Earthmovers & Excavators – October 2019

42 TradeEarthmovers.com.au

F

or Episode 8 of Mighty Machines I wanted

to up the ante, do something crazy. Or just

really stupid.

I had ideas – I mean I wanted some aerial action

and I also wanted to sneak some dirt bikes into

the show to try and claw back my reputation after

rolling a Polaris RZR Turbo in Episode 3.

My initial idea of going up in a fighter jet fell over

before it left the ground, due to a complete lack

of aviation experience on my part. But the dirt

bike idea was still kicking around...

The next best thing to flying a fighter jet, I

figured, was taking the controls of the heftiest bit

of earthmoving gear I could get my eager hands

on. A joystick’s a joystick, right?

Komatsu Australia came to the party, with a

number of solutions to my somewhat unrealistic

needs and wants.

They had some trick new equipment, with

futuristic semi-autonomous functionality that I

just had to try out for myself.

Due to my overwhelming lack of skill operating

serious machinery, the legends at Komatsu

thought it was also wise to send in a professional.

Well, a man famous for being professionally

craz y.

There was an added bonus to this, which was

the fact that I was scrambling to get somebody

famous on the show after I’d told the ‘powers

that be’ that we had a number of celebrity

appearances set for Season 1.

So, when X-Games gold medalist and Komatsu

ambassador, Jacko Strong, was put forward – it

was on.

LIFT OFF

The aim of the game here was to help Jacko build

a new specialised jump at his training facility, and

The jump we cut

was huge, featuring

a 46 degree take-

off angle.

Episode 8 of Mighty

Machines features

some heavy duty

earthmoving, with

Komatsu’s

Intelligent Machine

Control helping

Cobey Bartels dig

with the best

MIGHTY MACHINES

PAYS

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