Original subtitles

A new breed of super machine is evolving.

Bigger.

Faster.

Smarter.

Built to tackle near impossible feats.

Among them, a revolutionary megalith helicopter.

Flying massive loads through raging winds.

Not very many helicopters that can do that.

Overcoming obstacles that could down an ordinary helicopter.

If any one of those components fail, that tower's coming down on top of them.

And hauling 1 ,500 tons of steel to build a critical new power line.

I have the controls.

You get the controls. I have the controls.

In a mission to push men and machines to the brink.

Blowing this $25 million beast apart.

We'll discover technological secrets that overcome the impossible.

From ingenious stabilizers holding it steady in strong winds.

To twin jet engines with the power of 12 Formula One racing cars.

We'll reveal how this extraordinary megalith helicopter evolved.

To rise above all other machines.

Due north of Montana lie Canada's Alberta prairies.

Here, work is about to begin on an epic endeavor.

This army of men will wage battle against 40 -mile -an -hour winds to

more than 100 colossal steel towers, forming a vital link in a 220 -mile

line between two Alberta boom towns.

We've been spending the last year prepping to this moment.

Calling the shots?

Construction boss Jamie Kapner.

This is the biggest project he's ever undertaken.

It's one of the biggest upgrades that Alberta will see, probably in my

anyway.

Fueled by oil, Alberta is booming.

Its expanding population needs a power grid to match.

To feed Calgary and Edmonton with more power.

Alberta is building a massive $1 .6 billion transmission line.

A critical section needs to bridge 60 miles of scrub and swamp land.

Here, Jamie's crew will erect 121 giant electrical towers.

The power line must traverse terrain cut off from roads.

A barren wilderness traditional construction cranes just can't cross.

The solution?

A crane that flies.

It's a megalith helicopter called an air crane.

Crammed under super lightweight skin are 200 ,000 high

precision components.

The air crane has a steel core strong enough to carry five SUVs.

Its twin jet engines blast out air at the heat of volcanic gas.

and its rotor blades spin at the speed of a cruising jet.

Together, these highly advanced features help this helicopter lift and lug

extraordinary loads.

And this American megalifter's got a nickname,

Elvis.

He arrived this morning from Oregon with his Top Gun flight crew.

People are surprised when they first start flying it. They think Elvis is

to fly like a school bus because it is so huge. It's 98 feet long, but it flies

like a Ferrari.

Manning the controls, Chief Pilot Travis Harreld.

We like to say that this guy climbs like a homesick angel because you put a load

under it and it will still outclimb most aircraft that are empty.

Travis and his team of co -pilots will use Elvis to lift the giant tower.

fly them to the drop zone, and set them onto these foundations.

To stay on budget, they have just eight days to accomplish their mission.

They want this power line up, and the faster they can get it up, the better.

The wind always blows in Alberta, so we know we have our challenges ahead of us

as far as the wind goes.

We've got roughly 100 guys working for us today to kick this thing off. We're

going to get 120 towers done in about eight days, and hope for the best.

We're going to push you this next week. We got 120 plus towers to do in a week.

You guys aren't going to be used to the pace. Watch out for your buddy up the

tower. Watch out for people on the ground.

Be safe and go as hard as you can.

Let's get out of there.

It takes three pilots to fly Elvis.

Vic Johnson and Brad Warren have the front controls.

Travis mans this plexiglass bubble at the rear.

Designed for the toughest construction jobs, this is the world's only

with an aft -facing pilot.

There's probably only five completely signed -off aft -seat construction

in the world that are capable of doing anything that we do.

First challenge, get the towers airborne.

Jamie's crew has assembled the structures in two halves along the

power line.

Now he needs the air crane to haul the base sections into place.

Then drop the upper segments on top.

Just making sure all our rigging is set up right so once we start lifting, it's

not going to get caught or bound up or hung up, potentially damaging something.

Weighing four and a half tons, base section number one was not designed to

but it's about to.

Air crane, you got a copy?

Hey, Jamie, crane's lifting in ten seconds.

Yes, sir, we're getting ready to roll. It's going to be a beautiful day today.

