here,
and then when the real jets turn up, we'll be in a better place.
The real jets will be top-secret F-35B Lightning stealth fighters.
These are still in development, and kept strictly under wraps,
so none of the deck handlers have ever seen one,
let alone handled one.
Good afternoon, everybody.
I'm just going to give you a little guide
on the fixed-wing replica of an F-35B.
Life-size, to scale.
So not an actual F-35, but a life-size fibreglass model.
Eventually their job will be to manoeuvre these around the deck,
and guide the pilots into position.
This will give them a feel for the real thing.
Compared to a Harrier, I didn't realise how big it was. Massive.
29-year-old Emma Ranson from Liverpool,
newly promoted to Petty Officer,
will be the first flight deck leader on Queen Elizabeth.
So this outsized Airfix kit is a glimpse into her own future.
Amazing. I mean, what can you say about it? Just amazing.
It's just going to help our training out loads.
It's just going to really benefit us as aircraft handlers,
moving this around the deck.
Just unbelievable.
I'm dead excited now. I can't wait just to get it moving.
So, Emma, with her new toy,
now has a much more realistic way of training her team.
But for Big Bruce's field gun team, training is over.
It's their day of judgment,
as they psych up for the heats of the Field Gun Championships.
It's down to the guys now, you know,
to put together all they've learned over the last six weeks,
do their best, and then hopefully get position in the final.
And it's highly competitive.
Oh, most definitely, you know? There's no friends in this game.
The friends happen after the final run when the beers start flowing.
So at the moment, everybody's an enemy.
HMS Queen Elizabeth.
Quick march!
Today, at HMS Collingwood in Hampshire,
the field gunners are running for the pride of their ship.
But tomorrow, they could be running to save their ship.
Just like Emma and her team of deck handlers,
who must be ready to react if things go wrong, like a crash on deck.
As soon as a fire happens,
I'm in overall command of the actual firefighting teams and the rescue.
So as soon as a fire happens, I'm pretty much the lead role on that.
This'll be the first time Emma's led her team as firefighters -
a big day for the young petty officer.
Emma, you asked to be on QE, didn't you? How come?
Well, we've never had a ship like this,
and I'm never going to do this again in my career.
So it's just to be part of something bigger and better for the Navy.
It's the future, so it's good to be part of it.
And I can, hopefully, when I have children,
then I can talk to them, and say, "Mummy was part of that."
So it's quite a proud feeling. I love it.
The fleet's standard time to put out a fire on a warship
is 75 to 90 seconds.
A winning run in the field gun, 75 to 90 seconds.
GUNSHOT
But remember, mistakes in drill can mean costly time penalties.
Go!
Running hard for the line, it's HMS Queen Elizabeth.
In the heats, three clean runs for Big Bruce's team.
No time penalties.
Best run, 82 seconds...
Heads up, come on, be proud.
..and a place in the finals.
Emma and her team put out the fire in 95 seconds,
just short of the target.
So how'd it go? I think it wasn't too bad, sir.
We had a few little problems up on that hose, but easily rectified.
You were using your best soft, genteel tones, weren't you,
to try and cajole this end?
We're going to have to sort of toughen up your vocal cords.
And hand signals? Hand signals seemed to work a lot better.
Where we are operating at nose to tail,
as soon as we say that to a naval airman,
they automatically know what you want.
For Emma, the day is done, but not for the field gunners.
HE SHOUTS
Quick march!
It's the field gun finals, and the competition is fierce.
We're nearly at the end.
Let's go out with a blaze of glory, yeah?
You've worked hard for six weeks.
You've put it all together,
you've done everything we've asked you to do.
Now it's the time to prove it to everybody else out there
how good you are.
THEY CHANT
HMS Queen Elizabeth!
THEY CHANT
BUGLE PLAYS
GUNSHOT
Looking good. It's pretty neck-and-neck at this time...
You know, the ship is just a metal box, it's a waste of time,
it's useless.
It's only when you add in the human component of blood and flesh,
the emotions and the training, does it become a warship.
Otherwise it's just an anodyne robot.
So getting the ship's company to fuse with the ship emotionally,
but also in terms of how to operate it and the routines -
absolutely fundamental.
This is going to be a close final, ladies and gentlemen!
Coming hard for the line...
and the Royal Engineers.
What a fantastic final.
