48hrs behind-the-scenes at SFO Airport!

today we're going behind the scenes at the san francisco international airport and i'll be taking you with me as we head out onto the airfield the fire boat and into the other secure areas to see specialized vehicles and meet the animals of the airport and of course this is the baggage sorting area i'm showing you everything this is downey live at sfo i could do this all day and this is where i legally have to tell you that this video is sponsored by the san francisco international airport but trust me it's worth it wow it's nice in here there's art everywhere here there is a lot of art in the airport but let's head to the new harvey milk terminal one the first airport terminal in the world to ever be named after an lgbtq plus leader they've done a great job of sharing and continuing his life story here but it's also the newest and most eco-friendly terminal they have it's great if you need a quiet spot to relax and it comes with windows that automatically tint darker blue the brighter it gets outside it also has a number of sfo museum exhibitions that you can poke your head into [Music] robot coffee shop all right let's see how this works our order's in [Music] oh okay that's pretty good thank you i mean this is a great terminal i don't know if there's another way that would be more comfortable or more inviting for your arrival at san francisco airport but keep your eyes open for the wag brigade hi who's this this is leah this must be a a dog's dream just to go to work and just get pets all day these are therapy animals that you're not only allowed to pet you're actually encouraged to pet wag brigade is a group of therapy pets that wander the airport to help ease the stress and anxiety of travel captain brixton hi brixton i don't normally smile this big at the airport this is great it started when he was eight months old he's nine and so he's been doing it i think he's the oldest one in the wag brigade right now and if you thought brixton was a cool dude wait until you meet alex the great this is a 32 pound flemish rabbit i think all my plans for the afternoon just got cancelled so hopefully if you're ever passing through sfo you get to see one of these three or any of the others in the group that's a good start all right what else does sfo have and if the wag brigade doesn't relax you there's a yoga room there's actually two but if you're craving fresh air i'll have another spot for you and this is the sky terrace it's like an observation deck and it's open to the public so you can come see this you don't have to go through security to come up here and have a view of the airport okay we have a lot more to see tomorrow let's go drop our bags luckily where we're staying is on the free clean and easy air train so we're staying at the only hotel on airport premises the grand hyatt hotel at sfo wow look at the stained glass windows this is nicer than i'm used to mr dowie welcome home oh my gosh living room dining room kitchen bar area wow what a desk and a bed in the middle of the room with a corner view of the airport holy where's the bathroom i mean come on wow [Laughter] it's just me though do you have too much yeah this is more it the same view just not as big you know i always do it or at the restaurant i'm usually eating at the airport food court let alone a restaurant with napkins i'm not normally treated like this the chef has sent over the crudo and half a dozen oysters petite i'm not used to this but i'm starting to like it mapo tofu and as i enjoyed my evening at the quail and crane the sun set over the airport and i woke up to the sun rising over the fog i slept so well but let's go behind the scenes now our first stop of the day is the san francisco airport commission aviation library and the lewis a turpin aviation museum and the museum here takes you from the craziness of the airport back in time to a quiet 1937's recreation of the original terminal here at sfo this is the only aam accredited museum at an airport and we also collect artifacts we have over 150 000 artifacts in our collections huge numbers all related to commercial aviation uh so here uh we have some records from the beginning of the airport 1927 the original paperwork stating the rent for the airport i understand why you hang on to this so vital to the core the beginnings of sfo and they're still here that's remarkable 100 years later if you have time to kill between flights and you're a fan of commercial aviation or just want to learn more this is a great stop now our first behind the scenes tour this morning is at the sign shop you see you may not notice it but there are a lot of signs around the airport and they all get made here in fact they do it all from design printing cutting etching and installing for everything from door signs street signs vehicle decals and even planes these are called wall for wall plates so each room has an identifier and then whoever's in that room we put their logo on there so we don't realize how many signs we see in a day as we're walking around everything from little signs like this had to be made to large street signs in fact the details in place to make the airport as accessible as possible will often go unnoticed by the majority of us but are necessary for so many so now all signs include braille but also raised lettering in case you had recently been in an accident and can't read braille and they all have to be mounted five foot to center person is sitting in a wheelchair um and they kind of measure yeah like this so you have to make signage that works for everybody now here's the real secret so this is 24 karat gold yeah yep wow that's beautiful you see the sign department does more than just make the signs they actually get to help design them like the fire boat like i added i like the old school logo so i added the old school logo and it's sort of the placement we got to do it ourselves where everything went how how cool is it seeing your work when you're out and about it's cool one thing about this place i mean it's a signed shop but we get to do a lot of cool stuff yeah watching um news reports yeah and movies and i'll be hey honey look i did that sign [Laughter] now we're heading into our first highly secure area of the day welcome to the auto shop john here is in charge of all the airport owned vehicles which even include police view specific to the airport would be the large arf truck they're only on airports they're not street legal it's all-wheel drive so there's how many wheels eight eight wheels tires are very expensive they last about a year you know we don't have fires that often right uh but there's a lot of training the fire department takes on these so holy cow this is the biggest cab i've ever been in and so are the joysticks for the water cannon yes one joystick does the the top high reach extendable turret yeah and then we got the cannon on the front for the other joystick i have to ask you might not be able to tell me do you know how much this costs two million dollars that's good i won't touch it again and then we have parking enforcement vehicles that's right and since these impressive vehicles aren't street legal and can only be driven at the airport there is a simulator in the fire station to safely practice and train on without putting any equipment or people at risk and without causing flight disruptions at the airport either so these are different simulations you can