Happy to gaze.

Almost 10 ,000 horsepower blasts Elvis into the sky.

Get your hooks up in the air.

The hookup crew has the most dangerous job, working right underneath the

helicopter. A screw -up in this trade is catastrophic.

It's death.

Hookup crew boss Chad Hurd knows bone and flesh are no match for swinging

If it falls from 50, even 60, even 10 feet, it'll kill you instantly.

Flying helicopters at low heights and around tall structures is fraught with

danger.

This pilot in New Zealand was hoisting a seven -story Christmas decoration into

place when his cargo line got too near the rotor blade.

It was a close call, but incredibly, no one was seriously injured.

The hookup crew braces for a 50 -mile -an -hour wind from Elvis' enormous

rotors.

Roger, we're coming around facing the base.

So I have control, and I'm just going to back the aircraft back up. Come down

here and lower the hooks into the hands of the ground crew.

Okay, you got me back.

Chad guides the air crane in, bringing the four huge metal hooks swinging

arm's reach of his crew.

60, 40, probably the most dangerous part.

You can see them kind of wobbling around. There's a little bit of wind

they're fighting against.

Keep her going. I got the tail. Keep her going.

Keep her going.

There's a lot of moving metal up above their heads. This is a very critical

where somebody could get injured very easily.

With the ground crew's safety in the palm of his hand, Travis needs much more

precise control than any normal helicopter could hope to offer.

And he gets it thanks to the six giant rotors.

These 36 -foot -long blades are engineered for

ultimate strength.

But their aluminum skin is less than half a millimeter thick.

To boost their lifting power, they use a trick from nature's very own

helicopter.

Maple seeds evolved to fly far from their tree.

They've grown wings that catch them as they fall.

Air rushes over the thick angled edge, giving them lift.

On a good wind, they can fly for miles to put down new roots and spread their

DNA.

The air crane's rotors mimic this aerodynamic design to do the heavy

Their tips spin at 490 miles an hour, as fast as a cruising jet plane.

The pilots can even change their angle of attack with minute precision

to keep Elvis exactly where the ground crew needs him.

To about the 45 -degree angle here, it's going to start to tip over.

We don't want to drag them. We don't want to bump them on anything. They're

actually very fragile.

Once they're on a 45, that's the most crucial time for those stiffeners to

doing their job.

That's when all we're waiting on is those two bottom legs.

Back up a little bit. This tower base weighs 9 ,000 pounds.

Right now, it's balancing on just two fragile legs.

If they fail... The whole structure will crash down onto the crew.

Over that. Over that.

Are you okay there?

North of Montana, in Canada's remote Alberta prairies, Jamie Kappner's

construction crew has just eight days to erect 121 electrical towers, forming a

crucial 60 -mile stretch of a new power line.

Are you okay?

To reach terrain land vehicles can't, they're using an air crane, a

revolutionary heavyweight helicopter.

Hold her back. Hold her back.

As the 9 ,000 -pound base section pivots upright on two fragile legs, the

pressure is on Chief Pilot Travis.

The giant rotors

whip up gale force winds, which blast the ground crew.

Next challenge, a three -mile dash to the first tower's set site.

Boss Jamie is racing a helicopter that has 30

times more horsepower than his truck and drains the job's budget every second

it's in the air.

Seconds actually do make a difference.

All right. You're going to be ready there, Dave?

Yes, sir. Bring it on.

Everybody just wants to get things going, get these first couple out.

On the ground, Dave Lilsby's job is to single -handedly guide the four -and -a

-half -ton structure onto its foundation supports.

They'll come down, and then they'll come into the wind for the set, and I'll be

giving them elevations all the way in.

The front seat pilots can't see the tower below them, so they rely on Dave

telling them the distance in feet from the bottom of the base to the top of the

foundation.

At 25 feet, the front pilots hand over control to Travis in his

rear bubble.

When we get down to one foot, we want it to be just drifting right over the top

of the bananas.

Travis must lower the tower's legs into these orange brackets called bananas.

One false move could knock off these crucial connectors.

It related to flying a piece of dental floss and trying to stick it through a

needle.