But who's got the most time penalties?
This time we do not know where anyone stands
within the competition.
It's all very, very close.
The crew gave it everything they've got.
It's got to the point now that we're just waiting on
coming from the judges' tent,
seeing whether there's been any penalties applied for the crew.
Nerve-racking at the moment. You know, it's our cup final.
Yeah! You know, we want to win.
OK, settle down.
It gives me great pleasure to tell you that you won.
CHEERING
Well done, well done. Hey, come on, well done. Well done.
Well done, well done. Well done. Well done.
Well done, mate. Well done.
We knew we were good - we was just proving it.
Like I say, it's emotional, everybody now, you know...
Capital ship, future fleet flagship.
There's no limit now. If you can harness this crew atmosphere
you've got within a team, you bring it to a ship's company of 685,
going up to 1,200 with air crew onboard...
we're a world-beater, it's as simple as that, world-beater.
A world-beater maybe, but over the next few months,
the focus is all about proving the ship's safety.
Emergency escape routes must be put to the test.
Quick access to clean air is essential
in the event of fire and smoke,
especially from the deep lower decks.
Quick as you can, shipmate. Sense of urgency, my son.
The ship's flood and fire sensors have to be checked,
and all 14,000 sprinklers individually tested.
He's seen the carbuncle, and he's pricked it...
Bob Hawkins, at 55, is the oldest sailor on board.
Formerly a naval diver and bomb disposal expert,
he's overseeing the ship's ultimate safety system...
Roger, stand by all positions, operating MES six.
..but it's one that everyone prays will never have to be used.
Extraordinarily important event today.
The first time that the ultimate rescue system,
should the ship be sinking after action damage,
and God forbid that the order is given to abandon ship,
it is this marine evacuation system that's going to see our sailors
safely down the chutes into the life raft.
Operate the MES!
It's essential that this mass evacuation system
is proven beyond doubt before Queen Elizabeth can set sail.
That was quick. Saw how quick it goes? BOTH: Yeah.
There are three emergency chutes on either side of the ship.
Each one can be fully deployed in 60 seconds.
Every life raft can take 100 sailors.
Roger that, happy.
Happy with that, Bob?
Extraordinarily happy, yes. I mean...
one of the first active things that this ship has done.
By October 2016,
although not on board yet, everyone's in optimistic mood.
The sea trials to test the ship in open water are set for March 2017,
in only four months' time.
But just getting the ship to sea isn't going to be straightforward.
For one thing, she's at least 10 metres taller
than the bridges she'll have to sail under.
If you can see on the aft island, there's a tall, thin mast,
which is the pole mast, and that's the highest point on the ship.
And if you look closely at its base,
you'll see two small, shiny cylinders.
That's actually the hinge.
It's on a hydraulic system, and it folds forward
and sits in a little cradle,
and that'll give us the clearance to get out under those bridges,
and even then, the clearance is going to be pretty tight.
There's not a lot of space.
Of course, we won't know until we get her out, that's the thing.
Captain Jerry Kyd wants to see for himself.
So, the mast will go straight under these...
Straight under that blue thing, there.
We'll put the wheel on now, so it's one continuous slow turn.
It's a bit like when you drive your car into a car park with that bar.
It is exactly the same feeling in a ship,
cos you look at the bridge, and think to yourself,
"We're going to hit the bridge!"
It just looks really odd.
And, of course, everyone crouches as you go underneath.
You've done the calculations, you absolutely know,
but do you know what, as you approach it,
you just can't help but think to yourself,
you know, "I hope we're right!"
What are our wind limits going to be on it? 15 knots.
It is 15 knots. So, wind's going to be the dominating factor.
And it's not just about the bridges.
He'll first have to squeeze his very large ship
through a very tiny sea gate.
As you can see, the ship is just ahead of us now,
sitting on JK Berth, here, in the main basin.
What we'll do is we'll come off, under -
with tug assistance, obviously - through the direct entrance,
which is this dock wall you see right in front of you,
which the van is going over right now.
So this is it, this is where we're going to come through.
So, in terms of gap between the dock side...
I think there will be a slight gap of about a metre.
So, half a metre either side.
Yeah. And it's extraordinarily narrow for us.
Of course, we won't know until we get her out, that's the thing.
HMS Queen Elizabeth, ship's company!
