No road. No crane pad. No second chance.
Precision long-line placement into sites that cannot be reached any other way: transmission steel, rooftop mechanical, penstock, lift towers and remote communications infrastructure. FAA Part 133 external load.
A lift day is won three weeks before it.
Precision placement looks like flying. It is mostly planning. By the time the aircraft picks up the first load, the weights are known, the rigging is certified, the ground crew has been briefed, the exclusion zone is real and everybody has agreed what stops the job.
The flying itself is deliberately boring: vertical reference, one turn at a time, on a rhythm the ground crew can sustain. Fast is a consequence of being organised, never a goal in its own right.
We are a small operator, which means the person who walked your site is the person in the aircraft on the day. Nothing gets lost in a handover, because there isn't one.
- Site walked before the quote where it matters
- Real load weights, certified rigging
- Density-altitude performance calculated for the day
- Written site risk assessment and briefing
Six kinds of lift,
one set of habits.
Transmission & distribution
UtilitySetting steel, framing structures, pulling sock line and moving material along a corridor that has no road and, in most cases, is not going to get one.
- Steel and pole setting
- Sock-line and stringing support
- Material distribution along the ROW
- Crew and tool movement
Rooftop mechanical
CommercialHVAC units, chillers and equipment onto occupied buildings, usually inside a short shutdown window on a Sunday morning with a street closed underneath.
- Unit set and removal
- Crane-inaccessible rooftops
- Short-window shutdown planning
- Ground control and exclusion zones
Penstock, pipe & culvert
InfrastructureLong, awkward, heavy items into drainages and slopes where the only alternative is building a road you would then have to reclaim.
- Pipe and penstock sections
- Culvert placement
- Bridge and trail structures
- Material staging into drainages
Lift & recreation infrastructure
MountainSki-lift towers, communication huts, trail bridges and hut material into terrain that is the reason the project exists in the first place.
- Lift tower and sheave assemblies
- Backcountry hut material
- Trail bridge sections
- Summit installations
Communications & power
Remote sitesRepeater sites, antennas, solar arrays, battery banks and shelters onto ridgelines chosen for line-of-sight rather than for access.
- Tower sections and antennas
- Shelters and equipment cabinets
- Solar and battery installation
- Fuel and generator movement
Recovery & removal
Reverse liftTaking things out is the same discipline as putting them in, usually with worse rigging and less information about what the load actually weighs.
- Equipment and wreck recovery
- Decommissioning and reclamation
- Abandoned infrastructure removal
- Environmental clean-up support
What actually decides
how much you can lift.
These are the levers. Everything else is detail.
Why we won't quote a single lift number
The same aircraft that places a load comfortably at 3,000 feet on a cool morning may not be the right ship for the identical load at 7,000 feet in August. We would rather have that conversation before you write the specification than after you have booked the crane that could not get there.
Six steps, and none
of them are optional.
Site walkBefore the quote
Somebody who will actually fly the job looks at the site: the pick, the set, the wires, the escape routes and the ground crew's position. Photographs from a phone are a starting point, not a substitute.
Load and rigging planEngineering
Real weights, not estimates. Rigging, slings, tag lines and hook selection agreed with whoever certified the load. A load that turns out to be heavier than stated is the single most common way a lift day goes wrong.
Density altitude checkNon-negotiable
Performance is calculated for the temperature and altitude on the day, not for the brochure. In Idaho this frequently means starting at first light and finishing before the afternoon heat, and it decides how many turns are possible.
Site briefEveryone present
Ground crew, riggers, signallers, radios, exclusion zones, abort plan and what happens if communications fail. Nobody works under the aircraft who has not been at this briefing.
The liftTurns, not heroics
Vertical reference long-line, one turn at a time, on a rhythm the ground crew can keep up with. If the wind, the load or the crew is not right, we stop and reset.
Close-outSame day
Loads placed, gear recovered, site cleared, and a record of what was flown. If something did not go to plan, you hear it from us before you hear it from anybody else.
Who brings what
to the job site.
What we need from you
- Real weights and dimensions per load
- Rigging certified and ready at the pick
- A ground crew that has done this before, or time to brief one
- Site access, staging area and fuel plan
- Wire and obstruction survey around the site
- Permits, closures and landowner approvals
What we bring
- Part 133 external-load operation
- Long line, remote hook and rigging
- Vertical-reference qualified pilot
- Site risk assessment in writing
- Radios and briefing for your ground crew
- Insurance certificates naming your entity
What decides the day
- Density altitude and temperature
- Wind, turbulence and mechanical rotor
- Actual versus stated load weight
- Ground crew readiness and fatigue
- Airspace and neighbouring activity
- The honest answer to ‘should we go again’
What a lift day
actually looks like.
What project managers
ask us first.
It depends on the day, and anybody who answers that question with a single number is quoting a brochure. Lift capability is set by aircraft, fuel state, temperature, pressure altitude, wind and how long the load has to hang there.
Send us the weights, the site elevation and the month, and we will tell you what is realistic, including when the answer is 'not with this aircraft'.
We provide the long line, hook and aircraft-side rigging, and we will brief your ground crew properly. Load-side rigging is normally yours, because your engineer is the one certifying the load. If you need a full crew, tell us early and we will arrange it as part of the scope.
Often, yes, with planning: exclusion zones, closures, timing and a clear abort plan. This is where permits, insurance and the site brief stop being paperwork and start being the job. We will not fly a load over people who have not been moved.
Wind and turbulence more often than precipitation. A load on a long line reacts to air the aircraft can absorb, so the limit is usually the load's behaviour, not the aircraft's. We would rather lose the afternoon than swing a load we cannot place cleanly.
Usually a mobilisation charge plus an hourly flight rate, sometimes with a per-lift or per-day structure on repetitive work. The variable that moves the total most is turns per hour, which is a ground-crew number as much as an aircraft one.
Send us the weights and the site. We'll tell you if it flies.
Precision placement across the American West.
CALL DIRECT · 208-315-5769