Precision docking is only possible because of the helicopter's

design.

Unlike the front pilot, whose view is restricted, rear pilot Travis has clear

sight of the ground immediately below.

The air crane is the only helicopter in the world with an aft -facing pilot.

Travis sits in a plexiglass bubble, giving him a 180 -degree window in the

It's an idea.

borrowed from the flying aces of days gone by, when early bombers had a fatal

weakness.

The pilots couldn't see fighters sneaking up from behind.

So aircraft designers grafted on a rear -facing glass canopy with a gun inside.

Now the bomber crews could defend themselves, thanks to their eyes in the

The air crane's plexiglass bubble gives the pilot maximum visibility and

complete command.

My new movements of the cyclic joystick send lightning -fast signals through a

fly -by -wire system.

They reach the rotor head and change the angle of the blades,

maneuvering Elvis into position with unparalleled precision.

One of the neat aspects of the air crane is that we have the total unrestricted

view for 180 degrees.

There's one foot.

You're inside. Come on up a little bit.

There's one foot inches.

You're trapped.

There you go. You got it. You got it.

And cutter free.

Yeah, four oaks clear.

Good catch, Trapp.

Let's do a... 120 more, just like that one.

Sounds like a plan.

Tower base one, down.

120 more to go.

Jamie's crew moves in to bolt the structure to its foundation.

As Elvis heads back to pick up base section number two.

With his eagle eye in the sky, Travis spots the ground crew. The

key to his clear line of sight is Elvis' insect -like

shape.

Buried inside the air crane's slender spine is a central core made

from magnesium alloy and steel.

It connects the massive rotor head.

directly to the cargo hook, transferring the weight of the load away from the

body, keeping the rest of the frame super slim to give Travis a bird's eye

From

40

foot in the air, Travis spots the hooks are connected to the wrong cable.

If he lifts now, the tower could lurch into the ground crew.

There are people standing right by those legs, knocking the stiffeners out. If

I'm out of position, I'm going to hurt somebody.

Travis's unique vantage point averts disaster.

Boy, that was painful.

In this game of flying steel, no man can afford a lapse of concentration.

even for a split second.

Okay, there's 15, there's 8, 2, 1, inches.

Okay, we've got a thumbs up, slack off, and cutter break.

Tower base 2, down.

With the clock ticking on their 8 -day schedule, it's time to step up a gear.

crews firing on all cylinders.

They set 20 base sections in just four hours.

That's awesome.

Good job, you guys.

But next, they must lift the top sections.

Twice the weight and twice the challenge.

Holy licks.

That wind is picking up on us.

And Mother Nature is about to throw them a curveball.

North of the U .S.-Canadian border in Alberta, 100 men and one heavyweight

helicopter are constructing 121 steel towers to form a critical 60 -mile

length in a massive new power line.

Breakfast and lunch of champions. 24 hours into their eight -day mission,

they're under the gun to fly 20 tower tops onto the bases they set yesterday.

At 16 ,000 pounds, these top sections are game changers.

To make matters even worse, at this time of year, gale force winds upwards of 50

miles an hour can strike without warning.

The wind is pretty much at our threshold right now.

Probably good to fly in this kind of weather.

It's just the setting part that's really going to get them.

With 90 foot long arms, this top section is now at the mercy of the building

wind.

The top of the thing is as wide as it is tall, and all the weight is at the top

of this.

Once I was to break loose, it could actually swing down and come up and hit

helicopter at that point in time because it's so wide.

The eight -ton tower top weighs almost as much as the air crane itself.

It's one of the only helicopters in the world that can carry its own weight.

It's like an ant.

Ants carry their body weight.

Hauling this beast into the air takes all of Elvis' raw engine power.

All yours. Good to go.

Strapped to the air crane's back is the power of 12 Formula One cars.

Turbine blades force 4 ,600 gallons of air into the engines every second,

compressing it into the combustion chamber.

Here, it mixes with fuel and ignites.

These are jet age engines.

But their roots are in a medieval kitchen.

Roasting meat for a 16th century feast was an exhausting task.

