Wire detection
To all
I have spent a few years patrolling wires; mainly 11Kv (single wooden pole) and I have a healthy respect for them.
Occasionally these wires ran underneath major grid wires and necessitated the need to fly (hover taxi) under them, it was not always possible to cross near the pylons, which would have given you something to focus on however I found that if you draw an imaginary line on the ground joining up both pylons that support the section that you intend to pass under this gives better situational awareness than trying to judge the distance to the wire itself, however this only works well when the pylon run is easily defined and is not much help when operating around power stations where ultimately all patrols end up
My heart sinks every time I hear that some poor sod has become wrapped up in wires. Whilst most of these can be easily avoided by good airmanship, but there are those that can catch out the very best of us, and in this age of information technology it is not beyond imagination that a system can be devised to protect the unwary or the unlucky. I have had some thought on the matter and would like to here the response on the following from all concerned.
Most if not all poles (wooden to pylon) have an identity number. If the GPS position and height AMSL is known then a database could be compiled and software written to integrate with existing GPS types to warn the pilot when in the vicinity (and height banding) of known wires. It would also be possible to display the info in a similar format to TCAS as your track; velocity and height are known (GPS). Maybe even resolution advisories given to facilitate timely avoidance.
I appreciate the fact that only known wires would trigger an alarm but here in the UK we don't have many logging wires strung across valleys,
well none that I’ve seen!!!!.
Maybe a system combining the RADAR, EMF sensing, IR and GPS database detection would provide a second line of defense that maybe saves lives.