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narrator: An American armada

cuts through the waters of the Arabian Sea.

At the heart of this strike group is one of the mightiest

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warships in naval history--

an aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Enterprise.

Her crews work in one of the most dangerous places

in the world.

- We only have to fail once to fail forever.

narrator: Her orders--

support the ground troops fighting two wars,

using some of the world's most advanced warplanes

and weaponry.

- Your heart gets pumping, and

you know that what you're doing is really important.

narrator: Aviators are launched into combat.

- It's the most thrilling and the scariest thing

I've ever done in my life

narrator: Now witness the complex choreography

that's life on an aircraft carrier--

home to thousands, deployed for months,

working nonstop in controlled chaos day after day,

wondering when they'll see home again.

A carrier at war-- the U.S.S. Enterprise.

[epic music]

The Enterprise is a floating city--

a temporary home to more than 5,500 men and women

for almost 7 months

on a mission that will span 59,000 miles.

- Okay, that's the big picture.

narrator: Naval aviators of squadron VFA-211

gather in their ready room

for one of the last briefings of this deployment.

Meghan Angermann's one of the squadron's pilots.

- I grew up flying with my dad when I was little.

Then I went through ROTC, and when it came time

to choose what I wanted to do in the navy,

I decided that naval aviation

would be the best and most exciting job,

so here I am.

narrator: This is Angermann's first combat tour.

- You get excited.

My first time in there, I didn't know what to expect.

You know, we had taken off from the carrier several times

on training missions, but now it's for real,

so now you have extra adrenaline and nervousness.

We usually have a little bit of time

right when the brief is done

to just kind of focus and really think about what we're

gonna go do, make sure that we're not forgetting anything.

A lot of people use the term, like you're "in your box."

You know, you try not to be distracted by other

collateral duties that you have.

You're getting ready to go fly,

and that's what your focus is on.

narrator: Just 29 years old,

Angermann sits at the controls of one of the most advanced

fighters in the world-- a $95 million warplane...

loaded with enough firepower to destroy several city blocks.

- Are we losing low pressure?

[talking indistinctly]

narrator: Angermann's one of 230 pilots on deck who,

when they are flying,

live under the scrutiny of the air boss.

Ryman Shoaf controls every inch of the flight deck.

- I'm the manager of the airport,

but all my aircraft carry weapons.

We don't have Delta or American here,

but we make a bigger boom.

narrator: He spent 20 years in the navy.

- Turning starboard.

narrator: During combat flight operations,

Shoaf will spend 16 hours a day at his post,

here in primary flight control...

- Let's get it.

narrator: ...overseeing the constant

preparation of dozens of aircraft.

- It is nonstop.

702 airborne.

We'll launch and then catch.

We'll launch and catch.

We'll do that all day long.

And so it's kind of chaos.

narrator: Shoaf has 65 assorted aircraft

to work with.

His first wave can be launched in minutes...

to hit targets 1,000 miles away.

Like Meghan Angermann, Ben Bines

is a nugget--a pilot on his first combat deployment.

He's a second-generation military aviator.

His father served in the Vietnam war.

- I've always loved flying.

When I was growing up,

my dad had a bunch of pictures of his F-4 days.

He was a weapons officer--

backseat F-4s for the Jolly Rogers,

and he'd tell me about it a little bit.

narrator: Bines trained for nearly three years

to get his shot on a carrier.

Over this deployment, he'll carry out dozens of missions,

and none will be routine.

- First time going into a combat environment

was a little nerve-racking,

mostly because you just don't want to screw it away.

narrator: It's a challenge to simply learn

your way around the ship.

The Enterprise is one of the largest warships in the world.

She's nearly four football fields long.

More than 60 planes can fit below and on the deck.

She has four catapults to launch planes off the ship

--two at the bow and two at the waist.

Four arresting wires to snare planes when they land

cross the deck, which is just 250 feet wide.

The ingenious technology that allows the Enterprise

to launch and land planes took nearly a century to perfect.

The first flight off a ship was all the way back in 1910.

Just over a decade later, the coal carrier Jupiter

was converted to the first aircraft carrier.

The first carrier U.S.S. Enterprise was launched

in 1936.

Her scout planes made the initial contact

with Japanese bombers bound for Pearl Harbor.

As the Pacific Fleet's destroyers fought the Japanese

navy for 3 1/2 years, the Enterprise was in all

but two of the major actions in the war.

Dawn--May 15, 1945.

An on-deck camera captures disaster.

A kamikaze smashes through the flight

deck near the stern of the ship.

12 men are killed.

72 are wounded.

