Bird's Eye View: Inspecting Infrastructure By Helicopter

As America's infrastructure ages, electric utilities are looking for ways to improve efficiency during inspections. By partnering with a helicopter contractor, they can obtain high-resolution imagery of their overhead poles and lines. In addition, they can detect issues such as corrosion and broken hardware before they lead to reliability issues. 

Bill Bolin, a pilot for Vista 1, shares some of the imagery that he captured while on aerial patrols. Bolin was one of the outdoor exhibitors at the 2019 ESMO, which was sponsored by IEEE PES and hosted by American Electric Power.