It's December 2016, and sea trials draw near.
HMS Queen Elizabeth ship's company
mustered for your clear lower deck, sir.
Thanks, number one.
The target date for departure, March 10th,
is in less than two months.
Everyone's looking forward to the big day.
It's been a long time coming.
But just before Christmas leave, the captain calls everyone on board.
2017 for us, guys,
is all about getting this ship to sea and offshore,
but I did think it was important for me to stand up here
in front of you all, looking you all in the faces and in the eyes,
and tell you right now, we're not going to be sailing
on the 10th of March.
I can fully understand the frustration, trust me.
It's frustrating for me, too.
The last thing as a sea captain I want to be doing
is sitting in Rosyth alongside the wall.
I don't know when we're going to go.
This ship has got a whole bunch of new systems,
both to detect fire and smoke, but then also to smash a fire down.
At the moment, we're not as mature in some areas as we would wish.
You know, I look at my young sailors,
some of whom are 17, 18 years old,
and I've got a 17-year-old son,
and my benchmark, my litmus for me, as the captain of this ship,
is would I put my 17-year-old son in that bunk space,
or would I put him in that situation?
If the answer's no, then I'm certainly not going to do it
with my ship's company.
Christmas, guys - enjoy it.
I'll see you again in the new year, so be ready to come back.
Next year, we do indeed make history.
Don't forget that.
So, have you worked out where you're going to put the boards?
Get some of that bubble wrap.
It's the first day back after Christmas.
No date yet for sea trials, but one thing has changed -
the sailors are told to bypass their old office block,
and report to the ship.
They won't be sleeping on board yet, but from now on,
this is where they'll be working every day.
Ashore, on board.
This tin box is a little piece of Britain,
and we will be living inside it.
She will become our home.
This is a big deal.
Today marks a really, really important step forward.
When we start working on board this ship,
moving out of that god-awful office complex,
and actually start operating like a proper ship's company,
on a properly constituted Royal Navy warship.
I mean, today is a great day.
At some stage, no matter what the spreadsheet tells you to do,
you've got to move on board, you've got to get on board.
And so today was the day that was chosen,
today's the day we get on board.
It's sort of making it feel like your own.
I mean, the number of people I've also seen picking up litter,
because now it's their ship.
This will be my swear box.
Newly arrived Dave Garraghty is the Executive Warrant Officer
responsible for welfare, morale and discipline,
and he's a car-boot sale fanatic.
Oi, oi!
Are you bothered? No, not really.
This is the pinnacle of my career,
and it's not just a cheesy throwaway line - I actually mean this.
It is absolutely brilliant.
I feel like an 18-year-old again on my first ship,
and hopefully that will come across when I meet the sailors,
cos you'll have tough days in here.
And we'll just walk up onto the flight deck.
and look and just go, "Wow, that's amazing."
Yeah, we're the first people on board this ship,
breathing life and setting sail.
Hot tray!
And now that everybody's working on board,
they will also have to be fed on board.
Today's so exciting, because it's our first time
that we've actually got in here.
It's the first time you can see chefs getting to grips
with their galley and trying to understand, how does it work?
You know, have we got the counters in the right order?
Have we got the flow through the dining hall?
To actually get this thing operational
and get it starting to feel - and smell -
to smell like an operational ship, is what this is about.
Everybody starts to get to grips with their own parts of ship...
..and the Air Wing claim their flight deck at last.
First thing they do? Check for litter.
One of my main tasks is obviously to fly safely,
and one of the major constraints to flying safely
is foreign object debris.
This can be anything, it can be that plastic bag
just flying around on the deck.
It could be a sailor's hammer, it could be a coffee cup.
Anything that can be ingested by an aircraft,
and essentially stop the turbines working, jam up the propellers,
and it's not good for it.
Or indeed, cause a fatal catastrophic crash.
So, the foreign object debris walk or "Fod plod"
is the single most important activity on any aircraft carrier.
Right, guys, stay there.
Every time we go to flying stations, we conduct fod plod.
We do it as we start the day flying, we do it every six hours,
and then we do it before we start night flying.
So it's an ongoing, continual process.
So, a little bit like painting the Forth Road Bridge, you know.
Thank you for coming on.
Huzzah!
It's now May 2017.
The ship's had a lick of grey paint, and is looking the part.
