It illustrates the history of aviation and depicts the struggles and triumphs of Graham Dorrington, an aeronautical engineer, who has designed and built a teardrop-shaped airship which he plans to fly over the forest canopies of Guyana.

It features music composed by Ernst Reijseger, which was re-used in Herzog's 2005 film The Wild Blue Yonder.

Most of the film focuses on Dorrington's flights near Kaieteur Falls, in Guyana.

Dorrington discusses the mechanics of his flight, as well as his own struggles with uncertainty and the "heaviness" he feels after the death of the cinematographer Dieter Plage.

The film also explores the Kaieteur Falls themselves, a local man named Marc Anthony Yhap, a diamond miner, and the white-tipped swifts (Aeronautes montivagus) which roost in an inaccessible cave behind the falls.