We Toured The Restricted Parts of Heathrow Airport 

Many many thanks to all the team at Heathrow. And to their now-quite-tired security team. Sorry about getting the ██████ in shot. -- Tom

"it was bloody boiling! it was like 25 degrees or something" Most British phrase I've ever heard.

9:24 My favourite bit is that whatever it is Tom said that Heathrow deemed too risky for broadcast was said on a public park bench.

The baggage handling system at the airport here in Shetland is two blokes and a flatbed transit van.

9:23 Behind the music, Tom is listing all the security passcodes and usernames, as well as the phone numbers of all the staff.

Wow, I love the [REDACTED]! It looks so much like [DATA EXPUNGED].

Matt and Tom: the UK's best team for stealth infiltration missions into secure areas including the JPL, Heathrow Airport and the Svalbard Global Seed Vault

Wow, it got really foggy when you saw the Concorde. :-P

I love how Tom switches into his "radio voice" when answering his phone and then straight back to his normal voice afterwards XD

I read this as “We torched the restricted part of Heathrow airport” and was very concerned

Matt: I like planes **plane flies through, destroying the park and everything**

As an aviation geek this felt like when a friend is telling you about how something great happened to them and you simultaneously love them for telling you and hate them for getting to do it.

"Everything is automated, but there's still a human on the loop" This is how the future should work.

More importantly, Tom did you return that call?

I'm honestly surprised by how much they had to blur - and some of the things! For example the vehicle entrance/exit of the baggage building at the start, I've seen those up close and there's nothing special or security relevant about them that's visible from the outside. Or that they had to censor the part where Tom was talking about the baggage storage on different days (?). What about that is so critical to security that you can't talk about it? If someone knows more, I'd love to hear the reasons for it, but right now it seems to me that they're being overly protective with this information.

I saw “am I working safely?” On the back of the vests they were wearing, just as they stood filming over a runway. Grinning, of course. They were not working safely. They were not working.

That fluffy microphone I want to hug... it looks so soft!

14:35 -- Actually, you can. In the "small" town of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, USA, there is an annual air show. They have a viewing area open to the public, and it's at about the same elevation as the ATC tower. It's not really worth going anytime other than the air show; at least not to view the airfield, because other than during the air show, it's not an active airport. However, during the air show, they say it becomes the busiest airport in the world, as thousands of "experimental" (home-built) aircraft are flying in and out.

Matt is spot on it does remind you of the doors bit in Monsters Inc, and the final part of Toy Story 2, that takes place in a Airport and the conveyor belt section.

Came to know what's behind the scenes of an airport, stayed for the redactions.

I work at heathrow T5 as an engineer for the baggage system and its interesting to see another persons perspective on it..its all normal for me!

Any one else here a Conveyor belt enthusiast, apart from Matt ?

If you want to see a Concorde up close, go to Duxford Air Museum. What's more, you can go inside!

9:23 - Tom sings elevator music beautifully! That must have taken years to master, where did you take classes? Also directly after - Matt, in New Zealand we call those an Igloo, like the ice-shaped-hutt. I work for a freighting company and recently built a "freight hub" in Christchurch. We also use things called TCP, Totally Collapsible Pallet, which are metal and plastic containers which 10 can be broken down into one "TCP", and be rebuilt after transported. People actually graffiti these and we see the same artwork from time to time, they get damaged by forklifts and the plastic tends to warp after long-sun exposure, but the freight inside is generally stable. Don't get me started on scanned systems and conveyer belts which scan barcodes for every item and redirects them. I live in a town that delivers 3,000 items a day, and we only have a population of 45,000. I've seen photos of the "freight hub" and it seems a marvel in human engineering to process ten (if not at least a hundred of) thousands of barcodes overnight.

"It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression, 'As pretty as an airport.'" -Douglas Adams, "The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul", before writing about a character having a very bad day at the Heathrow airport. Douglas Adams has clearly never seen the current Heathrow airport's baggage conveyer-belt system.

So was Matt working safely?

I worked as Airside Operations (the guys you describe as the 'Orange Flashy Vehicle') at a different airport supervising everything to do with the operations at the airport, doing the runway inspections etc etc. After 5 years of 44+ hour weeks plus overtime I can tell you this. That excitement of getting to drive on the runway and get so close to the aircraft never goes away! 😊😊😊

What would happen if you brought a spherical or fairly spherical luggage container? Would they stop it before it got to the conveyor belts or would it just keep rolling and mess up the whole conveyor belt system?