Nobody's living on board yet,
and there's still no firm date for the trials,
but Queen Elizabeth is about to get
the one thing she needs to move forward, literally.
Ten shiny new solid bronze propeller blades -
five each for the two propellers.
Hi, guys. Hiya. I'm the captain of the ship.
I thought I'd come and say hello,
and say thanks very much for what you're doing.
They're sort of a work of art, aren't they?
Yeah, definitely. They're beautiful.
When you see us sail, I'll think of you two.
Thank you very much, sir. There we go. There we go, you see.
So, nice and clean.
We like clean propellers,
cos clean propellers mean more power, more speed.
So, thanks, guys, good to see you.
You know, nearly well over 100,000 horsepower's going to be transmitted
through these blades once they're on.
It's like putting the wheels on the car, you know - ta-dah, we're done.
So very exciting.
The diving team's going to fit these blades, the propellers,
underneath the water, obviously, so a really hard job.
In the water!
Up to now, they've had to test the engines and driveshafts
without propellers for fear of forward movement.
This is an absolute indicator of our progress,
and the fact that we're near, we're getting near.
We've had a few false dawns.
It's 16 months now that I've been on board the ship,
and it is realistic that we're going to go at the end of June.
The Aircraft Carrier Alliance would not be putting the blades on now
if we weren't near to ready to go.
So, we are talking now in degrees of weeks and days
of a delay, not months.
Go back to the top of the blade again, Tyler. There we go.
The blades are guided into position, secured by a total of 160 bolts.
You're just giving these a quarter turn, aren't you, guv?
It's precision work in the murkiest of waters.
When completed, each propeller will weigh 33 tonnes,
and combined, will generate the same power as 50 high-speed trains.
So, there's progress below the water, but also above.
The ship's company is finally given the go-ahead to move on board...
full-time.
It's now June 1st,
and the sailors are given the keys to the ship.
All 10,000 of them.
We're moving forward! HE CHUCKLES
Oh, no, back this way.
Lights. Lights work. This is good.
There we go.
Important things in every head of department's cabin.
A home from home.
Ah. This is so wide!
Probably worth me popping up and having a chat, because obviously...
Over the next two weeks,
everyone starts to settle into their new home.
Oh, it's lovely, this.
I'll have to come up here again. That's superb, that!
THEY LAUGH
It's a better office than what I work in.
God alive!
Things are suddenly moving very fast.
By June 7th, it's confirmed the ship could go to sea
as early as the next spring tide.
That's in less than three weeks,
but first the crew must prove they're ready
in a gruelling, even dangerous ordeal.
Tomorrow, all shore power will be turned off.
We're going to blow the engine over.
We won't start it, we're just going to blow it over.
The carrier will be totally dependent on her own engines
for the first time.
Nobody will be allowed off the ship for six days, whatever happens...
Have we got pre-lube on?
..for they're about to embark on an arduous sea journey
without moving an inch.
The Navy call this a test cruise, and it's not for the faint-hearted.
We know it's not going to be a beautiful thing next week.
It's not going to be the sort of test cruise,
training cruise that we're all used to in the Navy,
because we're immersed in still a build.
It's still a building site in many areas,
and we've got a lot of young people here now, as you know.
Another batch joined today.
Some of them are quite nervous about what's coming up.
As the sands of time run out, it's going to get worse.
It's going to get worse for us before it gets better.
As soon as we get offshore,
we can settle down and get into a proper battle rhythm.
And don't lose your rag with people who perhaps are very inexperienced.
OK? Darren, have you got anything else to sum up?
The test cruise starts -
a journey into the unknown, in which anything could happen.
ALARM BLARES
RADIO: For exercise, for exercise, for exercise.
Fire, fire, fire.
Alarms trigger a relentless stream of punishing exercises,
day and night.
Nobody knows when or where the next one will be,
but reaction must be immediate.
Flash fire doors released to zone three.
Flood and fire situations are simulated,
but made as realistic as possible.
This is all about honing skills, working as teams, and vitally,
speed of reaction, because on this untested ship,
there's no guarantee the next alarm won't be for real.
We've got 3,300 compartments on board the ship
spread over many decks,
so it is a challenge to find your way to the incident quickly.
That's what we're training for today,
to get to know the ship and how it operates.
ALARM BLARES
Lads, the sensor went off in six deck.
