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Bell User Report

Calicopters Speeds Laying of Lead Line On California Job 

Reported by: O.J. Rogers
General Superintendent
Bechtel Corporation
Vernon, California

A POWERLINE erection job facing Bechtel Corporation of Vernon, Calif., in 1959 loomed as a contractor's nightmare. 

The project called for construction of a 220-kv single-circuit powerline for Southern California Edison Co. One section stretched for 22 miles, between Saugus and Mesa, north of Los Angeles. 

The area is so rugged that no surface vehicle can reach many points. Even pack animals and men afoot would be tested to their limits traversing it. 

Bechtel carefully plotted an assault on the tortured topography, then hired Calicopters, a helicopter charter firm operating 10 Bell 47 series ships. 

Calicopters, headquarters at Stockton, Calif., has a can-do reputation built in crop-dusting and spraying, forestry, powerline patrol, hauling building materials, flying executives and other missions from the Arctic to the Mexican border. 

The twenty-two mile section called for lead lines for two static lines and three conductors. That's 110 miles of line. The job would have required weeks by conventional means. 

Calicopters laid the lines in less than 11 hours' flight time. 

Veteran construction men shook their head in disbelief when the last line was in place and time was checked. The work was done with a Bell 47G-2 and a Calicopters-developed line-laying tray which fits under the ship and can carry 12,000 feet of 1/2-inch polyethylene or 5,000 feet of 1/2-inch manilla. 

The line is laid out smoothly as the helicopter flies between 45 and 60 miles per hour. It can be laid directly on the steel towers or on nearby ground as desired. 

Often on the Bechtel job linemen were high on the towers as the helicopter approached. Seconds after it passed workers had their hands on the line and were fixing iit in place.   

[[image]]
[[caption]]Calicopters' Bell 47G-2 is ready to lay lead line on a Southern California Edison Company powerline erected by Bechtel Corporation in mountains north of Low Angeles. [[/caption]]

[[image]]
[[caption]] Line is laid as the helicopter flies a route between Saugus and Mesa. Calicopters strung the equivalent of 110 miles' line in less than eleven hours' flight time. [[/caption]]

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