Crews battle the resulting fire successfully,

but she's so damaged she was removed from the war.

Over the next few months, the Enterprise sails

back to the States, taking on board

thousands of wounded servicemen.

They stand on her deck as she sails into New York harbor.

20 years after her launch,

this Enterprise had become obsolete.

A warship critical in the U.S. destruction

of the Japanese navy in World War II

was slowly dismantled for scrap in the late 1950s.

A new, more advanced Enterprise

was already on the drawing board.

- What I tell all the new sailors when they check is,

they will go to different ships and possibly even

different carriers, but none of them will have

the history or the name that Enterprise has.

The first two Enterprises weren't even named "U.S.S."

They were just "Enterprise," because

the first one, we swiped from the British

in 1775 before there was a country.

So it was just "Enterprise."

And that proud tradition has continued on.

narrator: This Enterprise gives ground commanders

tremendous power

without having to build and supply air bases.

From deep in the Arabian Sea, aircraft can launch and hit

targets within roughly a 1,000-mile radius.

- We provide power projection to shore anywhere in the world.

Don't require basing rights.

narrator: Known affectionately as the big "E,"

work began on the Enterprise a generation ago.

She was the first nuclear-powered

aircraft carrier built for the U.S. Navy.

Eight reactors generate an enormous amount of energy.

The average racecar has the equivalent of 700 horsepower.

The Enterprise--280,000.

She has 4 propellers, each weighing 32 tons.

Christened in September of 1960,

the Enterprise has borne generations of sailors

and naval aviators into conflicts around the world.

Her crew sailed in the blockade

of the Cuban missile crisis.

Her sailors served tours

throughout America's war in Vietnam.

[old-timey music]

announcer: The mighty aircraft carrier Enterprise becomes

the first nuclear-powered ship ever to enter combat.

Off the coast of Vietnam, the big "E" launches her

phantom jets against Vietcong hideouts.

Four planes can be catapulted from the Enterprise

at one time.

narrator: Now the Enterprise has sailed from

her home port of Norfolk, Virginia, to the Arabian Sea.

Her crews have been ordered into combat in Iraq

and Afghanistan.

Meghan Angermann has been away from her husband, Will,

for nearly seven months.

I think the hardest part about being out here for so long

is just being away from family and friends...

you know, missing the little things about home.

narrator: For each deployment,

the Enterprise carries eight squadrons of aircraft.

The E-2C Hawkeyes conduct airborne traffic control,

detecting hostile aircraft.

The Viking, designed to attack and destroy enemy submarines,

now serves as the air wing's aerial refueler.

The Prowlers are radar killers.

They knock out the enemy's eyes in combat.

There are four squadrons of FA-18s on board this cruise.

Three of the squadrons are comprised of Hornets--

fighter bombers lethal in a dogfight,

deadly in the support of ground troops.

The fourth unit of FA-18s is the checkmates.

They fly the Super Hornet.

While it resembles the Hornet, it is essentially an entirely

new aircraft, with greater range

and versatility against a wider array of threats.

For the aviators and the rest of the crew on deck,

the final squadron might be the most important.

The dragonslayers fly the Seahawk helicopter

and have two roles.

One--they hunt and kill enemy submarines.

And, two--search and rescue.

Should any Enterprise crew end up in the ocean,

these crews are responsible for saving their lives.

- Being able to fly and swim at the same time--you really

don't get too many jobs where you can do that.

We fly around and do missions and do TERF flights

and then turn around the next day,

where we're jumping out of helicopters doing SAR jumps

or casting or fast roping seals or EOD

onto decks on the small ships so they can take them over.

So it just depends on what we're doing.

narrator: Rescue swimmers like Brent Blackwell

are highly regarded by the air crews.

- If something did happen that they ejected or the plane

went down, we would be right there behind them,

jumping in the water, covering right over them

to get them out of harm's way,

to give them medical attention.

- We're 21 knots away, coming down to about...

narrator: The flight deck is an extremely dangerous place.

- Well, we got a little less than

4 1/2 acres of deck space that I have to work with.

And in that 4 1/2 acres, I'll have as many as 43 aircraft.

They will be within a matter of inches from one

aircraft to the next.

They'll have 20,000 pounds of fuel on board.

They'll have the 500 pounders,

1,000 pounders, 2,000-pound bombs.

So it is a lot of explosive material

in a very, very small area,

and we don't want them to explode on the flight deck.

The two most dangerous times, of course,

is when we're launching and then recovering.

For instance, when we're shooting aircraft,

launching aircraft. Out here on the waist.

The people that are making that happen are within 10 feet

of the airplane, and the airplane is wide open.