Every scenario is carefully monitored, timed and assessed.
If the sailors fail to impress,
Jerry Kyd will be forced to delay the ship's departure yet again.
Temperature of the compartment without going in
is a steady 27 degrees.
But then, halfway through the week,
there's a very different sort of problem.
High winds have stopped the cranes from slinging on the food
needed for sea trials.
There's only one thing for it -
call a temporary stop to the test cruise.
Hear there, first hand speaking.
RADIO: We are in a warship, but we've got to store ship.
Clear lower deck of all junior rates.
Muster in the hangar to store ship.
Just listen to the people, and we'll get this done
as quick as possible, all right?
Listen to him! Awesome.
Right, let's go.
We shouldn't be doing this. It should all have been slung on...
..but the wind is too high for the slinging,
so, unfortunately, with all the technology in board the ship,
it's out board the ship that has stopped us.
So now we have to do it by hand.
It's good old tradition. Bonds the ship's company.
Oh, aye! LAUGHTER
Face the camera!
What makes a ship come alive are the people that serve in that ship,
and we're seeing that.
We've only been on board now for just over a week,
and it's amazing how we've gelled,
how we're stamping our personality on this ship.
With all the food on board, it's straight back to the test cruise.
For your purposes, the aircraft will be the tractor,
and he will stop round about 500.
Happy?
Matt's getting the smoke and flame.
For Emma Ranson, it's crunch time.
Her team's speed of reaction to a fire on deck is about to be tested.
As before, 90 seconds is her target time.
OK, are we all ready in all respects?
Clear on the bridge, sir. Roger that.
OK, the aircraft is on its side, and the aircraft is now on fire.
Emergency landing, emergency landing, emergency landing.
Oh, sorry.
ALARM BLARES
Guys, come back, come back!
If the ship does go to sea,
it'll only be days before the first helicopter lands on,
and a flight deck fire might be for real.
SHE SHOUTS
Nose to tail, nose to tail!
Flash fire rescue is in attendance.
It looks as though the incident is being quashed.
30 seconds to get to the conflagration,
60 seconds to extinguish.
Target achieved.
Putting the casualty onto the lift, down to the hangar...
Down to the hangar. ..across to the medical lift.
That's us done. How did it go?
Er, quite a lot of bombardment,
so there were a lot of questions getting asked...
on myself, cos how we've been running it,
it's been a lot of a slower pace,
and this was the first proper... everyone in attendance.
I found, as an incident leader,
a lot of information is coming my way all at once.
I was quite a person in demand, so that was a bit of a culture shock!
That was a good little run-out, and it worked quite well.
So we're pleased.
That's a happy face.
But this is one of many such training exercises?
ALARM BLARES
RADIO: Flood, flood, flood.
Flood in eight Romeo.
Tight party to investigate.
ALARM BLARES
RADIO: Flood, flood, flood.
Flood in eight Romeo.
RADIO: All training is to cease throughout the ship
until the standing...
One second!
Whoa, whoa, whoa!
This is for real.
There's a flood in an engine room.
In fact, one of Big Bruce Milne's diesels.
It's high voltage.
This could not be more dangerous.
Everything electrical, all the electrical boxes covered up.
Get all the electrical panels covered up.
Plastic sheeting!
Any mistakes, any oversights, could be disastrous.
If 11,000 volts of electricity arc now, everybody here is dead.
There's nobody coming in.
That's where the danger lies, if people keep on opening these doors.
Right, OK. Bruce, do you want me to stand at the hatch?
A high-level cooling pipe has ruptured,
and sea water has been damming up behind lagging.
The lagging on the whole of the deckhead just acted as a barrier,
so the whole of the lagging has now...
It's that dammed-up water that is now bursting out,
but onto high-voltage equipment.
That lagging there, does it feel soft to touch?
Is there water behind this top lagging here?
The high-voltage circuits have been switched off,
all electrical panels have been covered...
Roger that, sir. We're just unbolting a hatch now.
..but flood sensors in HV compartments immediately below
have now been triggered.
Confirmed, HV safe, five gone.
Isolation has been made. No casualties or anything like that?
I don't think that's been isolated. Nothing's been isolated?
No, it hasn't. Have you got a report? Yeah, going in now.
Yeah, there's water in there.