Until an inventor channeled the hot gases from the fire to spin a turbine.

And drive a system of cogs and gears.

This rotated the spit to cook a perfect roast.

powered by nothing but hot air.

The helicopter's engines blast out gases at 1 ,600 degrees Fahrenheit, the heat

of a volcano.

The gases rotate a turbine 9 ,000 times a minute, which drives the energy

through a shaft into the transmission.

It turns the rotor mast, spinning the blades with the horsepower of six

trucks.

More than a match for lifting a 16 ,000 -pound tower top.

Tower is up and clear.

Elvis's engines blast him towards the set site at 80 miles an hour.

Quite as fast as I can go.

Dave needs to get ahead of the air crane to guide the tower into place.

I can get there from here.

But not all the temporary roads through the wilderness are marked.

It doesn't go around.

And Dave's losing the race against a helicopter built not just for lifting

power, but also for speed.

At full throttle, Elvis burns almost nine gallons of jet fuel a minute.

An automatic control unit, designed like a Swiss watch, feeds the gas -hungry

engines from five separate tanks.

If one runs low before another, the unbalanced weight will slow the

So the control unit pumps kerosene from the tanks in perfect unison, keeping the

air crane balanced, even when the pilot pushes him to top speed.

All the ground crews are not liking us today.

Got to be through the fly yard.

See you right there.

Dave spots the base and makes it by the skin of his teeth.

At the critical moment, the wind kicks up a gear, swinging the tower from

Travis's control.

No, no.

Come down here.

You knocked that banana off.

Blasted sideways, the tower knocks off one of the bananas, a crucial connector

that would lock to the base.

Just lost another one.

There goes all the bananas.

There's virtually no way we're going to set this structure, so we'll support

this one.

There's now no way. to lock the tower together.

With men on the ground, Travis can't let eight tons of steel fall.

A mile away at the pickup site, Boss Jamie hears the bad news.

He's got no other choice but to bring it back to the yard here.

Now the crew must wrestle this behemoth to the ground, something it was never

designed to do.

Support this one and take it back to the yard.

North of Montana in Alberta, Canada, sudden high winds forced the heavyweight

helicopter to abort its mission of setting this tower top onto its base.

Looks like they had trouble with that one.

Okay, we're getting right down there on fuel.

Chief pilot Travis and co -pilots Vic and Brad race to get eight tons of steel

safely into the hands of the ground crew before the air crane runs out of fuel.

the structure is the last thing that we want to do, short of running out of

fuel.

Quite difficult to lay one down, especially if there's a bit of an

there is here.

To land the structure, they will have to lay it on its side, a maneuver it's

simply not designed for.

There's definitely a danger to it.

He's got to hover for about two or three minutes with it while they stick the

stiffness back in.

Hold right there, Charles. There's a danger the tower's slender legs will

crumple as it's lowered, and Chad's men are working right underneath it. We got

a handful of guys underneath, 60 ,000 pounds of steel and another 20 ,000

of machinery.

If any one of those components fail, that tower's coming down on top of them.

Okay, Charles, we got the shifters in. We're holding them right now, so go

ahead. Come on down easy.

Give me a little right pedal now. Take a little pressure off. There we go.

With Elvis' engines at full thrust, he's burning fuel fast.

And blasting the ground crew with a hurricane force downwash of 90 miles an

hour.

Looks like the guys are having trouble fighting that downwash right now.

The danger's not over yet.

The air crane is still anchored to the stricken tower.

The whole crew's safety now relies on the four ingenious cargo hooks.

Each hook can hold over 6 ,000 pounds, and they must release their load in

unison.

This precision engineering mimics the vice -like grip of an airborne mammal.

Bats have evolved a unique way of sleeping.

As it comes into roost, the bat's own body weight causes a ratchet -like

in the claws to lock a talon around the perch.

The talons allow the bat to sleep safely, using almost no energy.

The air crane's claw -like hooks also lock completely shut, despite the weight

of a load.

A signal from the cockpit rotates a magnet inside each hook, which releases

a hammer and opens the claw.

It's critical all four hooks release exactly when Travis commands to give

Elvis a safe exit from the danger zone.