It's full of fuel, and it's full of ordnance.

When that airplane launches, it goes right over their head.

[indistinct shouting]

narrator: It is an environment where the threat

of a catastrophic accident looms day and night.

- It's ugly. It's not like the air force.

You don't have 10,000 feet of runway and your maintenance

people are in two buildings over.

I mean, they're right there on the foul line.

So it's the proximity of being close

to the aircraft, is what makes it so different.

narrator: Because of the constant pace

and countless ways one can be maimed or killed,

a mistake has fatal implications.

- Everybody's job here is important.

And if you don't show up and don't do your job correctly

that particular day, then, no kidding,

in this business, somebody can die.

What I tell the folks that work for me is that

we have the most unique job of anyone in the world,

because we only have to fail once to fail forever.

narrator: Throughout her history,

accidents have claimed many,

but there was one day

when the Enterprise faced her most dire threat--

one that nearly destroyed her.

January 14, 1969.

The Enterprise is 75 nautical miles from Hawaii,

bound for the waters off Vietnam.

A rocket explodes on the flight deck,

igniting a massive fire.

Multiple cameras, mounted on the tower

and on the deck, captured the horrific scene,

as fuel tanks ignited and more warheads exploded.

Flames and smoke engulfed the ship.

The blasts from 500-pound bombs exploding on the flight

deck tore the ship apart, down to the waterline.

Burning jet fuel spilled down,

creating a suffocating inferno above and below deck.

In just 20 minutes, more than 340 sailors

were injured, many from the flight deck hose teams.

28 men were killed.

It is a story told often

to those aboard this ship today.

- Quite often, I stand up here and look out

and just try to imagine the whole fantail

engulfed in flames.

There was some heroes that day, without a doubt--for sure.

So I've got a lot of respect for the air boss

that was here that day and what he had to go against.

He sat here and watched those people die,

and he's asking people to come back out and get

on the hoses to put out the fire,

pull away the bodies to fight the fire.

Then there was another explosion,

and those people died.

So he's up here having to tell people,

"Please get back and fight the fire,"

'cause he doesn't want to lose the ship.

narrator: Rebuilding the Enterprise so she could

return to duty took exactly 51 days.

Now, decades later, she's at war once again.

Beginning in the early morning,

each squadron strives to prep their planes

for the day's strike missions.

It's an operation that requires hundreds

of people working around the clock.

The color of their shirt defines their role.

Red shirts are the firemen, as well as bomb loaders.

Blue shirts maneuver the aircraft

in the confined space.

Brown shirts are plane captains,

responsible for ensuring the plane is ready to fly.

Purple shirts, or grapes, have one task--fuel.

Green shirts, in addition to endless

maintenance duties, work with the yellow shirts,

launching and recovering aircraft.

The most recognizable yellow shirt is the shooter.

Sean McCarthy spends most of his day just a few

feet away from the aircraft he launches.

This is exactly where he's wanted to be

since he was a kid.

- Well, like all little boys, I played with G.I. Joes

growing up and enjoyed the whole military theme.

I used to go to air shows with my grandfather, so I got

to see a lot of naval aviation back in California growing up,

but now I get to be a part of it.

narrator: The shooter is the last person a pilot sees

before the jet is launched off the deck.

- There's no job on board that's more exciting

than being a shooter up topside.

The engineers run the plants,

and everyone else is driving the ship.

We're the few guys that are actually on deck

to get up close and personal with the jets

and actually have a part in making sure

that they're ready to go flying.

It's just always exciting to have that jet exhaust

in your face and the smell of the jet fumes coming up.

It's just really exhilarating.

narrator: McCarthy drops to the deck to avoid

being hit by any ordnance hanging

on the wing, which flies directly over him.

- It's easy to forget that what we do on a day-to-day

basis is not the normal, everyday thing

that every other American gets to do,

and it's nice to remember that.

narrator: Meghan Angermann is the lone

female fighter pilot in her squadron.

- When I came in the navy,

there were no female combat aviators.

There were no female aviators allowed on the ship.

And in my time in the navy, that has changed.

There's been growing pains.

I think some were very well publicized,

but every organization in the navy,

as females have come into their organization, have adapted.

narrator: The introduction of women into the cockpit

of navy aircraft was controversial from the start.

- Wave off power. Raise your gear. Raise your gear. Power!

- Eject! Eject!

narrator: The navy's first female fighter pilot,

Kara Hultgreen, was killed in an accident in 1994.

The final report attributed the crash

to both an engine failure and pilot error.

At the time, some people questioned if

the accident was linked to her gender.

