Riley joins a crew lifting a 50 ton boiler 160 feet up a tower and suspending it above 24,000 mirrors - completing America's first large scale solar power tower.
2,000-Foot Tower 5-SEG , On Top of the World , The view from this 2,000 foot tower is incredible - but Riley and the crew are here to work.
50-Ton Rudder 6-SEG , Polishing the Propeller , As always, Riley is the new guy on the crew, and it's time to show he can pass the entrance exam.
50-Ton Rudder 6-SEG , Behind the Rudder , Behind the Scenes on 50-Ton Rudder: The story of the sinking ship, and the little lifeboat that could.
50-Ton Rudder 6-SEG , Rudder in Trouble , Getting the rudder off the ship was the easy part -- now 50 tons are of metal swinging free, at night, underwater.
Alaska Oil Pipeline , Mighty Explosive , The oil is safely cut off from the pipe, but the residual gas is extremely dangerous.
Alaska Oil Pipeline , Crude Oil Blast , When the Alaskan oil pipeline springs a leak, it is a major problem so Riley gears up to learn how to fix it.
Alaska Oil Pipeline , Fixing the Pipe , The best welders in the world are sealing in the new valve in the pipeline -- very carefully.
Boeing 767 5-SEG , Pressure Dome Under Pressure , A 767 passenger jet must be repaired after crashing into a fence and ripping into the pressure dome.
Boeing 767 5-SEG , Pressure Dome Fix , A Boeing 767's exterior is damaged and there's only one way to fix the plane.
Boeing 767 5-SEG , Par Avion: Pressure Dome Delivery , How do you get a huge replacement part for an enormous plane halfway around the world? In an even more gigantic jet of course!
Columbia River Dam 6-SEG , Big Dam Problem , Riley prepares to take on a great big dam fix on the Columbia River.
Columbia River Dam 6-SEG , Balancing Act , The lock gate is in place, and the fix is almost done -- or is it?
Cruise Ship Engine , An Energy Efficient Engine , As fuel prices soar, a cruise ship needs a more efficient engine - but first they have to get it off the ground.
Cruise Ship Engine , Cruise Control , A cruise ship gets an energy upgrade in record time.
Cruise Ship Engine , Behind the Ship , Welcome to the World's Most Luxurious Fixes -- or are they?
Giant Telescope 5-SEG , A Rigger Rigs , When a water pump breaks while cleaning the telescope mirror, Riley puts his rigger's know-how to work.
Giant Telescope 5-SEG , Reflecting the Heavens , Even a tiny layer of dust is too much, so this giant telescope is being sent to the cleaners.
Giant Telescope 5-SEG , Behind the Telescope , Intrepid rigger and tough-fix-fixer Sean Riley travels to a distant land to fix a giant eye to the sky.
Giant Wind Turbine 6-SEG , Tilting at Windmills , The wind is blowing. A cable snaps. Sixty-two metric tons of turbine swing freely. Yeah, it's tough.
Giant Wind Turbine 6-SEG , Big Fix , This town wants to generate its own energy but first it has to figure out how to assemble this turbine.
Giant Wind Turbine 6-SEG , School Experiment , Riley heads to the local high school to examine the physics of this big fix.
High Voltage Power Lines 5-SEG , Bonding with Power Lines , If Sean wants to hang with this team, he's got to get his hands around 230,000 volts of electricity.
High Voltage Power Lines 5-SEG , Behind the Voltage , For the powerline crew and the camera crew, having fun on the job is necessary to handle the intense pressure.
High Voltage Power Lines 5-SEG , High Voltage , When high voltage powerlines need repair, these are the folks who risk the shock of 230,000 volts to keep the country running.
Mississippi River Barge , Dredging the Mississippi , Riley joins the crew of The Hurley as it sucks mud from the middle of the river and spews it along the sides.
Mississippi River Barge , Behind the Barge , Behind-the-Scenes: Riley and the crew take on the mighty -- and mighty muddy -- Mississippi River.