Tom: "I couldn't find a good enough story about the baggage system itself" Me: 5:00 I did not know conveyor belts could go around corners! What? How?

Would totally subscribe to the Matt Gray explains engineering systems channel.

Matt & Tom, if you’re interested in automated systems like the baggage sorter, talk to Swisslog about filming the stuff they do. The automation they do in a warehouse may be on a much less impressive scale, but might have far less security concerns. Anyway, thanks for this fascinating look behind the scenes.

Why was the Concorde security sensitive? Was it blurred because it wasn't on Heathrow property?

I love hearing how very large airports manage everything! I'm used to flying out of my small, local airport. It has ONE departure gate, and we get to walk across the tarmac to steps onto the plane ! 😅

The moment when Scott takes out glasses and a notebook and says "I took notes" is so attractive to me. 😘 Enjoyable video for many more reasons, but this is what I chose to comment on. 😄 Love these occasional Park Bench episodes. P.S. Matt's excitement was infectious; made me care about conveyor belts and luggage.

The moment Matt mentioned the baggage system I started singing Monty Python's "I'm So Worried" in my head

Just yesterday I was INSIDE a Concorde! We have a technic museum here in Germany (in Sinsheim to be exact) which has a lot of old(-ish) planes on display that you can actually enter. They are standing high over the roofs of the museum and it is quite the experience. They also have a Tupolev Tu-144, which is basically the Russian version of the Concorde (and way cooler in my opinion ^^')

I've been in the tower when Concorde took off. I've also talked one from Area Control to Heathrow Approach when I was in the industry :)

You should come to Aerospace Bristol. Its an amazing collection of aircraft throughout the years including Concorde. The best bit is you can go inside of Concorde and have a look around!

These videos are so much fun and so refreshing. I miss the regularity of them. More park bench!

The shots that you *did* get to show were so cool -- it makes me wonder what amazingness we missed from the blurred shots!!

I can totally understand you Matt, I like planes as well :D They are quite fascinating, especially the older or experimental ones

120 years ago there was no such thing as an aeroplane. Then within 50 years there was Heathrow. Such a rapid growth from nothing to one of the most complicated industries in history.

I've been in an airport control tower! My dad works closely with air traffic controllers (and I believe he was one at some point), so I got to go to the control tower at Cardiff Airport once. It was pretty cool, although I was a bit too young to appreciate it (I was 11).

Hi Matt or Tom, it's worth contacting "Manchester Runway Visitor Park," they have the BA flagship concorde (G-BOAG). I'd imagine that they would like the publicity as it's open to the public.

Mitchell Airport in Milwaukee, WI has a great little observation area right by the runway, if you want to enjoy takeoffs/landings from your car.

That heliograph, with notes about planes.

You guys have done a lot of really cool airplane stuff recently and as a long time flight enthusiast, I'm loving every minute of it.

I worked at the Denver airport for a short time in an office right next to/under the "international large arrivals" gate, most mornings there would be a United 787 parked there, and most afternoons a British Airways 747. I haven't worked anywhere else where that was outside my office door.

Factorio meets Matt and Tom... 7/10, not enough conveyors, would Factorio again... at least the belts were Blue! :-)

did you guys see the slipstream statue? i work for the company that built that, its nice looking but its basically just plywood skinned with aluminium, also one of my work mates dropped his glove inside it when they were putting it together on site.

This reminds me of the time in school (for facilities management) when we organised a whole lot of excursions to local businesses. We got to see, among other things, a lot of the facilities of Vienna International Airport (though not quite like the tour you had in Heathrow), a trash-burning heat-power-plant and we went around the "Free Floating" roof (aka no pillars to block the view) of Austria's largest Stadium.

Very interesting. Thanks for this video.

0:05 I didn't know they had park benches on the roof at Heathrow.

I like how Matt unabashedly loves this stuff.

Great video - even if I kept expecting to see Wallace and Grommet to show up riding the conveyor belts.

i enjoyed my time working at british airways at heathrow it is so different now from when i worked there almost 20years ago now! the engineering dept had similar ASRS (Automated Storage and Retrieval System) it used to break down a lot but riding it was fun as all get out when it did. now i realise how cool it was with hindsight i took it for granted we had access like that as part of our day to day jobs crap time flies

I'm glad to see you've accepted that your videos are largely doomed to have the sounds of Heathrow flight traffic.

