electro optical sensors. like the best type of camera available on the market. reporter: what you can see with that that you can t see with radar? it gives the p8 an advantage in picking out objects in an endless blue ocean. the search area for the missing plane is so remote and takes so long to get to the navy only has about three hours a day to use these hi-tech tools. and that s not the only problem. there are so many unknowns that search teams really don t even know what to look for. it could be something as large as a piece of a plane. but it could be something as small as a seat cushion or a life vest. finding wreckage would be like finding the needle in the haystack. if only they could find the haystack. that s a sonar buoy. correct. what we call a sonar buoy.
aircraft. up until we ve never seen the inside of the plane. we got exclusive access to the p8 poseidon. reporter: the poseidon p8 surveillance jet is designed to hunt submarines and yet when it comes to finding wreckage of the missing malgsian flight the navy is not making any promises. you don t even know exactly where to look right now, do you. correct. and because the debris may potentially be very small we re searching with very small track links to make sure we don t miss anything over the course of the volume of space we re searching. reporter: we ve been granted access to p8 in flight simulating a search off the court of florida. it can see things no other aircraft can see. so much is classified we had to obscure parts of the monitors. there s infrared sensors to track heat and something called
here s one example because we talked about it a great deal. this is roughly quarter million dollar p8 navy submarine hunter. this is state-of-the-art aircraft from around the world. it s been brought from around the world to the united states to be part of this effort there. the navy, the pentagon says the military collectively has spent about $2.5 million so far in the effort to find this airplane. they budgeted about 4 million which will get them through the start of april and we are not contributing the most of all countries out there in terms of ships and airplanes. that s one tiny slice of it but you see how it adds up fast and if you stay out there indefinitely it just goes and goes and goes although nobody wants to give up the search. nobody wants to give it up. incredible. tom standing there in front of that poseidon p8 and that s the navy s most sophisticated tool. we have an outfront exclusive.
the minute. outfront exclusive aboard the navy s most powerful tool. we re on board on the p8 poseidon. you need a permit. to be this awesome. and you.rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle. and go. and only national is ranked highest in car rental customer satisfaction by j.d. power. (aaron) purrrfect. (vo) meee-ow, business pro. meee-ow. go national. go like a pro. predibut, manufacturings a prettin the united states do. means advanced technology. we learned that technology allows us to be craft oriented. no one s losing their job. there s no beer robot that has suddenly chased them out. the technology is actually creating new jobs. siemens designed and built the right tools and resources