Photo courtesy U.S. Navy.

When you jump down out of the helicopter, the first thing that you realize is how huge it is. What everyone told you is true -- an aircraft carrier really is a floating city.

You stand at one end of the deck and start walking. As you hike down the runway, you begin to understand the size. It's over 1000 feet long. It's long enough to hold nearly four football fields end to end.

As you're walking, you pass four huge elevators. They move planes between the runway and the hanger level below the deck. Each elevator is big enough to hold two jets. They can lift over 150,000 pounds. The three-story tall hangar sits beneath the deck in the middle of the ship and it holds up to 80 planes.

You walk past the "island," the control tower for the ship. It stands 150 feet tall -- about as tall as a 15-story building. It bristles with radar and radio antennas.

Below your feet is a hive eight levels deep. The ship houses over 6,000 highly talented people. There are nuclear power plants on board generating enough electricity for a small city. There are 3.3 million gallons of jet fuel to keep the planes flying. That's enough fuel to keep 5,000 cars running for a year. And, the ship itself contains over a billion individual parts.

An aircraft carrier is one of the most complex machines that human beings have ever built. It combines people, technology and aircraft to create a miniature, floating city.

Let's go behind the scenes and see what makes one of these huge ships tick.