The doors part in Monster Inc.! I was thinking the same ^^

That reminds of the time that islandic volcano grounded all flights in europe. My dad got my brother and me visitor identifications for munich airport and did a private tour - we were even able to sit in a pilots seat for a short time thanks to a nice maintenance guy - awesome memory

Excellent shots of concorde.

I would LOVE to have been part of designing that conveyer belt system.

This was really fascinating!!

At one point during my working life, my bus journey took me around Heathrow every day. G-BOAB was one of the sights that made me smile on my commute. They eventually moved it, but I'm glad it's still there somewhere even if you had to blur it.

Brilliant. Love this.

There's a Concord you can walk around in Duxford Air Museum

Fabulous video guys. Reminds me of plane spotting on ye olde QE building. That was pre-terrorism.

After Toy Story 2, I've always been wondering just how the baggage system works in airports. Thank you Matt, Tom, and Heathrow Airport for the video. I'm surprised you where able to show so much since I know airports as being extremely picky about security.

And this be the last park bench.

3D factorio

If you go to the National Museum of Flight in East Fortune (about 20 miles East of Edinburgh) they have a Concorde that you can see the underneath of as well as being able to walk through the cabin.

I've been in a couple of control towers and also an oceanic centre. It's pretty damn cool watching controllers do their job. It's almost like they're reading the newspaper on a sunday morning.

05:57 The memories in Inside Out?

Milton Jones: “Has anyone else tried that new sushi place at Heathrow Airport? Huge portions, but they do all taste a bit ‘luggagey’”

I appreciated your information about Heathrow airport not sponsoring. If there is one thing I dislike it is fake spontaneous 'collaborations' between business and people on RU-vid. The way you explained the situation for this video gives a sense of integrity.

Im stoked that Britain's busiest airport is back, I love shows like that. Now to get it in Canada.....

All the planespotters are jelly as hell.

"i like big engineering things" Matt must have loved the intrepid museum them that place is literary big engineering things on top a massive engineering thing.

They have a Concorde in the museum of flight here in Seattle you can walkthrough. It's very cramped up still really cool.

That 'end of runway planes landing over you' bit - I was in about that position (at Filton) for Concorde's last ever flight, and took what is possibly the last photo of it flying overhead, ever. That was fun!

I hate when Heathrow censors your video

A plane spotters dream

As an aviation enthusiast and wouldbe future pilot, I'm super jealous of you guys!

I worked for a while doing oddjobs, and one job was at some air-side workshops at Heathrow, so I got to drive a little electric buggy around parts of the airfield. Nowhere near moving planes, mind, but it was still awesome.

Wow it's not been called itv 1 for many many years

Well, at least the baggage handling facility is better lit than the one in Die Hard 2

Matt, you can see a Concorde up close at the Technik Museum Sinsheim, Germany (next to a TU 144)

I really enjoyed this. I haven't really thought that much about how large airports do things. I'm sure each one has differences, and now I'm curious about how some of the large airports in the U.S. do things.

"Am I working safely?"

25 degrees is boiling ... that's when I break out the winter clothes.

If you want to see concorde up close come to the national museum of flight at East Fortune airfield in Scotland you can go inside it

Yay. A new Matt and Tom video.

It'd be weird to be sponsored by an airport, surely?. Seems like being sponsored by a hospital. Do people choose to go to specific airports? I always figured you went to the closest one that flights go to your destination from?

All that blurring screams of "security through obscurity" to me to be honest. There's nothing there that isn't already well known by the evil forces that want to abuse it.

The early bag storage area really reminds me of the Uni of Oxford's Book Storage Facility in Swindon (the logistics of which would also make an amazing video!)

You are in UK. I hope you know that you can see Concorde prototype in Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovilton. You can go inside of it, under it, you can even take a sneak peek in to the cockpit, unfortunately trough the glass. There is also much more planes in there. I highly recommended it.

I’ll watch just one more video until I’ll make my homework. Is what I said 5 hours ago...

25 is boiling? really? We set our AC to 25 here in Honduras and everyone keeps saying it's too cold XD

There's not a lot of things I get jealous about, but I'm so jealous of you two it's unbelievable.

That's a neat ASRS - Some auto manufacturing plants use them to store painted auto bodies before General Assembly.

3:01, the route a bag *should* take. mine went on its own vacation to the Netherlands while I went to the united states... not what id call the best baggage service.