Given this unique ability, helicopters can do things no other airborne vehicle can - rescue missions and drug interdictions, for instance. The newest IMAX film, Straight Up: Helicopters in Action, released in late September, explores the remarkable "ups and downs" that distinguish the helicopter from other airborne vehicles, and it does a memorable job.

Narrated by Martin Sheen and filmed during 18 months in Europe, Africa, and North America, Straight Up dazzles the viewer with scenes of the vital yet often unsung role that helicopters play in an ever-turbulent world. Bruce Springsteen recorded and donated the closing music.

IMAX director David Douglas filming scenes aboard a Customs go-fast boat.

The movie features a five-minute segment of a U.S. Customs Black Hawk conducting an air-sea drug interdiction - not bad for a forty-minute film. Customs was the first agency to sign on for the film, and its Black Hawk segment was the first portion filmed, using cameras mounted on the front of a Customs go-fast boat and on the front of a Black Hawk.

Straight Up opens with a Swiss rescue operation of a skier facing certain death in an avalanche. Other segments show a food-delivery mission in war-torn Sierra Leone; a relocation mission of black rhinos, an endangered species, in South Africa; a dangerous repair of a high-tension power line; a Marine Corps reconnaissance mission; and an air-sea Coast Guard rescue.

Customs Black Hawk helicopter swoops down in Straight Up.

The film is great entertainment, to be sure, but it's also a good recruiting tool: it includes a companion education package aimed at junior and senior high-school students. Pilots explain why they chose their profession and what kinds of skills helicopter pilots require beyond the obvious ability to pilot a plane. The education segment features Customs pilot Kimberly Kessel, one of only two female pilots in the agency. Kessel, who pilots both the Black Hawk and a Citation jet, talks about the requisite law enforcement background, the rigorous training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Academy, and about related skills and interests that go into effective piloting for law enforcement agencies.

Straight Up: Helicopters in Action is the fourth IMAX production by Oscar-nominated IMAX director David Douglas. And it's showing now at an IMAX theatre near you.