National Geographic Society
National GeographicNat Geo Wild
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  • WORLD'S TOUGHEST FIXES

DESCRIPTION

Discover the big solutions used to fix some of the world's biggest machines.

A nuclear power plant turbine needs to be replaced. A cruise ship needs another engine. When big machines experience problems, they often require big solutions. These fixes take much more than your average piece of duct tape. Master rigger and host Sean Riley discovers how these heavy duty industrial repairs are made, on everything from high voltage electricity lines to nuclear power plants, and meets the specialists charged with putting things right.

A professional rigger with a passion for adventure, Riley is not afraid to strap on a hazmat suit or attach himself to a live high-voltage power line to get the job done. He's seen more than his fair share of perilous situations, but on each job he has to show the crew he knows his stuff. It's usually a quick initiation, and soon Riley is flexing his engineering muscle while helping experts solve problems of enormous proportions.

Whether dangling from ropes hundreds of feet in the air or diving close to a construction vessel's propellers, Riley's engineering prowess travels inside the marvels of large-scale industry and shows what happens when things do not always go to plan.

EPISODE GUIDE

  • World's Toughest Fixes: Moving The Monster Barge
    Any blockages in the Mississippi can cause big trouble. So Riley's going to New Orleans to help clear out a massive barge that's become stuck onshore.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: 20-Ton Eye
    Riley joins a team of engineers to move a 23-ton mirror. It needs to come out to be cleaned, but that's not an easy task.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Blown Away
    In this episode, World's Toughest Fixes is taking on a job that brings power to the people - assembling a giant wind turbine.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Uk Big Bridge
    World's Toughest Fixes scales 3 iconic bridges of the UK: the Tower Bridge, the historic Forth Bridge and the Forth Road Bridge.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Lock And Load
    Riley races the clock to dam up a river & replace one of the locks that regulates water level. One wrong move & tones of water could be unleashed.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Mass Transit
    A million commuter, scurrying to and from work - it's a typical day in the fifth largest mass transit system in the USA.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Giant Antenna Swap
    Whatever you do… don't look down! Riley joins a team of high altitude riggers scaling one of the world's tallest structures…
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Rocket Launch
    For this fix, we launch a satellite into space by using a rocket the size of a twelve-story building and an enormous amount of firepower.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Deep Sea Thruster
    Too big for most ports, the Balder must be fixed in the middle of the ocean. With swells, wind and rain, will Riley and team succeed?
  • World's Toughest Fixes: San Francisco Bay Bridge
    Riley takes on yet another tough fix. This time, he challenges the mighty San Francisco Bay Bridge.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Sky High
    From the top of the Hoover Dam to the cliffs near Niagara Falls, Riley's going to join the workers who take on the ultimate death-defying jobs.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Solar Tower
    We harness the sun to drive the only operating solar reflective power tower in the United States.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Leaky Cruise Ship
    Riley heads to San Francisco Bay where hundreds of workers have just 15 days haul a leaking luxury liner out of the water and fix it.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: 50 Ton Rudder
    Riley joins a team of industrial divers to salvage and repair the 50-ton rudder of a ship carrying $3 million worth of iron ore.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Vegas Breakdown
    Join Riley as he travels to Las Vegas to help high-flying Cirque du Soleil solve a real show-stopper of a problem.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Water Coaster
    World's Toughest Fixes is going on one wild ride as we build the world's longest water coaster, using some amazing new technology.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Extreme Lift
    This week we head for the hills of Cody, Wyoming to rebuild one of the first ski lifts in the country.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: 20 Ton Eye
    Riley joins a team of engineers to move a 23-ton mirror. It needs to come out to be cleaned, but that's no easy task for a gigantic mirror.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Pipeline Shutdown
    They only have 36 hours to fix a 32-ton valve system at the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline. If they fail, the Americans will have to pay a high price.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Overpass Overhaul
    Can Riley move a five-lane bridge for two miles and drop it on a major US Interstate highway in Salt Lake City without upsetting the traffic?