Nice job, everybody.

He's only got so much fuel, so if he would have hovered and the guys could

got stiffeners in fast enough, he probably would have just laid it down

destroyed the tower.

Worst case scenario, he would have just punched it loose.

Luckily for the men on the ground and in the air, the hooks did their job.

Those hooks, it's pretty critical that they all open at the same time.

Should the hooks fail to open, Travis has a last ditch solution at his

fingertips.

Buried inside the air crane's spine is the pilot's emergency life insurance.

A tiny cartridge known as a squib.

It's packed with explosives.

At the push of a button, the explosive force drives a guillotine blade.

Right through the thick steel cable, jettisoning any load.

I call the squib might get out of jail free card.

Oh God, I hope I never have to use that thing.

Elvis finally makes a pit stop.

It's a chance for the crew to regroup.

That was a little bit wild for us. We don't like to see things get out of

control that far.

We're just parking for a bit, taking a break and letting the wind die off.

Only two days into their eight -day mission and already delayed, waiting is

a game Boss Jamie can afford to play.

We're falling behind schedule and losing money pretty much every second that

it's not flying.

Elvis grounded, there's only one team still at work.

Hey, Steve, you got engines? Jake?

Attic? Clocking in 600 hours flight time a year, it's vital the mechanics keep

their machine in perfect working order.

Basically, we're trying to find where Elvis is telling us, hey, I'm a little

weak here. To help the mechanics find weak spots, Elvis has a clever way to

communicate built right inside his rotor blades.

Under their skin lies a cunning crack detector.

The inside of each hollow blade is pumped full of high -pressure nitrogen.

This gas pushes out the piston on a pressure gauge.

Any loss of nitrogen and the indicator slides inwards, warning the crew of

even the tiniest cracks.

The mechanics' priority is keeping Elvis in top shape, and construction boss

Jamie's number one concern is getting him back up in the air.

Hey, Dave, you got a copy? But not before they assess the wind.

You got a wind speed check?

That is miles per hour.

Miles per hour, yep. She's gusting up to 42 .3. Okay.

That's not going to be good.

Handling eight tons of swinging steel in 40 -mile -an -hour gusts is too

dangerous for the men on the ground.

It's time to break the news to Jamie.

Okay, we got gusts over 40 right now, and it's pretty high.

We're down for the day.

Deep in Canada's Alberta prairies, a major new power line emerges from the

wilderness.

Battling building winds, Jamie's crew is now five days into their eight -day

mission to assemble 121 giant electrical towers.

70 down, 51 to go.

It's a huge challenge.

The wind.

Definitely makes us work a lot harder. These structures, as you can probably

with the wind on them, it twists them and turns them and pushes them back.

Today's forecast is ominous. No one knows what the wind is going to do.

To kick off, Chief Pilot Travis moves into the front seat and Co -Pilot Brad

takes control of the rear bubble.

in the hell yard, that's going to put a stop to us.

We're ready.

Just as they are set for takeoff, a herd of cattle wanders in amongst the towers

Elvis is about to lift.

Got to get them over into this side of the fence, apparently.

Hip!

Come on, cows!

In, Terry!

Jamie rounds up fellow ground crew Terry and Dave to herd the cows off the

field. Push them this way.

This way, Terry. This way. Just keep on this side.

You can pretty much tell Terry's never worked with cattle before.

But country boy Jamie soon whips his rookie cowboys into shape.

Clap, clap, clap.

That's it.

That's it.

Hey!

The herd moves on in the nick of time.

Sometimes we like to chase cattle around.

It's for fun.

There could be trouble ahead as the wind picks up.

Most helicopters would struggle to lift their own body weight in these winds,

but this is no ordinary helicopter.

Hidden under the air crane's transmission

is a box of tricks to help ride the gusts.

Inside sits a gyroscope, a microscopic motion detector.

It senses the airframe's every move.

It's an inspired invention, whose design owes a debt to the humble crane fly.

Its hind wings have evolved into tiny vibrating drumsticks.

Where they attach to the body, a group of sensory nerve cells.

keeps track of the fly's position.