Mississippi River Barge , 300 Ton Crusher , While trying to get a beached barge back in the water, a support busts and sets 300 tons of metal in motion.
Nuclear Turbine 5-SEG , Nuclear Precision , Engineers must replace a rotor in a nuclear plant that has powered 1,000,000 homes for five years.
Nuclear Turbine 5-SEG , Chilling in the Cooling Tower , If there's something big to climb, Sean can't resist! While this nuclear cooling tower is off for repairs, Sean and company make the sky-high trek to the top.
Nuclear Turbine 5-SEG , Behind the Nuclear Power Plant , Check out what happened at this nuclear power plant, that you won't see on TV.
Satellite Launch 6-SEG , Satellite Fix , Ever wondered what it takes to keep the world's cell phones working?
Satellite Launch 6-SEG , Space Luggage , When sending a rocket into outer space, it's important to only pack the necessities. Very carefully.
Satellite Launch 6-SEG , Rocket Science , Some things aren't rocket science. This is.
Thirty-Eight Ton Engine 5-SEG , Extreme Engine Gets Sean Revved Up , Far out in the ocean, Sean dives under the DCV Balder to replace a busted 38-ton thruster with a broken engine.
Thirty-Eight Ton Engine 5-SEG , Night Diving in the High Seas , On a dark and stormy night, the diving crew is must swim under the Balder to scrub casing for the new rotor.
Thirty-Eight Ton Engine 5-SEG , Behind the Engine , Get the insiders view of what it takes to solve the world's toughest fixes.
2,000-Foot Tower 5-SEG,Sean Riley will remove and replace a faulty digital antenna from telecommunications tower with the help of a gin pole in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
2,000-Foot Tower 5-SEG,This telecommunications tower is supported by three sets of guy wires. If one guy wire fails, then the whole tower can fall down and disrupt the electrical power.
2,000-Foot Tower 5-SEG,Dave Sills, Kevin Barber, and Tommy Rosell take the express lane to work and have a little fun on the way to the top.
50-Ton Rudder 6-SEG,On this fix, host Sean Riley joins up with a team of industrial divers, part of the international SubSea Solutions Alliance, who specialize in some of the toughest underwater ship repairs.
50-Ton Rudder 6-SEG,Caracas Bay, on the southeastern side of Curacao, harbors a fully loaded bulk cargo vessel during her stay for underwater rudder and steering gear repair work. The vessel was hauling iron ore from Brazil to China when its rudder was damaged. Tug boats towed it from off the coast of Brazil all the way to Curacao, part of the Netherlands Antilles off the coast of Venezuela.
50-Ton Rudder 6-SEG,Host Sean Riley and the World's Toughest Fixes team have set up a cable-camera shot and it's working just as planned.
Alaska Oil Pipeline,Just another day on the job: Eric Cochran prepares to document Alyeska's task at hand.
Alaska Oil Pipeline,The new piping is cleaned and prepped for installation. Such a large joint needs some heavy duty lifting equipment.
Alaska Oil Pipeline,Sean Riley suits up for some intensive cleaning.
Boeing 767 5-SEG,Crew of "The Big Fix" at Painefield airport in Seattle.
Boeing 767 5-SEG,Boeing AOG (Airplane On Ground) team pulling the suspended back section of a 767 plane off of its natural resting place.
Boeing 767 5-SEG,Sean Riley standing in front of a 767 engine.
Solar Power Plant 6-SEG,Kelly Phipps and host Sean Riley celebrate.
Solar Power Plant 6-SEG,The thermal receiver sits on the ground awaiting the arrival of the crane.
Solar Power Plant 6-SEG,After preparations for the thermal receiver have concluded, the crew must wait for sunrise the next morning to lift the boilers.
Columbia River Dam 6-SEG,The John Day Dam and fish ladder has daily counts of fish throughout the year. An estimated 450,000 adult salmon ad steelhead migrate upstream every year.
