LLD is no clown. He has previously posted one of the best wire avoidance bits of advice that I have ever read.
Mt Barker was one of many towers involved in the digital roll out project and the lift was conducted by Hevi Lift. Also in the project was Brisbane, Townsville, Adelaide, Dandenongs, and Gore Hill (Syd). Left out of the project was Loxton in SA which was attempted by another company - and after many attempts the helicopter was kicked off the site and the tower was built by the traditional methods.
The project took us more than 12 months to plan and conduct. We used an Aircrane for Gore Hill and the Dandenongs with a specialist construction pilot flown out from the US (he flies from the rear facing seat). This was due to the fact that Hevi Lift had experienced a last minute change of plans from the Russians about using their Kamov in a long standing relationship with Hevi Lift: they demanded that their pilot fly the loads, not ours (Alan Dodds). Three weeks from the planned lift, it was a big and very brave call by Hevi Lift not to expose the lift to the risk of a new pilot, and instead to change aircraft and use the Aircrane (which was also overseen by Hevi Lift in those days).
To solve the problem of the subsequent towers when the Aircrane went onto the fire contract, Hevi Lift employed the NZ Mil8 to which you refer, and put the pilot through a couple of precision trials before the lift. Alan Dodds went on to manage the lift which was invaluable because he worked as a rigger leader building towers in NZ before he became one of the best long line pilots I have seen.
Neither the Mil 8, Kamov, nor the Aircrane are equipped with auto hover for this work - nor "auto kiwi"
. They are hand flown. The "secret" was that we employed speiclists to design and do the job right through to site plans, risk management and work method statements. We employed riggers with extensive helicopter experience and had Alan and Hermann Messerli (another speiclaist long line construction pilot) on staff. This systemic approach enabled the lifts to be designed for the job such as adding specialised pieces to the sections during their original construction, determining maximimum piece weights, ect, etc, etc - as I said a year long project.
During the lift, it was important that we had our speiclist rigger/loadmaster up the tower doing the radio comms with the construction pilot. Embarassingly his name escapes me this morning, but he was a key factor in the ability to do the job - not just the pilot. He was famous at Hevi Lift for remaining completely calm over the radio to the pilot during the extremely complex lift phases and he was also a very experienced tower construction rigger that had worked with Doddsy. Once, on a precision lift years beforehand when he got his fingers caught between the tower and load he calmly asked the pilot to "come up 5 please mate..." No histerics, cries, or even a detecable bit of raised voice or stress!
So the answer: Specialist team! Prep of the pieces well beforehand, prep and design the coupling mechanisms, throrough site prep, only lift in good wind/wx, dont be afaid to delay by a day (or say no), specilaist pilot, and above all, a speicialist rigger with exensive helicopter experience.
All towers were completed without a single missed lift or injury. The helicopter achieved five months of manual construction in every two days of lifting. The Mil8 really impressed: it flew from NZ to Brisbane, Townsville, Perth and Adelaide did all those tower lifts, then back to NZ with no missed days due to unserviceabilities.