With recent power outages affecting thousands of FirstEnergy customers, the utility giant’s regularly-scheduled helicopter surveillance program comes along at just the right time.
Over the coming months, low-flying helicopters will be conducting infrared and ultraviolet inspections of power lines, poles, and transformers to identify overheated equipment that might indicate a problem. They will cover a total of 2,200 miles of lines in Pennsylvania and have already completed about fifty percent of the job. They are also inspecting equipment in Ohio, West Virginia, New Jersey, and Maryland, totaling about 5,000 miles altogether.
FirstEnergy does the inspections every four years. The helicopters are not only low-flying, they are slow-flying, going only about 25 to 35 miles per hour.
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