Pilot operates Aerial Saw, helicopter simultaneously
This is one helicopter that really is a chopper.
Dangling 90 feet below this McDonnell Douglas 500's whirling rotor blades, attached to it by a flexible metal pipe, is a caged engine driving 11 whirring rotary blades, a giant flying tree trimmer. They call it the Aerial Saw.
It's a weapon of mass destruction in the battle against trees that encroach on power lines, pipelines, railroads and other rights of way. Right now, two such saws are working along Allegheny Power transmission lines in Westmoreland County and West Virginia, each chopping in one hour what it would take ground crews a day or more to clear.
SSSSSHHHHZING! The saw's 2-foot-diameter blades shave off 22-foot-deep slices of the tree line's edge as if it's broccoli, the first pass shearing off the tops, the second reaching almost to the ground.
Pilot Jeff Pigott trims the tree line along power lines in Greensburg with the Aerial Saw
Alone inside the helicopter's bubble, the pilot sticks his helmeted head out the window as he flies the craft and operates the saw, which he must very carefully lift over the 138 kilovolt lines: Just touching one would fry the whole contraption.
As dangerous as it looks, the saw, he said, is safe in the hands of the company's highly trained pilots, who can start and stop the blades and, if need be, immediately detach the entire 750-pound saw from the helicopter. Some pilots are so precise they can cut boundary-marking ribbons in two. "It's pretty intense."
The chopper pauses every hour to refuel and to give the pilot a break. Watching the saw land is as amazing as watching it work. The pilot buzzed in low over the trees and planted the tip of the saw at the marker, then quickly dropped the chopper backward to the ground, laying the saw out in front.
The job of flying lumberjack is an adrenaline buzz, pilot Jeff Pigott said. "I have a blast," said the lanky Pigott, 40, who lives in Gettysburg, Adams County. But running the saw and the helicopter at the same time isn't as harrowing as it looks, he said.
"You have to learn to not fly the helicopter," but, rather, focus on the saw. Understand if he doesn't always wave back to the kids who wave at him. "It usually draws a crowd," he said with a "Top Gun" grin.
