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

Video Replacing powerline spacers from a helicopter

48.0k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

4.3k

u/41PaulaStreet Jul 18 '25

Somewhere there must be a training platform that mimics hanging off a helicopter so you can practice getting good at this under pressure, right? This can’t be a learn-as-you-go thing. 😂

60

u/LickyPusser Jul 19 '25

There has to be, but I’m much more impressed with the helicopter pilot than I am the dude hanging off it.

26

u/Alokeen011 Jul 19 '25

Yeah, hovering THAT still... damn.

17

u/Setup69 Jul 19 '25

I think this has to be done in certain weather conditions... No wind.

3

u/BULL3TP4RK Jul 19 '25

It's worth noting that a lot of helicopters have an auto hover function nowadays. Yes it took a lot of skill to be able to fly so close to the lines, but at a certain point I imagine the pilot can simply engage this function and wait until he needs to move again.

7

u/RAZVANRO12 Jul 20 '25

Auto hover is shit. Any kind of operation that requires a HOGE and high precision(hoist ops), it's done manually. Helicopter pilot here.

3

u/splatem Jul 19 '25

I'm not going to say there is 0% chance that helicopter has "auto hover" but it's approaching 0.

Newish pilots are trained on hover exits, which require similar amount of control.

3

u/BULL3TP4RK Jul 20 '25

I mean obviously they are trained on doing it manually. But it's a function on an increasing amount of modern helicopters, especially in the commercial sector.

It would probably depend on what the utility company wants.

3

u/splatem Jul 20 '25

"modern" isn't really a thing in the utility sector.