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Friday, November 30, 2012

How do you maintain power lines? Helicopters.

I bought my first digital camera many years ago because I wanted to have something I could carry with me all the time and not worry about developing film. It was far enough back to where film cameras were still the default for ordinary people and their snapshots. In the years since then, I've gotten pictures of all kinds of weird things.

This particular example comes from a trip to the northeast. I was riding in a car along a rural highway and saw a helicopter coming perilously close to power lines. We slowed down and watched from a distance as it did tiny precision movements to align with the lines and picked up a person!

As we watched, they moved down the line and repeated the process to let the guy off. This latest time happened right above the car, and it seemed like the wrong place to be, so we got out of there, but not before I got this picture.

Helicopter used for power line maintenance

It's pictures like this which remind me that the best camera is the one you have with you when interesting stuff happens.