Now, more than a decade after that accident,

female aviators like Meghan Angermann

are commonplace in the navy.

She's a nugget, on her first deployment

to a carrier, and, according to her skipper,

she's a good one.

- She actually was-- and I want to embarrass her--

she was a top-five nugget

in the air wing for the entire cruise.

In other words, she was the fifth

best in landing performance on the aircraft

carrier for the whole cruise, so, yeah,

I'd have to say she's a pretty good nugget.

narrator: Angermann doesn't believe

her limited experience or her gender

makes her any less qualified than her peers.

- I don't like to make a big deal about the gender and say

I'm the only female pilot in the squadron.

I like to think of it as just, "I'm one of 17 pilots

in the squadron."

For the most part, it's a lot of fun.

It's like having 30 brothers who pick on you

just as much as they pick on each other,

so I guess that's not a bad thing.

It's fun to be part of their club, I guess.

I don't think that I'm any better or any worse

than any of the guys, and I just work as hard as I can,

and that's all anyone can expect, I think.

- There's always still good-natured

ribbing going on, and that hasn't changed,

whether you have males or females in the squadron.

It's almost like a family.

So we got brothers and sisters now

in the family, not just brothers.

narrator: All the teasing, hard work,

and time away from home, and Angermann

considers herself lucky to be here.

- I think the place that I think about that most is when

I'm sitting on the flight deck right before I launch out

and I have a few minutes to just sit and think

and look around and see what everyone here on

the flight deck is doing

and remember that this is a really cool job.

narrator: Deployments like this have been under way

since navy strike groups began supporting ground

troops fighting in Afghanistan in late 2001...

and Iraq in March of 2003.

During the invasion of Iraq,

6,500 aircraft blasted off

decks of carriers operating in the Persian Gulf.

As the ground troops advanced on Baghdad,

more and more missions were devoted to close air support.

Two weeks into the war, navy and marine pilots were

flying 1,000 combat missions a day...

a furious pace planned and executed by air bosses

like Ryman Shoaf.

- Heads up in the LA. We're stripping that 0-3-4.

Heads up. Don't let it get you.

There's not another aircraft carrier that can

shoot as fast as Enterprise can.

There have been periods where we've averaged shooting

four catapults, one aircraft every 28 seconds,

which just amazes me, that you can sit there

and watch aircraft come off the flight deck that quick.

That's the average, as we're moving along.

If you've got a really good team of yellow shirts

bringing your aircraft up and shooters

getting your aircraft off, it's amazing.

It's just like ballet, and it's really fun.

You really get pumped up.

We're up here whooping and hollering and yelling.

- Whoa!

- Boom!

- 103 airborne.

narrator: They aren't the only ones to appreciate

a well-executed rapid-launch sequence.

During combat, that efficiency is

critical to troops on a faraway battlefield.

- If someone's shooting at you,

15 seconds can be a long, long time.

So if we are not efficient on a flight deck

and we're 15 seconds late and someone gets shot

at 14 seconds after the hour, then it doesn't matter that

we're one second late at that point,

'cause that person's already dead.

So it is a big deal to us that we not only shoot on time

every time but that we shoot as fast as we can.

narrator: The pressure the pilots face

is much the same.

And they rely on routine to ensure readiness.

Day after day, they train as if the mission were for real.

- The big thing is, make sure you're very methodical.

We train pretty extensively

for all the missions that we go do.

What the goal is, is to treat it like any other mission.

Yes, the adrenaline's gonna be pumping.

Yes, we're delivering live ordnance against an enemy.

The bottom line is what we tried to do is to brief

so thoroughly and to be so prepared to do our mission

that it really didn't matter whether it was a tanking

mission around the ship or a combat mission

over Afghanistan, the same thing applies.

I think it's probably the same,

whether you're a nugget aircrew

or whether you've been doing this for 20 years.

Anytime you know that the end use

of your sortie is to protect men and women

on the ground, you want to do your best.

We take our targeting very seriously.

We go to great pains to make sure that

when we employ a weapon, it's going

to the right spot and it minimizes

the collateral damage to the surrounding areas.

It's something that we take great pride in and we train

so well and so much that when you are out there doing it

for real, it is something that I

think we're ready for.

narrator: The pilots on the U.S.S. Enterprise

aren't the only ones who have to stay battle ready.

Because of their ability to dramatically shift fortunes

in battle, aircraft carriers have

long been a favorite target for enemy attack,

from the kamikazes of World War II

to the devastatingly effective missiles of modern warfare.

To counter threats, the Enterprise has a heavily

armed mini fleet sailing alongside her day and night--

a billion-dollar cruiser with the Aegis combat system

can destroy any airborne threat

launched against the group.

