How Did They Fix That?

The Erickson S64 Air Crane is one of the biggest, most durable, and most versatile helicopters in the world; it's also the only bird capable of pulling off this specialized heli-logging operation in the Pacific Northwest. Over six weeks, the chopper needs to haul 48,000 tons of hemlock, fir, and cedar trees out of the forest and off to the mill. But in order to meet their quota and earn their $14 million payday, pilots, mechanics, and engineers must battle the elements and make emergency repairs that threaten to bring the mission to a halt.

Host Mike Davidson is crisscrossing the rails across Eastern Europe on a 24/7 cargo operation powered by Soviet era locos. The mission: to transport potash—a potassium rich fertilizer—to massive ships, which in turn will deliver the cargo to over 100 countries worldwide. This is a multimillion-dollar business, and the pressure is intense to keep the trains moving... even when there are problems. Thankfully, there are resilient crews that keep this rail network and locomotives running, no matter how big the challenges are.

Trains may seem old fashioned, but they still make the world's economy go, and SBB Cargo International is one of Europe's busiest haulers. Host Mike Davidson joins a freight run carrying a million-dollar payload, from a busy container yard in Italy, though the Alps of Switzerland, across a labyrinth of tracks in Germany, to the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Along the way, he'll follow locomotive drivers, maintenance crews, and engineers working around the clock to keep everything rolling on a route that throws challenges at every turn.

The Panama Canal Railway stretches just 47 miles but its importance to shipping companies is immeasurable. This single line of track handles over half a million container moves per year, requiring great ingenuity and resilience on the part of the engineers and repair crews tasked to overcome tight timelines and heavy jungles. Host Mike Davidson helps a team complete a ten-hour race across the continent, moving a massive, refrigerated payload from the Pacific to the Atlantic, where any delay could mean millions of dollars in spoiled cargo.

Offshore fish farming is big business, with big profits, big machines, and very big risks. In this episode, host Mike Davidson goes on perhaps his most physically demanding mission yet, joining the crew of Open Blue as they transport a school of Cobia whitefish worth $300,000 in future sales. For three days, he'll battle ocean waves, dive in shark-infested waters, and assist in excruciating repairs to ship engines and feeding dosers. And just when it looks like smooth sailing ahead, Mother Nature steps in to show who's really in charge.

Host Mike Davidson is heading under one of the world's largest lakes for a multi-million-dollar tunnel-boring project. The crew's mission: to give Toronto's wastewater system a major upgrade, using a highly sophisticated machine capable of creating a tunnel with a diameter greater than a two-story house. But big machines often require big repairs. Witness the epic battles happening 260 feet below the Earth's surface as our hard-hat heroes battle challenge after challenge to keep this operation running on budget and on schedule.