170' - thanks very much for the insight, that's extremely helpful. I'd be very happy for you to PM me contact details and I'll pass them to the company involved.
The loads are the turbine blades (45m long, 8-8.2 t) for a number of windfarms that are being built in remote areas in the UK, so are indivisible. The locations don't have road access (or very poor access), hence the operator is looking at options of getting the blades into place. The cost of building roads will not be cheap either, so it might be more cost-efficient to airlift the things in. The budget for the construction of a windfarm can run into tens/hundreds of millions of pounds, so if a helicopter operator sets a price and they have a monopoly on the heavylift capability, then so be it, the windfarm company will learn a lesson in the laws of supply and demand. Not my call - I've just been asked if I know of a company that could do it in Europe. Erickson has done it elsewhere in the world:
Forget serpentine roads. Air lift the turbines