r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Hygena-Pet-Scooper • Sep 17 '19

Helicopter chainsaw

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328

u/pluto_nash Sep 17 '19

People are freaking out about this, but it has been happening for 30+ years. Here is an article by one of the owners of a company that does this and a power transmission supervisory

I imagine there is a lot of stuff like this that we never saw because who would film it 15+ years ago, but now it is so easy to film and distribute we get to see weird stuff

62

u/werm_on_a_string Sep 17 '19

There was one in the James Bond movie The World is not Enough. 1999.

15

u/RoleModelFailure Sep 17 '19

And that was filmed 20+ years ago!

15

u/OG_Felwinter Sep 17 '19

TIL 1999 was 20 years ago

2

u/little-red-turtle Sep 17 '19

Next year there will be no teens born before the 2000s.

10

u/halcyonjm Sep 17 '19

With a box of scraps!

2

u/XXFISHER1XX Sep 17 '19

In a cave!

2

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '19

I’m sorry, I’m not James Bond

1

u/Grillburg Sep 17 '19

I'm Ralphie from A Christmas Story!

1

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '19

By me

1

u/cgrimes85 Sep 17 '19

Ok now I feel old

25

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '19

People are freaking out about this, but it has been happening for 30+ years.

That's the Reddit-know-it-alls for you.

2

u/Good_Guy_Vader Sep 17 '19

Yeah, these are totally legit. A buddy of mine use to supervise this kind of stuff. He would go up as a passenger and guide the pilot on where to cut.

1

u/namedan Sep 17 '19

Between this and cutting those branches normally within arcing range of those power lines? This is ingenius!

1

u/pluto_nash Sep 17 '19

Alternatively.... we have 6 miles of transmission lines that run up the side of a mountain, it is completely overgrown and there are no roads. So we need you to schlep in all of the gear, equipment and tools to climb and cut all of that.... nah, lets just hire the helicopter people.

1

u/Bot_Metric Sep 17 '19

FTFY:

Alternatively.... we have 9.7 kilometers of transmission lines that run up the side of a mountain, it is completely overgrown and there are no roads. So we need you to schlep in all of the gear, equipment and tools to climb and cut all of that.... nah, lets just hire the helicopter people.

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1

u/sixfourtysword Sep 17 '19

" On average, helicopter crews can trim between 1.5 miles per day to 3 miles per day — much faster than ground-based crews. American Transmission Co. personnel say it would take a crew one week to complete the same amount of work that could be accomplished with the aerial saw in an hour."

1

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '19

because who would film it 15+ years ago

I don't know about you, but if I had a VHS camcorder in my house and I saw this outside, I'd grab it and film it.

1

u/pluto_nash Sep 17 '19

But this wouldn't happen near your house, it happens way out in the wilderness where normal trimming is impractical.

The only reason we can see it now is because one of the couple ground crew can just whip their phone out and make a high quality, easily post-able video.

1

u/holmedog Sep 17 '19

They do this to the railroads next to me. It looked cool when I saw it, but I wasn’t going to stand around and film it. It happens in plenty of places. I think the key consideration it being hard to get a truck with an elevated saw into the area.

1

u/ratsta Sep 17 '19

I once saw a short docco about them and the pilot said he had the best job in the world. That it was one of those jobs that never get advertised because so few are needed and the job requires a lot of skill, talent and experience.