Columbia River Dam 6-SEG,Host Sean Riley, cameraman Eric Cochran, and soundman David Ruddick poses on the barge in the John Day Dam navigation lock.
Columbia River Dam 6-SEG,With twenty gates and measuring 1,228 feet in length the John Day Dam spillway is a structure that provides controlled release of flows from the dam into a downstream area.
Cruise Ship Engine,The overhaul of the Thruster system.
Cruise Ship Engine,In order to get the ship above the water line, tanks along the garage's side will be filled with water.
Cruise Ship Engine,The shipyard is a maze of machines and people.
Giant Telescope 5-SEG,A support structure carries the massive 20 ton mirror.
Giant Telescope 5-SEG,A telescope opens its doors at sunset.
Giant Telescope 5-SEG,One of the four massive telescopes that make up the VLT.
Giant Wind Turbine 6-SEG,Host Sean Riley and Keith McLellan after attaching the nacelle to the wind turbine.
Giant Wind Turbine 6-SEG,Keith McLellan, Director, Operations of Northwind Solutions steps away from the project momentarily after the blades are attached to the nacelle.
Giant Wind Turbine 6-SEG,Boyd's Wind Grist Mill is just one example of harnessing the wind's power.
High Voltage Power Lines 5-SEG,Helicopter work on energized power lines.
High Voltage Power Lines 5-SEG,Sean Riley "bonding on" to 500,000 kv of power.
High Voltage Power Lines 5-SEG,Sean Riley ready to take off aboard helicopter.
Mississippi River Barge,Sean Riley explores the Mississippi River Mud that keeps commercial trade from flowing in Rosedale, Mississippi
Mississippi River Barge,The Pilot Boat heads out to meet the Radience of the Seas.
Mississippi River Barge,Sean Riley, gearing up to do what he does best: rigging.
Nuclear Turbine 5-SEG,They need to use a bar crane to lift from two points, called pick points.
Nuclear Turbine 5-SEG,The turbine turns a generator and that makes electricity.
Nuclear Turbine 5-SEG,When we install the new turbine, its position can't change.
Satellite Launch 6-SEG,The captain of the French Foreign Legion and his dog take a ride to the base at Regina
Satellite Launch 6-SEG,Host Sean Riley gives the okay signal to our interpreter with the French Foreign Legion.
Satellite Launch 6-SEG,Host Sean Riley stands before the launch pad.
Thirty-Eight Ton Engine 5-SEG,Bendy rope crew baskets, hauled by the Balder's heavy lift cranes, are the only way to transfer crew from one vessel to another.
Thirty-Eight Ton Engine 5-SEG,Standing in front of the inboard component of one of the seven thrusters onboard, Riley reviews thruster exchange technical diagrams with the DCV Balder's Chief Engineer, Rene.
Thirty-Eight Ton Engine 5-SEG,Trying not to get blown overboard in the near hurricane-force winds, Riley uses a wind meter to measure the 50+ knot wind speed.
A rupture in a jetliner's pressure dome. A nuclear power plant turbine that needs to be replaced. A cruise ship that needs another engine. Repairing live 500,000-volt lines from a platform mounted outside a helicopter. These fixes take much more than your average piece of duct tape. When big industry breaks down, the results can be costly and the fixes dangerous. It takes brave souls with steady hands to get them back up and running. And working alongside them is engineering enthusiast and adrenaline junkie Sean Riley.
World's Toughest Fixes takes you inside some of the most daunting repair jobs imaginable. Each one-hour episode follows Sean Riley as he pushes himself to the limit while working with some of the world's top mechanics, showing viewers how these challenging fixes are tackled.
A professional rigger with a passion for adventure, Riley isn't 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 takes viewers inside the marvels of large-scale industry — and he shows what happens when things don't go as planned.
