Poles take to the air in Devon

They’re normally firmly rooted to the ground but electricity poles have been spotted flying through the air in the Devon countryside.

The unusual sight occurred outside the village of Whitestone, near Exeter, on a hill with sweeping views stretching from the Exe Estuary to Dartmoor.

Engineers were working there replacing ageing equipment to upgrade the network but faced a problem – how do you remove a two wooden poles, each weighing half a tonne, and a transformer that’s even heavier, from the side of a hill that’s too steep for vehicles?

The answer came from the skies in the form of one of our Airbus EC135 helicopters based at Bristol Airport.

After engineers had turned off the electricity supply and lowered 200 metres of overhead lines, they brought the 65-year-old poles to the ground using chainsaws.

One at a time, a line was secured to the fallen poles and the helicopter carefully lifted them to a track at the top of the hill where they were chopped up and removed by a lorry.

Exeter-based Technician Matt Orr, who oversaw the operation, said: “Getting the old poles out and the new ones in, as well as replacing a transformer, would have been a longer and more arduous operation with a greater environmental and financial impact without the helicopter.

“The helicopter team’s help and experience was invaluable in getting the new equipment into place in a more efficient manner than traditional methods, as well as reducing the amount of time that we had to work on the farmer’s land.

“It’s great to be able to call on this awesome capability that we have at NGED.”

We use helicopters every working day to help maintain our network that stretches for 90,000kms across the South West, South Wales and the Midlands. Crews undertake overhead line patrols to look for faults, manage vegetation growth and assist engineers working on the ground.