A frigate equipped with small guns and torpedoes,

able to defend the carrier group from enemy missiles.

A guided missile destroyer,

a staunch defender against airborne threats.

Also, an enemy-sub hunter/killer.

A supply ship fills out the surface fleet,

with its critical mission of keeping up

the ship's stores of beans and bullets.

The last member of the group is one

rarely seen-- the submarine Alexandria.

She's among the swiftest submarines

in the world--and lethal.

She's loaded with dozens of torpedoes

and can launch cruise missiles.

The Enterprise strike group is equipped with the most

high-tech weaponry in the world,

and yet day-to-day flight operations are choreographed

on what looks like a board game.

- Our landing area is our launching area

is our parking area.

We only have so much space on the flight deck,

we only have so much space in the hangar bay.

The Ouija board is what actually shows the space,

what we have in relation to the aircraft, and we're able

to put the aircraft around in different spots

on the flight deck to make that happen.

narrator: Once on station,

training flights give way to combat sorties.

Coalition forces generate target designations--

a flight plan tailored to those orders.

- Are you ready on L-4?

We're ready to run L-4.

narrator: On board the Enterprise,

the handler is given a flight plan every day.

He and his crew have to have everything in place

to execute that plan.

- Are you guys ready to move the boat?

narrator: Pilots like Ben Bines

fly every day of the week--

five training missions and two combat flights.

- This is where the air wing and the ship come together

so that we can put the aircraft on with ordnance,

for fuel, getting them out there on time and recovering

them on time--getting them turned back around so that

we can get back in the air and they can meet the mission

requirements of the ship that the ship carries out every day.

narrator: From an undisclosed location

in the Arabian Sea, pilots and aircrew launch

in sequence and begin making their way

to a designated point in the skies over Afghanistan.

Ground controllers will direct pilots

to attack certain targets.

During flight ops, aircraft are in constant motion

across the deck.

The din of the catapult defines the rhythm

of the day and night on a carrier.

The catapult has a shuttle above deck,

connected to a steam-driven piston below.

When the plane is locked on to the shuttle,

the pilot goes to full power.

Below deck, the steam reaches maximum pressure.

The shooter gives the signal.

The piston blasts forward, slinging the plane aloft.

The catapult can launch a 33-ton Super Hornet

from a standstill to 165 miles per hour

in less than 300 feet and in just over 2 seconds...

subjecting the pilot to 4 g's.

- When we're prepping an aircraft to go flying,

we have to take many factors into account.

Those are mainly the weight of the aircraft

and the amount of wind we have over deck.

Those two factors come together to determine how much

force we want to use to launch that aircraft

for that particular cat shot.

narrator: Calculations are confirmed

by three different crew members before every launch.

- Well, as the shooters, we're responsible for balancing

the needs of the aircraft against

the needs of the equipment and the catapult.

If we shoot the catapult too hard,

we risk destroying the water brakes

or damaging the nosewheel assembly of the aircraft.

If we shoot them too light, then we risk putting the pilot

in the water, and we don't want to do that.

- When we get launched off the carrier,

it knocks the wind out of me.

It takes my breath away.

You can't imagine how fast it is.

It pins you to the back of the seat.

- Every time I get launched off the front end,

it's a new experience.

It's not routine.

Taking a catapult shot on an aircraft carrier is

the best ride that any roller coaster could ever do.

- I love the daytime cat shot.

It's a lot of fun, 'cause right when you come off,

you can see the water rushing by you.

It's just incredibly beautiful up there.

narrator: After the rush of takeoff comes the hard work.

In flight, Bines will have to juggle

a constant stream of evolving information--

from the locations of other aircraft to emergency plans

and, ultimately, the target location,

which can change up until the very last minute.

- So that when and if they do call you to drop something,

you can do it right away--first pass

in a very short period of time and do it accurately.

That is where most of your attention is drawn,

and you'll feel overwhelmed most of the time.

they're doing a lot of searching

for IEDs-- the guys on the ground,

convey escort, a thing like that.

When we got to Afghanistan, where they actually needed

ordnance to come off the airplanes--

and that was a really intense experience.

There is obviously a little heightened adrenaline

because you are dropping live ordnance on enemy troops,

but we're training for those exact same missions.

So when we do get to enemy territory,

we are very focused and know what our jobs

are supposed to be.

So it doesn't require a "Hey, be careful

'cause we're gonna drop ordnance on enemy troops."

It's "We know what our target is.

We're sure of that.

We have clearance to deliver our ordnance.

We're sure of that.