On June 3rd, 2009 Sean Riley took a trip to the studios of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Sean brings Jimmy up into his world of rigging and shows him a thing or two. Watch the clip >>
BEHIND THE SCENES PHOTOSRehearsal for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
WE WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IT! World's Toughest Fixes is looking for the next toughest fix! If you've got a tough fix and need Sean Riley and the World's Toughest Fixes team to help, email your idea to fixes@ngs.org.
Sean Riley (known as "Riley" to his friends) is a master rigger, engineering enthusiast and set designer with an expertise in suspension and load transfer involving large masses and difficult access. Creating functional and architecturally sound installations, he has risen to the height of his field. He is the founder and principal rigging designer for Gravity Design Inc., a company based in San Francisco, California, that provides innovative rigging and force management solutions for a wide variety of clients all over the world ? from circus acts to industrial installations.
Riley is always hands-on (welding, constructing, wiring), and though he is no stranger to high-risk responsibility, he has a flawless safety record.
His passion for mechanics is matched only by his passion for extreme adventure. He loves to pull on a diving wetsuit, arc up a blowtorch or dangle from a height that would have most people going weak in the knees — just for fun. He drives heavy machinery, jumps off bridges, rock climbs and is a back-country solo survivalist.
Riley studied theater arts at University of California Santa Cruz and has taught college-level theatrical design.
Learn more about this part host, part worker, part daredevil: Watch Video >>
In order to accommodate a turbine replacement, the plant schedules a planned outage and shuts down one of the reactors and one of the cooling towers. Then the team, outfitted in radiation suits, moves in. Massive cranes are operated with surgical precision to remove an outer, then inner casing, and then the old (and contaminated) rotor. A brand-new rotor is delicately maneuvered in and interlocks with a casing that has matching rows of blades. When the turbine is restarted, it runs at 1,800 rpm (revolutions per minute) — and will for two straight years.
The Boeing 767 featured in this episode was backed into a heavy metal fence and a hole was ripped in its aft (back) pressure dome. To install a new pressure dome, the crew first unbolts and removes the vertical tail fin from the plane. Next, they disconnect every wire, cable and hydraulic hose as well as pull off the entire tail section. Now the exposed pressure dome can be removed and replaced with a new one. All wires, hoses and cables are then reconnected and the plane is safely put back together, ready for future flights.
Of all the work these linemen do, the most dangerous is the helicopter-based live line work. Some repair work simply can't be done from aerial bucket trucks or climbing the transmission towers? that's when they call in PSE&G's helicopter. One of the first things helicopter pilots are taught is to stay away from power lines. It's just not a good combination, but as crazy as it sounds, this is what these guys do every day. First, a custom platform will be mounted to the belly of a specialized helicopter. Linemen are harnessed onto the platform wearing a protective metal mesh suit and actually bond onto live lines. Then, they'll be able to touch the live 500,000-volt lines and make repairs? all while the helicopter blades are spinning several feet from the wires.
It takes an elaborate system of cranes and hydraulics to lift and transport the mirror and its housing, called the cell, which together weigh around 50 tons. First, the mirror and cell are moved onto a specialized carriage and placed onto a truck that travels an average of 3 mph on a mountain road to the cleaning facility. There, the bottom of the telescope mirror is cleaned of oil and dirt and the top is recoated with an extremely thin layer of aluminum in a vacuum chamber. Then the mirror is returned to the telescope in the observatory.
Divers go under The Balder and remove the worn-out thruster by unscrewing bolts and attaching cables so it can be lowered and then pulled out from under the hull. A giant crane lifts the old thruster out of the water and onto a waiting barge. Riggers then transfer the cables from that thruster to the new one. The crane drops the new thruster into the water and it is jockeyed into place, assisted by underwater divers, positioning it safely back inside the hull.
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Sean Riley Hangs Out With Jimmy
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The race is on to build and deconstruct, from islands to skyscrapers to consumer products. Who will triumph?Engineering FeatsHIGHLIGHTS:
