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Comment by kragen | Hacker News Reader

I couldn't help but burst out laughing when the voiceover dude explained, "The pilot and the lineman are both doing an outstanding job despite very high wind conditions." Who on earth decides that very high wind conditions are a good time to hover your helicopter connected to a 230,000-volt power line? Couldn't they postpone the job for a day or two until the winds die down?

The arc when the helicopter finally disconnects from the power line is pretty astounding. To the lineman, it's all in a day's work, I guess.

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It kind of looks like they are in a plains state somewhere. Having lived in the midwest nearly all my life, I can say with confidence that you are going to spend a lot of time waiting if you are waiting for a calm day.

They probably just make sure the wind isn't gusting too much.

Also probably the calm winds come when it's 5°F outside.

It's actually eastern Pennsylvania, the helicopter has a Pennsylvania Power and Light (PPL) logo on it. If you look carefully in the background you can see the Delaware Water Gap in the mountains.

Nevertheless, it's the same for the weather, Fall/Winter is gonna be windy enough you can't wait around for it.

Possibly not? The high resistance splices are producing heat and at some point I believe they fail, which could affect the whole grid.

When they get to 220C they are going to fail pretty quick.

At those kinds of temperatures, oxidation is much faster, and you'll get heating and cooling stresses causing micro fractures as the load on the line goes up and down.

As the resistance increases even a little, the temperature will increase more, making the above effects even worse.

> hover your helicopter connected to a 230,000-volt power line?

Not an issue when any electrical ground is at a far distance.

As another commenter noted the plain states are likely to have wind most all the time.

Also there will be more wind at 200 feet than at ground level

Two things: "very high wind conditions" is a rather relative term (and could e.g. mean "very high within the parameters that are still considered safe"), and we also don't know about the urgency of that job.

All in all, I wouldn't extrapolate too much from that little statement.

I also wish they ended the video with three or four middle-aged actors and actresses, in household settings, visibly demonstrating how much they enjoy consuming electricity, before turning to the camera and saying, “Thanks, Clampstar!”

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