And we're gonna do our job to deliver that ordnance

on target."

- Being a junior guy and not being totally

familiar, even with the Hornet itself,

and then being put into a situation where you are

taking everything you learned up till then,

plus being introduced to a ton of new stuff right off

the bat that you had to be very accurate with--I mean,

there isn't a whole lot of room for mistake,

and you'd feel horrible if you did make a mistake.

That's a lot of responsibility on your back

to make sure that you release that weapon

in the proper parameters and hit the correct target.

narrator: The FA-18 "E" and "F" models are among

the most technologically advanced fighters

in the world.

The first Super Hornets flew into service in late 1999.

The Super Hornet can attack enemy planes with air-to-air

AMRAAM and sidewinder missiles

or drop bombs on enemy troops

and targets with an array of laser-guided munitions.

Ground troops have come to rely on air power.

Every day for six weeks, Angermann,

her skipper, and the rest of the air wing crews

alternated on combat runs all over Afghanistan...

flying more than 1,000 miles from the Arabian Sea and over

the unforgiving mountainous terrain of Afghanistan.

With each passing minute, the threat level rises.

- Knowing that you're over

enemy territory, you're doing the real thing,

it does help you keep your focus a little bit.

You know, you've always got it in the back of your mind,

like, "Okay, I don't want to mess this up."

You don't want to make mistakes,

and sometimes you're just praying that your tanker

is there when he's supposed to be there.

And if it's not, then you're, you know,

trying to work backup plans, because you're always thinking

about, "Boy, this would be a really bad

place to run out of gas or something," you know?

narrator: For a fighter pilot, running out of fuel

in the skies of Afghanistan could cost you your life.

But so could an aerial refueling.

After almost two hours en route,

the plane has to refuel.

It must be done quickly and efficiently, and it

challenges the nerves of even the most experienced pilots.

For nuggets, it's gut-wrenching.

Pilots edge up to the basket at the end of the fuel line.

They need to fly exactly the same speed at a precise

altitude to get their probe locked into position.

- You brief it as best you can.

The people who've done it for a long time

try to give you as much wisdom as you can,

but then once you find yourself

sitting behind the basket, just a few feet,

and you have your probe and you got

to fly the probe into the basket.

You're the only one who can do that for you.

And sometimes can be significantly more

stressful than other times,

especially when you're low on fuel and it's turbulent

and the basket's moving around,

it can be very stressful, and can be very intense.

narrator: Once they're gassed up,

pilots and their wingmen move into what is called

the stack--a multitiered formation of aircraft

orbiting and waiting to be called to attack.

There are numerous threats they face

once they're in country.

- Being such a long mission,

you're doing a lot of transit time.

But the time when you're on station,

it's only a small portion of our actual mission.

So the biggest concern is that you are ready to do your

job for the very specific hour or two hours

or three hours that you're going to be doing it.

And so the biggest threat, in my opinion,

is not just the weather, but complacency as well.

narrator: Add to that the risk of crashing

in the rugged mountainous terrain of Afghanistan.

- Afghanistan is very mixed terrain.

It has plains, and it also has very steep mountains.

So you have to be very careful.

As we like to say, if you hit the ground,

you're gonna be killed 100% of the time, all the time.

narrator: Compounding that, the enemy Taliban guerilla

forces have some success disrupting communication.

- They jam most of the radio frequencies,

so that can be fairly frustrating.

Sometimes you'll go the entire flight

and you can't talk to your wingman.

narrator: The skies over Afghanistan are swarming

with military aircraft.

Entering the stack, a layered holding pattern

where aircraft circle the battlefields

at prescribed altitudes,

waiting for their orders to attack.

- For us in Afghanistan, the biggest threat was running

into another coalition aircraft.

You have altitude stacks that go just near the surface

with your helicopters, up to tens of thousands of feet.

You're worried about small-arms fire--

the lucky potshot that someone might take at you.

narrator: All of the threats result in a high stress level,

which is not necessarily a bad thing when you're flying

a close air-support mission, or CAS...

attacking enemy positions that are

right on top of friendly forces.

[machine-gun fire]

- Close air support is

probably the toughest job that we do.

It's also the most important, in my mind,

because what we are doing is we are providing air support

to friendly forces in close proximity to the enemy.

So it tests our skills,

because what you obviously have to be

is the most accurate you could possibly be.

- Stress is definitely a good thing.

It keeps you alert.

And an 8-hour mission is a long mission, and you get

a lot of stress when you launch off the front end.

And then you truck in for an hour,

and it's not so stressful.

And then you check in with your JTAC,

the air commander on the ground.