Water? Water. Have you got a torch? Torch? Anyone got a torch?
Ollie, have they isolated that pipework? Yeah, two valves back.
Two valves back has been isolated.
Right, Ollie, is that pump working?
No. Right, what's up with it?
RADIO: The source of the water has now been isolated...
The response was immediate, so flood stemmed, and emergency contained.
But it could so easily have turned to disaster.
We were worried that if the water started pouring through again,
we could have ended up with it arcing and electrocution,
so we've got to be mindful of this,
that everybody that attends these scenes of any incidents
know the dangers inherent with the compartment.
This is when you find out who's going to lose their head,
and who's going to look at it in a pragmatic way and think,
"Actually, this is how we're going to start,
"and this is what we're going to do next,
"and I require this amount of manpower."
So it all comes down to a thinking man's game, you know?
Noise levels in the SC six!
The test cruise has been a wake-up call for everyone.
A stark reminder that an untested warship
is an inherently dangerous place to be.
I mean, you would normally do training in six weeks.
We're pretty much doing it in six days at the moment.
Very compressed.
But we've gone from being
a real sort of clunky organisation on the ship
to working as a team, looking out for each other,
and safely delivering what the captain wanted for us
to safely proceed to sea and deal with any incident that may occur.
Well, the weather's nice now.
It's Thursday, June 22nd,
and the captain has once again summoned his ship's company.
Ship's company, stand at ease!
Right.
We've just taken the decision
that we will go for a sailing on Monday.
It is not lost, I hope, on any of you
how momentous this could be, and what this means for the Royal Navy.
For those of you who have not been to sea before,
I want you to remember, there is no cavalry or fire brigade
when we move off the wall.
We will have emergencies, we will have floods.
I know we're well practised at those already.
And we will probably have fires.
We will probably have casualties.
That is the nature of this business.
This is our ship now.
Don't forget it.
It's Monday, June 26th, 2017,
and after 20 years of technical and scientific development,
eight years of engineering and construction,
and two years to assemble and train the ship's company...
..HMS Queen Elizabeth prepares to go to sea for the first time.
The tide is high, the winds are light, and the ocean beckons.
Nice and quiet.
All ready, captain?
We're good, we're safe, the pilots are here,
tugs are here, the ship's company are clearly up for it.
This is a culmination of...
..years of work from everyone,
particularly in the last six months, and we just need to get out now.
There's a quarter of the ship's company
who's never been to sea before, and what a vessel to get to sea on.
Absolutely fantastic.
All lines go now.
All parts of ship, this is the boat on the bridge.
Let go all lines.
Free!
It's going... The power's going now nicely, I think.
We're now no longer attached to Scotland.
HMS Queen Elizabeth is coaxed off the wall by a fleet of tugs.
This is what's called a cold move.
The super-carrier is not yet under her own power.
We're doing what we should be doing now.
You know, we're no longer a building site, we're a ship.
Next, there's just the matter of squeezing through that basin gate.
It is remarkable.
We've got 30 centimetres either side of the entrance.
It's very tight, but after careful manoeuvring by expert tug masters,
HMS Queen Elizabeth slides safely into the Firth of Forth.
On board, 700 sailors and 200 construction workers,
all preparing for the rigours of sea trials.
It's not until midnight,
when the tide is low enough to get under the bridges,
that the cold move becomes a hot one,
and the ship's brand-new propellers start to spin for the first time.
First time we've sailed the super-carrier out,
and this is the last part, under the bridges,
and at night, on low water, with a brand-new crew.
The ship's performing really well.
She's not vibrating, she's turning on a sixpence.
Very early signs are very, very positive indeed.
Two cables to run. Two cables to run, Roger.
Finally, with the tide at its lowest, and the pole mast down,
the super-carrier edges under the Forth Rail Bridge
with just a few metres to spare.
OK, here we go.
Happy? Looks good to me.
Straight through the middle.
And now the way is open.
But what next for the ship's company?
They were pushed to their limits on a one-week test cruise
without even moving.
How are they going to handle
six weeks on the high seas at full speed?
Their adventure is about to start.
Next time, Queen Elizabeth flexes her muscles and bares her teeth.
Right, guys, let's do it. Be safe.
There's a first flight deck landing...
RUMBLING
..but then the engineers hear troubling noises
from under the ship, and it's not good news.