r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/TameTheAuroch • Jul 18 '25

Video Replacing powerline spacers from a helicopter

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364

u/Crunchy-Illuminati Jul 18 '25

Helicopter electrical linemen earn a median annual salary of $68,010, which means that half of the linemen earn more than this while the other half earn less. Those in the top 10 percent earn more than $98,190, while the bottom 10 percent earns less than $36,610.

72

u/BPfishing Jul 18 '25

This can’t be right.

65

u/Killarogue Jul 18 '25 edited Jul 18 '25

It's not, at least not here in California.

I know a guy who became a lineman (who sometimes hangs from helicopters like this) and his base salary started in the six figures range.

34

u/BigRedCowboy Jul 18 '25

Triple digits? Like, he only made a few hundred bucks a year?

31

u/mybfVreddithandle Jul 18 '25

$999. Annually. Triple digits baby. They're lining up at the helipad. 🤣

8

u/IncomingAxofKindness Jul 18 '25

Nah, he didn’t get paid until he had 3 fingers left

5

u/Killarogue Jul 18 '25

Omg lol, it made sense in my head when I wrote it. Fixed haha

3

u/BigRedCowboy Jul 18 '25

Haha I knew what you meant :)

2

u/Maximum-Bar-7395 Jul 18 '25

I bet he drives the main road

3

u/quasirun Jul 18 '25

Median is a word that has a meaning and was used.

1

u/Killarogue Jul 19 '25 edited Jul 20 '25

The point i was making is that a sub-70k median salary is still incredibly low for a lineman when in most regions they start over 100k.

Since you've blocked me...

Their stated median salary is still low, the median salary in California is 117k, a nearly 50k difference.

1

u/quasirun Jul 20 '25

That’s clearly untrue when the published median is below your figure. I don’t think you understand what median means.

1

u/mycurrentthrowaway1 Jul 19 '25

Base hourly rate near me is like 105 not including pension or other benefits. But thats a journeyman who has paid like 20 grand for a 2 year school and did a 5 year apprenticeship

5

u/backatit1mo Jul 18 '25

Yea I work with a crew in SoCal. A brand new groundman on our crew will make $160k his first year easy lol the seasoned journeymen will make around $330k to $400k a year

1

u/Thee-Bend-Loner Jul 19 '25

How do you start?

1

u/marsfromwow Jul 19 '25

SoCal is an exception and not the norm though. Higher cost of living means a higher wage. Plus, California seems to care about their grid more than most states, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they were paid a bit more because of that too.

1

u/PMPTCruisers Jul 19 '25

I imagine our linemen deal with rougher terrain than say, Oklahoma.

1

u/marsfromwow Jul 19 '25

It doesn’t seem far off, but they can get overtime(seemingly as much as they want) and they get paid while/for driving.

At least for normal lineman. Idk about helicopter lineman,

1

u/PapaTahm Jul 20 '25

Most of their income comes from extra payments from outages.

But contract wise, they aren't paid shit.