It's incredibly stressful again, because you want to do

really good work for those people down there.

So it's peaks and troughs the whole time.

narrator: Coping with the ups and downs is

easier when Bines reminds himself why he's here.

- It's really a good feeling, like you hopefully

did some good for the guys down there.

If nothing else, you made them feel safer.

I can't imagine how much better it must feel

knowing that you can just call on a couple Hornets

with a bunch of 500-pound bombs and some 20-millimeter cannon,

you know, if you got yourself

into a situation where you needed it.

I like being over there for them.

narrator: Though specific mission details remain

classified, cockpit video recordings

reveal some past targets-- enemy buildings,

vehicles, even troop formations.

After roughly four hours airborne,

the mission is complete.

It's time to fly home.

- The flight is not over until after you've landed

safely and taxied safely and shut down.

narrator: What lies ahead is the most stressful part

of naval aviation--landing on an aircraft carrier.

By now, the pilot has been sitting

in one spot for up to seven hours.

- It takes a lot of focus.

The landing area is quite small compared to a runway,

and it's moving.

Our jets fly at a pretty fast approach speed.

The landing area is angled off the axis of the ship.

So as the ship is moving forward,

creating the wind that is required to land

on the ship, the landing area is

actually moving sideways a little bit.

narrator: Pilots have no room for error,

aiming for a landing area

that is pitching and rolling with the sea

and is a fraction of the typical commercial airport.

- It's the most thrilling and the scariest

thing I've ever done in my life.

It's inherently dangerous.

It's not a natural thing to do--to throw yourself at

a large piece of steel at 150 miles an hour.

And then it's incredibly precise.

So many things have to work, not just on your side, also.

I mean on the ship's side.

They have to have it set up properly for you.

Otherwise, it could be catastrophic

on that side, too.

You have a lot of faith, especially

in the landing-signal officers back there.

They're there to keep you safe.

narrator: LSOs communicate directly with the inbound

pilots via radio, keeping them on a precise path,

confirming air speed, altitude, angle of approach.

All have to be within the strict parameters

to touch down.

Ironically, landing on a carrier

requires a pilot to go full power.

- You have to go full power because you need

to make sure that you will go flying again

if you don't catch one of the wires.

narrator: If a plane misses all four wires that

stretch across the deck, the radio crackles

with the word "bolter."

Pilots will once again roar off the deck,

as long as they've kept up their speed.

Failure to go to full power is deadly.

It is the threat of disaster

that makes carrier landings a terrifying rush.

- My heart starts beating fast, and, luckily,

the adrenaline doesn't take over too much until

after I land, and then I can feel my legs

shaking a little bit, especially on night traps.

- You're coming in, you're concentrating so hard

on making sure that you're lined up

properly and that you're making the right

corrections, listening to the LSO.

So you're not really-- at least I'm not thinking

about the fact that I'm about to land on a ship.

And then you do, and then it's over.

- I wouldn't say there's really a huge sense of relief,

just 'cause, you know, we're doing it again tomorrow,

and you just kind of always stay in that role.

Usually, you're just exhausted.

"I'm gonna try to go get some rest

before I do it again tomorrow."

- Every day, we look back at the flights and go, "Yeah,

"we're happy we got through today.

"These are the things we need to work on for tomorrow,

"and these are the things that went really well.

We need to capture those and do those again tomorrow."

Whether it was combat or not, anytime you're doing carrier

aviation, it's a risky business.

We try and mitigate that risk through great training

and great airplanes and great people

working on our airplanes.

But it is a risky proposition.

So every day at the end of the day,

you look at the flight schedule and it's all complete

and all your jets come back--what I like to say is,

"All my people are back home safe.

"They got all their fingers and toes attached.

All my toys are here. It's a good day."

narrator: Whether you're a veteran or a nugget,

being away from home for so long isn't easy.

- I miss my girlfriend a lot and my friends and my family.

I miss the fact that you could just

pick up the phone and call somebody.

You can't do that out here.

There's not a whole lot of downtime

'cause there's always something you can be doing.

You're just not always flying. You have ground jobs, as well.

Coming back early.

narrator: Every month, tons of supplies are

transferred to the ship, from jet fuel to ordnance.

The crew consumes nearly 3 million meals

and 35,000 gallons of milk during 7 months at sea.

There is a certain challenge to passing the time

in a long deployment.

- It's just like family when you're away from home.

Just like family, you get upset with them

sometimes, but the next day,

you forgive them and everything's good again.

Basically you're trusting them with your life.

If something happened, they'll be the ones

to get you out of it.

As you can see, this is actually Curry--

we call him "junior."

