The Assassin (Sha ren zhe Tang Zhan)

Today on "Impossible engineering"...

The HMS Queen Elizabeth,

an aircraft carrier of record-breaking proportions.

It took cutting-edge naval and aerial engineering...

We're actually going to execute the ship

on rolling vertical landing.

...And bold risk-takers from the past...

We often talk about the bravery of the pilots.

But actually, you know,

they must have been slightly crazy, as well.

I do love this airplane.

...To make the impossible...

...possible.

captions paid for by Discovery communications

July 2014.

The largest warship in the history

of the British Royal Navy

is being floated for the first time.

The Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier dwarfs its predecessors.

This $4.9 billion vessel weighs over 71,000 tons.

For engineer Stuart Justice, it's the project of a lifetime.

The Queen Elizabeth has a range of 10,000 nautical miles.

It can carry up to 40 aircraft,

including the groundbreaking F-35B lightning fighter jet.

Some of the world's strongest marine gas turbines

propel this massive floating airport.

They act as an onboard power station,

generating enough electricity to power a small city.

The Queen Elizabeth will be the flagship of britain,

allowing the nation to undertake major military

or humanitarian missions anywhere on the planet.

But less than a century ago,

a ship of this size and ability would be inconceivable.

Once upon a time, a nation's Navy

was limited to what it could do on the water --

fighting at sea, firing toward land from the water,

or delivering an invading force.

It wasn't until the mid 19th century

that the first attempts to combine air and sea power

were made.

In 1849, an Austrian ship tried to drop bombs on venice

using a hot air balloon.

The mission failed because the wind changed.

It took the development

of a revolutionary new type of aircraft

before the aircraft carrier could be realized.

The seaplane was the catalyst

for a naval engineering revolution.

Oh, that is so cool.

Dr. Rhys Morgan is getting a taste

of the challenges early aircraft-carrier pilots faced.

The birth of the aircraft carrier

depended on the skill of the pilots

and the creativity of the engineers.

But what we recognize as aircraft carriers today

are a long way from the early ideas.

The first aircraft carriers were simple transporters.

Planes had to be lowered onto the water

and launched from the sea's surface --

very slow and very dangerous.

Those early seaplanes were very flimsy.

They were made from wood and fabric.

And the sea conditions made it terrible for the pilots.

Taking off in rough seas must have been incredibly difficult.

We often talk about the bravery of the pilots.

But actually, you know,

they must have been slightly crazy, as well.

There had to be a better way.

Then in 1912,

British pilot Charles Sampson attempted the impossible

when he launched a seaplane

directly from the deck of a moving battleship.

It was leftenant Charles Sampson

who first attempted to take off from a moving ship.

And, of course, using the principles of engineering,

using the -- understanding the principles of flight,

it was actually very beneficial to have a moving ship,

because the ship was already creating airflow

over the wings.

And that creates lift.

Lieutenant Sampson used a specially adapted battleship

with a short, sloping runway fitted to the foredeck.

And on may 9, 1912,

with the ship steaming into the wind,

Sampson fired up the engine,

and his flimsy seaplane rolled down the ramp and then skyward.

These early aircraft carriers

only had about 30 meters of takeoff deck,

so it was an extraordinary feat

to get the plane off the ship and into the air.

But the ship Sampson used had one major disadvantage --

there was nowhere to land.

The planes could take off quickly,

but they were still slow and dangerous to recover.

As we come in to land, it's gonna be incredibly bumpy

but nothing like the kind of conditions it would have been

for some of those early seaplane pilots

out in the English channel and the north sea.

Just a few years after Sampson's flight,

one man would come up with a solution

that would change naval aviation forever.

In 1918,

shipbuilder William beardmore created the HMS argus.

It was the first ship to use a single flight deck,

allowing aircraft to take off and land on the same runway.

The argus was fitted with a retractable pilothouse

in the middle of the runway

that could be lowered out of sight during flying operations.

This meant planes could be deployed and recovered

in record time.

The aircraft carrier was an effective weapon

for the first time in history.

William beardmore's continuous flight deck

set the template for all modern aircraft carriers.

- The designers of the HMS Queen - Elizabeth aircraft carrier

may owe a debt to William beardmore

and the HMS argus,

but they've taken beardmore's concept to a whole new level.

The Elizabeth is twice as long and three times wider

than the argus.

The deck's 17,000 square feet of surface area

is larger than two football fields.

But the unprecedented size of the Queen Elizabeth

presented builders with a unique challenge.

Their solution --

three different companies would build the Queen Elizabeth

using six shipyards and hundreds of different suppliers

from across the United Kingdom.

Work begins on the Elizabeth in 2008,

requiring enormous manpower.

A collaboration of this scale has never been attempted before.

Each self-contained section of the ship,

complete with cabins, corridors, and pipework,

was constructed in a different location.

Even key mechanical components

are preinstalled in the self-contained sections,

like this huge diesel generator.

Each section is transported by barge

to a giant dry dock in rosyth, Scotland,

where they will be joined together.

If the self-contained sections of the ship don't match up,

the project would be a multimillion-dollar failure.

And in June 2012, it's the moment of truth.

The Queen Elizabeth's hull is assembled,

but to propel this mega-ship,

engineers will need to draw on innovations from the past...

This boat is absolutely gorgeous.

It's so sleek.

It's like a shark going through the water.

And you can understand just looking at it

why they called it the spitfire of the sea.

...To produce more impossible engineering.

Wow.

The Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carrier

is the next generation of warship

in the British Royal Navy's illustrious history.

This mega carrier is over 900 feet long

and three times the size

of britain's previous aircraft carriers.

But a vessel this size will need a monster motor to move it.

Engineers had to figure out a way to generate enough power

to move this mega-ship

at a fast enough speed for modern warfare.

Less than a century ago,

designing engines with this much power

would have been an impossible task.

Early man relied on elbow grease to push him across the water...

Until he learned how to harness the power of the wind.

Ooh!

It wasn't until the early 1800s that engineers discovered

steam could provide a mechanical solution...

...and another 100 years before diesel engines ruled the waves.

But in the 1940s, a brand-new technology was on the horizon.

Engine power was the difference between life and death

in world war ii.

One boat above all others embraced this philosophy.

This boat is absolutely gorgeous.

It's so sleek.

It's like a shark going through the water.

And you can understand just looking at it

why they called it the spitfire of the sea.

Britain's motor gunboats were on the front lines

of naval combat in world war ii.

This boat, the MGB-81, was built in 1942

and is the only one still running today.

It was an incredibly well-designed boat,

beautifully engineered.

It had these incredible engines.

It had three v-12 Packard engines.

These each had a brake horsepower of 1,250 pph.

That's equivalent to six Formula-1 engines.

And this was in the second world war.

It's just unbelievable.

It's just starting to take off now.

Look at it go.

These boats used incredible amounts of fuel.

They had to carry 10 tons.

And it was high-octane fuel. It was aviation fuel.

If they got hit, they would literally explode.

Being a skipper on that boat was like riding a bomb.