choose from yes we've created them so let's let melissa do it but let's put her at night and maybe in the fog or accidents aren't very common at airports but it's important to have a highly trained crew ready to respond at any time and the right equipment for the job oh way to go this is cool all right and so there's one more impressive piece of firefighting equipment we have to go see now one of the things about being an airport that's on the water is they need to make sure they have rescue vehicles for both land and water they have a fire boat i found the jet skis i was prepared to go out on the jet skis you're just ready all the time not always in the wetsuit but the fire department here at the airport always ready for anything whether it's on land or water we're working with a lot of government agencies and whether it's pd coast guard uh homeland security to be on the front lines we saw where this was put on this is that 15 karat gold it has enough life rafts on board to have the ability to rescue up to 600 people which makes it capable of rescuing passengers from multiple planes yeah if that were neat this boat also has all the communications so we have all of our fire communications here yep and we have all of our coast guard communications up here so the shallow hull and jet engine system make it a fast responder but also able to operate in shallow water and the reason that this boat is potentially so important out here at sfo is that the two runways stick out into the bay and so we're just gonna go out there and practice putting the boat in between the runways here you know just to ensure it could in case of an emergency this is the uh this is the end of the runway these are the runway lights right here yeah i think the fire boat works in fact they let me drive so i know it works now that we've been to the end of the runway out on the water well we've actually been invited onto it by airside operations with wes here thank you yeah no problem i'm michael hey wes hey wes nice to meet you i heard we're going to a little spot uh field lighting one kind of uh midfield i guess right right all right so airside operations is uh we're responsible for the safety and security of the airfield to provide and maintain a safe and secure area for aircraft to depart and land yeah that's the taxiway right there and that's the runway yeah every day is a little bit different than the day before something as simple as picking up a potentially disastrous fod off the runway or taxiways or it could be working with the secret service and other departments to secure the arrival of any vips that may come to the airport great uh wow you've summed it up really well well cool it was just right off the top of my head i didn't rehearse it now i always thought this would be a fantastic job so let me see if i can do it this is a lifelong dream come true so sfo has four runways two going in this direction and two going in this direction so they can have two planes taking off simultaneously and two planes landing together at a time uh it's a pretty cool system that's sfo and this is the klm triple seven 200 lansing [Music] i mean come on [Music] you know i'm starting to think i might get too easily distracted out here and maybe i'm better to leave it in the capable hands of west i guess the question is now if we've been to the end of the runway what tops this so the last place for us to go see is where your luggage goes back here at harvey milk terminal 1 they have a brand new state-of-the-art luggage system and it's very secure it actually requires a pass scan and a fingerprint scan just to get in so your bag goes onto the conveyor belt through the curtain and ends up well down here where it goes through a tsa scan to ensure your bag is safe to be put on board the plane the system is so much more modern and quieter than i expected once it passes the scan it follows the conveyor belt to the sorting area next your luggage has its tag scanned and then it's put into a tote that can be fully tracked throughout the rest of the system there's actually rfid chips in every single tote so that way we can track wherever that bag goes and if it needs to go somewhere else we can sort it that way and the other thing i notice is that the whole machine is off until something goes by so it's a very energy efficient system that the wheels are only turning and all the motors are on as the bin moves along and then it goes off together oh that one's going off for inspection actually that tote is more important than you think so let's quickly go to the control room and we'll come back to see the rest of the bags journey vhs control also remember we know where that sign was made wow this is a lot more than i expected adriana yes this is like mission control for nasa in here sfo is the first airport in the united states to install this tote-based independent carrier system for checked baggage which now gives it 100 tracking and traceability you can zoom in and see the whole system wow now that your luggage is dropped into the tote bin it is being tracked the entire time and if any point during its journey it needs to be rerouted well they can do that from here wow so all this time i put my bag on i go it's got the tags i trust it will get there but thought it was people sorting it or whatnot and you're just in here watching it in virtual reality go through the system now back to your luggage you see now that it's in the tracking bin it gets taken along the system of conveyor belts to its final gate destination where it's then slid out of the tote and down onto the carousel and so once it's down on the carousel it gets put in the cart brought out to the plane then 500 1500 bins totes these the actual white ones oh the white ones oh special ones oh i see oh wow if they're writing will you marry me the first the first letters will be faded by the time you're finishing the sentence i i think it's going to spell wow could could be mom now there's only one way to end this video you can't come to san francisco without coming to a giants game there he is oh hey how's it going all right ready for the game alex uh gets some attention here doesn't it no better way to end the day than a baseball game with alex the great again i'm mike i don't know where i'm going next but i know i want you there with me thanks for watching danny live at sfo say bye alex

Channel: DownieLive

Views: 582,105

Keywords: downielive, downie live, inside airport, airport, airport tour, San Francisco, San Francisco airport, sfo, luggage, security, behind the scenes, inside an airport

Id: eSWkw4c57cQ

Length: 14min 58sec (898 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 22 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/redct]

The video is sponsored content (he literally says it's sponsored by the airport 30 seconds in), but I thought it was super interesting to see some normally obscure stuff like the sign shop and museum archives.

[u/nuklearphusion]

Super fun watch, I didn’t mind the sponsorship

[u/peterchungmusic]

That was really cool!

I would definitely check out the public sky terrace.

Also, is the sign store public as well?

[u/fultonrapid]

Neat

[u/old_gold_mountain]

Cool video! Makes me feel way more confident checking a bag at SFO and trusting it to get to the right plane now.

[u/49_Giants]

This was a nice video.

[u/MaBeEasy]

Can’t wait to move here when I’m done with PT school. San Francisco for the win!