Powerline maintenance helicopters
Non pilot here.
Yesterday Discovery Channel (as best I recall) showed a program about powerline maintenance in the USA. This program included hair raising material showing the use of helicopters to convey maintenance technicians into place - actually working off the skids on lines at 500Kvolts. At some points the tail rotor appeared to be about a foot from the lines. The whole rig is attached to the live line by a cable during the maintenance after initial connection via a wildly arcing wand...
During the course of the program the crew being filmed were actually called to a site where a previous 2-man crew (pilot & technician) had just been killed in the course of the same work.
Next to bomb disposal, this takes my prize for br@55 b@ll5. Anyone here actually done it? And wouldn't it be better to use a helicopter with a shielded/enclosed tail rotor?
Phew, rispeck!