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Going Nuclear
    No mistakes are allowed! Watch how Riley & team worked thru radiation & high-energy particles to replacing the steam turbine at the nuclear plants.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Operation Cruise Ship
    The cruise ship 'Radiance of the Seas' is badly in need of a transplant. Watch how Riley and team work hand in hand to overcome the obstacles.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: High Voltage
    Our host will toil alongside the world's top engineers and mechanics, pushing himself to the limit to show us how these impossible fixes get done.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Airline ER
    Sean is off to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris to join a crack team of Boeing engineers and mechanics as they attempt to fix a damaged Boeing 767.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Atom Smasher
    The Large Hadron Collider is the largest atom-smasher but now it's broken. In order to unlock the secrets of the universe, Riley has to repair it!
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Ep16
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Texas High Tower
    Part of the San Antonio skyline for nearly sixty years is past its use-by date… and it has to come down before it falls down.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Holiday World
    Join Riley to figure out the specialty rigging required for fixing the world's longest water coaster in Holiday World, a theme park in Indiana.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Lock And Load
    Riley races to fix a broken dam on the Colombia Snake River system, a crucial waterway that links the heartland of America to the Pacific.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Rocket Launch
    Riley is in for a fix that is out of this world, and will help launch a satellite from remote French Guyana in South America.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Blown Away
    Riley battens down the hatches and straps in for a job to bring power to the people, assembling a giant wind turbine in Portsmouth, Rhode Island.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: 50 Ton Rudder
    Riley heads to Curacao, where he and a team are in for some serious heavy lifting, rigging and removing a 50-ton rudder from a massive ship.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Solar Tower
    Riley grabs his sunglasses and prepares to harness the sun to drive the only operating solar reflective power tower in the United States.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Atom Smasher
    Riley is in for his biggest fix ever, working on a machine seventeen miles long and worth seven billion dollars, the Large Hadron Collider.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Mass Transit
    Riley heads behind-the-scenes of the fifth largest mass transit system in the US. The action is frantic as workers scramble to keep it running 24/7.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Sky High
    Riley joins the workers who take on the most death-defying jobs in the industry, from the top of Hoover Damn to the cliffs near Niagara Falls.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Uk Big Bridge
    Riley heads to the UK to work on the famous Tower Bridge in London, and the historic Forth Bridge and Forth Road Bridge in Scotland.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Extreme Lift
    Riley heads into the hills of Cody, Wyoming, to rebuild one of the first ski lifts in the US, though this is definitely no ordinary fix.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: San Francisco Bay Bridge
    Riley heads to San Francisco, where the city has closed off the Bay Bridge for four days in an attempt to pull off a miracle fix.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Leaky Cruise Ship
    Riley heads to San Francisco Bay and straps on his hard hat to join a crew of 1200 as they haul a leaking luxury liner out of the water for repairs.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Vegas Breakdown
    Riley is in Vegas, with the world famous high-flying Cirque du Solei, where the most technologically advanced theater stage in the world is failing.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Water Coaster
    Riley is in the quaint little town of Santa Clause, Indiana, home to one of America’s classic amusement parks, Holiday World.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Texas High Tower
    Riley teams up with a group of high-altitude riggers in San Antonio to help adjust a TV, 500 feet in the air and in the middle of the city.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: High Rise Walkway
    Riley heads to work the night shift in Salt Lake City, where the team must life a heavy bridge in the tight, densely packed city center.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Alaskan Salvage
    Riley joins a crew of salvage operators in the Bering Sea to remove a fishing boat, Ocean Clipper, from the middle of a Fur Seals breeding ground.
  • World's Toughest Fixes: Deep Space Antenna
    Riley gets under the hood of a 7 million pound giant, helping to repair NASA's DSS-14 Mars Antenna which has been running 24/7 since 1966.
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