Bypassing the brain, they send course corrections straight to the wing

This helps the crane fly ride out the most turbulent gusts.

The air crane's gyroscope is six times smaller, but just as clever.

Inside it, a weight vibrates up and down.

When strong winds blast Elvis off course, the gyroscope triggers a signal

travels directly to the rotor head.

This automatically corrects the tilt of the blade before the pilot can even

blink.

As the ground crew prepares the next batch of towers a mile down the line,

hooks up this first top section on his own.

Jamie's going to do the hero thing here, the one -man hookup.

30, 20, 10, 5, hold it there.

Coming up.

Elvis' gyroscope and Brad's smooth piloting give Jamie an easy ride.

Looking good. Going up. Mr. Clear.

Okay.

Go ahead, big guy.

Nice job.

That went way better than expected.

The 16 ,000 -pound top section safely attached.

It's only a 600 -yard hop to Dave's set site.

Yeah, you're probably about 60 over.

Oh, sure, you're going to face south on this one.

Lots of it.

Out of nowhere, a sudden blast of wind swings the tower sideways, knocking

Elvis off course.

Keep quiet. Keep quiet. Keep quiet.

Travis makes the call to abort.

It's just not safe to keep flying. They must ground the tower immediately, and

Jamie's the only man within range.

He'll have to go it alone.

We'll see how we do here.

Violent winds are battering the eight -ton steel tower like a toy, and the air

crane is burning fuel fast.

Got stiffness ready.

Boss Jamie's ground crew can't reach him in time, so he must bring the tower in

on his own.

That's an elevation, Jamie.

Eight, six, five, four,

three.

Go on, grab that panhandle.

To stop the tower's spindly legs from crumpling as it's lowered, Jamie must

fight the hurricane force rotor wash to single -handedly force in the metal

stiffeners. There you go.

He's really fighting it.

Okay, ready?

Yep. Four to five.

Clear of the pit.

James breathing hard.

Oh, I'm out of breath.

That went surprisingly well.

I'm quite impressed at how well that went.

Fast footwork on the ground and an incredible helicopter in the air saved

day. That was exciting.

A week of punishing winds takes its toll on man, but not machine.

It's been a strenuous week, a lot of ups and downs. Everybody's tired,

everybody's wore out. I'm just ready to get this done.

Finally, they get the break they've desperately needed, as the gusts die

Fire on fire that day.

Glad the wind finally died off for us. Boys are in a rhythm today.

We're catching up and making up for lost time.

Pedal to the metal, the air crane sets a structure every seven minutes.

Even with 100 guys on the ground, that helicopter will still stay ahead of us

like well.

They power through 36 hours of good weather.

We're going along pretty tickety -boo at the moment.

Just at the last hour in flight.

All righty, that's the last one. Stick a fork in her, boys. I think we're done.

Yeah, got him.

You set a record.

No. I've never seen towers go that fast in my life. Pretty badass, I must say

myself.

Only a few hours over their eight -day schedule, 121 giant towers now straddle

Alberta's challenging landscape.

With the power cables strung, this line will form a critical link in Western

Canada's upgraded grid, feeding the province's booming oil towns.

You guys fought weather for the last week and a bit, and got the job done

safely.

Great job, guys.

The star of the mission is Elvis, the king of heavyweight helicopters.

Our lives depend on them.

Our livelihoods depend on them. And the towers are all standing.

We had zero injuries.

The crews are happy, and they're all going to go home.

So, yeah, we're stoked.

Thank you, guys.

Great job.

You can't get any better of a machine for this type of job.

And I think we've proved that in the last eight and a half days.

With a few more clicks on his milometer, Elvis heads for the next mission to

face challenges beyond the capabilities of any normal heavy lifter.

All thanks to precision -engineered rotor blades spinning at 490

miles an hour.

Jet engines with the power of 12 Formula One cars.

A lightning -fast gyroscope to ride the gust.

The world's only rear -facing helicopter pilot station.

And claw -like hooks with an unbreakable grip.

It's these technological secrets that have helped this helicopter evolve to

above all other machines.