I wish I had been there to see this mowing!

[Charlie175]

YouTube - Helicopter trimming trees

 

[Glowplug]

Cool video! I was beginning to think you guys were full of it with all this helicopter talk. Too bad the camera operator wasn't drunk and could hold the camera at least CLOSE to still. That looks to be freakishly dangerous but I guess they know what they're doing.

 

[Flatheadyoungin]

Yeah, I couldn't tell what was going on either but if you click on some of the ones on the side, it's clear.....pretty cool...

It would be a bad day to be sitting in a deer stand when that things came through...

Cool video! I was beginning to think you guys were full of it with all this helicopter talk. Too bad the camera operator wasn't drunk and could hold the camera at least CLOSE to still. That looks to be freakishly dangerous but I guess they know what they're doing.

 

[JoeinTX]

"It would be a bad day to be sitting in a deer stand when that things came through..."


Yeah, watching the thing work would make want to have a few hundred yards seperation from it........a gust of wind.....chopper driver sneazes.....it could get a little too close and there's not a lot of control over it.


To me, it looks like the umbilical tether is too long. I'm no helicopter pilot, but having it about 2/3s to a half as long as it is would give you much better vision of the terrain and control over the cutter.

I dunno....

 

[Charlie175]

Tall trees plus gotta clear the power lines. They mainly are used to trim the sides of the line so that the branches don't grow out into the lines, as you can tell they have a line of saws vertically. I did come across another video that showed the saw real well, I should have reposted that one.

 

[backdoor]

Have you guys heard about the people who repair the big power lines from a helicopter? Seems like in real remote areas the repairmen ride in on helicopters, which some way attach themselves to the line, even the hot lines, the repairman winches himself down to the line and does whatever he's there for while the helicopter hovers above him, then he winches back up and detaches the helicopter. If the repair takes a long time or there are several places to fix, the repairman attaches a small chair on some kind of roller assembly, lets the chopper go and he hangs there and rolls himself along on the lines to fix whatever. Then the chopper comes back and gets him from the line. I read about this in a magazine a few years ago. It is such a nerve racking job that the repairmen can only work like 8 hours a month. Sounds like a young man's job to me.

 

[N80]

I saw a special on that. As long as he and/or the chopper don't get grounded, they don't get electrocuted. But, they still feel the voltage or something like that, akin to static (clearly don't know what I'm talking about) but it is apparently extremely uncomfortable. To counteract this they wear some type of suit that dissipates it.

Its the same reason you never see birds sitting on high tension wires. It does not kill them, just makes them too uncomfortable to stay.

 

[Redbug]

Awesome dam you got there, George! I can tell you right now I would not want to operate any wheeled tractor at that angle. I think one of those mulchers on tracks would be ideal for an application like that.

I have also watched the helos trim limbs along powerlines. That's got to be up there in the most extreme type of jobs. I believe the helo that drops the workman off on the big powerlines has to ground itself to the wire before letting the workman off onto the line. Pretty interesting stuff.

 

[stimpee]

I spent a couple of summers in high school working outside maintenance at a local southern PA nuke plant. At the substations there were 500kV lines overhead. On a humid day, if you walked under them, you could feel your hair standing up. Also lots of buzzing and crackling coming from them on those days.

A bit unnerving, I cannot imagine being "attached" to one of them!

 

[amigauser]

YouTube - High Voltage Cable Inspection