The IEEE Spectrum magazine had an article with some pictures a few years ago about this work and high voltage lines in the American west. Aahne mentioned the helicopter's capacitance. It may be low, with respect to Earth, since it is up high. Still, it looked like a lot of charge was being transferred at the hook up. One thing interesting to me was the arcing when the copter came back to pick him up. Looks like a lot of the charge on the 'chopper' was dissipated while it apparently flew around to the point where it picked up the lineman, since some big sparks flew when it hooked up again. Maybe when it gets back to base, it's safe to just step off. But I would still want someone with a voltmeter to come out and check before I got off. Louis Hart Technology Transfer Specialist National Technology Transfer Center 316 Washington Av Wheeling, WV 26003 304-243-2553 [log in to unmask] --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 15.0 To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 -----------------------------------------------------