Petty officer Curry's rack-- one of my friends.

This is my rack, and this is A.Z. Baria's.

It's really not that bad.

You get used to the small space.

Every so often, in the beginning of cruise,

you wake up and you bang your head on the top,

and you learn not to do that again.

We actually have lights and outlets

in some of our racks.

We usually plug up our DVD players

and just watch movies or sleep.

Most of the time, we're playing Xbox.

I brought that TV from home.

narrator: Blackwell's berth has an arresting wire

mechanism running across the floor.

- This is the number-3 wire that

the aircraft actually land on and catch with their hooks.

It's actually pretty loud at night.

You get used to it, though.

That's aircraft actually landing

on the top of your head.

So it gets real loud.

narrator: Blackwell and his fellow

rescue swimmers have to stay in shape,

so they hit the onboard gym often.

- Life on the big "E" is not that comfortable.

You don't have the things that you have at home,

and you're sharing everything, all the spaces--

your stateroom, your bathroom, everything.

It's loud.

There's sounds all the time, whether it's jets

taking off or just machinery rooms.

We know that we're gonna be out there for a long time,

so we try to make it as livable as possible.

- In all honesty, it doesn't always go great.

There are some days when people are mad at each other

and some days that I didn't do a great

job of keeping their spirits up.

But when it comes down to it, I think people understand how

important the mission is, but it's hard to leave home,

no matter whether it's for two weeks or for six months

or seven months or whatever it is.

narrator: For Geis and the rest of the personnel

on the big "E," today is an especially good day.

Their tour of duty is done. It's time to go home.

- Very excited.

- I can't wait.

- Been a long time running.

- I woke up smiling today. I'm just ecstatic to be going home.

I can't really imagine what it's gonna be like,

but I'm very excited to get there.

- We're going home!

narrator: Seven months at sea,

more than 8,000 sorties-- 2,100 of those into combat.

The battle-tested crew of the Enterprise

sails for Norfolk.

- Our squadron matured as we went on this deployment,

and I have a squadron now of seasoned combat aviators.

Our young folks were exposed to combat

on their very first deployment.

They're savvy.

They know what they're doing.

This next deployment we go on--instead of going

on cruise with nuggets, I'm going to have a seasoned

ready room ready to go

and ready to go back into the action.

- You got a lot of hours.

You got a lot of experience under your belt.

You're by no means proficient at everything,

but the day-to-day tasks become much, much easier.

narrator: Today is the fly-off.

- Let's do it! Whoo!

narrator: The last day of flight ops

for this deployment.

And the only day the shooter can wear a toga.

- Whoo-hoo-hoo!

narrator: All aircraft aboard the Enterprise have to be

launched off before the ship sails into port.

- Final, final...

last chance to see the money!

narrator: With just one more day until they reach Norfolk,

Virginia, the entire air wing is

sent aloft to return to their bases.

The day marks the last for the shooter.

It is tradition that the last thing

he fires off the big "E" is his boots.

- Usually, your boots are so dilapidated

and destroyed from flight-deck wear and tear that you're not

gonna miss them when you leave, anyways, so shoot them off.

Send them to Davy Jones' locker.

narrator: The next day, an estimated 10,000 people

line the docks.

They've been here for hours, waiting on loved ones.

Sailors, as they've done for generations,

line the deck in their dress uniforms.

Shooter Sean McCarthy is among the first sailors

off the boat.

Waiting are his wife, Lisa, and daughters Sara and Mary.

- Every time he comes back home

after a six-month deployment,

it's like going on a first date all over again.

And not many people can say that

after almost 10 years of marriage.

- Oh!

One of the greatest days of my life, man.

I just missed them so much.

narrator: Ben Bines steps ashore

to his girlfriend, Angela, and his mom and dad.

Meghan Angermann returns to base.

Her husband, Will, hasn't seen her in nearly seven months.

- I'm pretty excited to see her.

Very excited to see her.

narrator: For many, the reunions are bittersweet.

The Enterprise typically would have as much

as 18 months before deploying again.

Instead, her crews have been alerted

that training for her next deployment begins immediately.

- That's really short turnaround this time.

I don't know why.

Usually we rotate, but we're actually

going back into deployment real soon.

So I guess it's part of the job.

- We are working up again to go right back out.

So it is kind of sad to not be with your spouse,

but we'll enjoy the time that we do have together.

narrator: For most of the crew,

it's a short week off before returning to the ship,

to begin the cycle once again.

- I tell my guys that

there's only two things that we're doing.

We're either on deployment

or we're getting ready to deploy.

'Cause everyone pays taxes, and we're the insurance.

♪ ♪