Transmission pole change-out, Darling Downs
Eleven concrete poles replaced across cropped paddocks without a single machine track through standing sorghum.
PA-2552 · Cambooya, Darling Downs · 2024-09-22
The constraint
Why this lift needed a helicopter
The easement crossed 4 km of irrigated cropping with landholder agreements limiting ground disturbance.
Wet-season subsoil could not carry a 60 t crane or a pole trailer.
Outage windows were capped at eight hours per feeder.
The lift
How it was flown
- Load weight
- 620 kg
- Aircraft
- AS350
- Line length
- 50 m
- Crew
- 8
- Exclusion zone
- 70 m
- Lift cycles
- 22
- Poles were staged in threes beside the highway and flown in sequence.
- Old poles were flown out to the same laydown for disposal, keeping the easement clear.
- Linesmen worked from elevated platforms only where road access already existed; all other structures were serviced from the air.
- Twenty-two cycles across one day inside two outage windows.
The numbers
Time, cost and disruption
- Helicopter time on site
- 6.4 hrs
- Flight time
- 4.1 hrs
- Crane alternative
- 9 days · $118,000 + crop compensation
- Road closures
- 0
On site
Photos
Also filed
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