Nothing to it

[gtractorfan]

.. if you have nerves of steel. This was yesterday at the neighbor's/

 

[4wdtom]

Nerves of steel---or experience from many hundreds of hours. Still would probably be frowned on by the powers that be.

 

[tomturkey]

Seems you hear of one going down about once a year some where in the midwest. Usually a power line is involved orso it seems. gobble

 

[Gambles]

Two things come to mind here when I see your photos:

When I was a kid of about high school age, there were military jets that flew over our area REALLY low on a regular basis. Were they training new pilots or just staying off radar? Nobody really knew, except that if you were out in the field on an open cabbed tractor it would scare the bejebers out of you when they flew over. We also had the sprayer bi-planes that would fly down to spray fields that had trees on both sides. They would fly down over the field and then come up out of the field at a steep angle. We often wondered when a jet would hit these sprayer planes, but it never happened.

Second, late last year, they were working on some local power lines with a small gondola underneath a helicopter. They had one or two people per gondola and had these guys working on the lines while the helicopter would hover above them. They would then fly them off to an area a couple of miles away to pick up more supplies. These guys had nerves of steel....and probably a good life insurance policy.

 

[Steven-Id]

I can remember as a kid watching a crop duster spraying our potatoes. He was not going under the transmission lines but he was going under the distribution lines. They are only about 25-30 feet high around here but,he also had to clear a fence that was about 4.5' high. This guy was crazy when he sprayed. As I watched him there were a couple of passes where he was so low that the landing gear was taking off potato vines.
One time this crop duster was spraying and a line broke and sprayed chemical in the cockpit. He landed the plane in a pasture that was only about 300' long between cottonwood trees, he bailed out and dove into the canal to get the chemicals off of himself. He spent the next 2 days cleaning and repairing the airplane. He then had to take down enough fence to get the plane out onto the road and taxi about a half a mile to get to a stretch of road without any power poles by it so he could take off.
As I understand it later in life he was caught hauling drugs in from Mexico.

Steven

 

[gtractorfan]

Similarly to what you said there was a maintenance helicopter with a platform out front that hovered by these lines while a guy sat on the platform working on the lines. Also have seen a video of a worker getting off a helicopter and crawling on the lines.

 

[Wheat47]

In the early 60's while still at home, I would be summer fallowing with a WD-9
and a B-52 from the Glasgow Mt AFB would fly over at low altitude.
As you said scared the heck out of you!! I swear you could count the rivets
on the belly and wave at the pilots!!

 

[1970-1655]

Are you somewhere in Texas? We flew T-37 and T-38 training pilots. Had 2 instructors that loved to fly UNDER a bridge in the Houston ship channel. Also there was a small shack way out from anyone else and looked abandoned. These same instructors would make practice runs down to just a few feet above that house, until a little old lady came out with a shotgun and started firing. These 2 would not tell their student what to expect until she came out. Surprise! Couple of times a plane came in with a few dimples from her.

 

[old-9]

My father( WWII tail gunner B-24) became a pilot after the war.One of his pilot friends claimed, while training in California ,all the pilots were instructed NOT to Fly under a special bridge. If caught would be shipped to Pacific front. So as not to miss a chance to fight, instead of flying under, he looped the bridge. He survived the war ,got to fight. joe

 

[4520BW]

A good 20 +years ago I was spraying with on open station tractor and I heard what sounded like a ww2 movie. Looked up and there was several old prop planes all painted up flying g real low over me. Tge local airport that was once a army air base( the Tuskegee air men trained here) had a fly in. I can so remember the the jets flying out of camp Atterbury and scaring the crap out of me taking hay.

 

[BarnyardEngineering]

(quoted from post at 06:06:51 05/23/20) Nerves of steel---or experience from many hundreds of hours. Still would probably be frowned on by the powers that be.

Where do you get hundreds of hours of experience doing THAT?

 

[550Doug]

(quoted from post at 13:39:02 05/23/20) In the early 60's while still at home, I would be summer fallowing with a WD-9
and a B-52 from the Glasgow Mt AFB would fly over at low altitude.
As you said scared the heck out of you!! I swear you could count the rivets
on the belly and wave at the pilots!!

Here's a classic photo from 1962 I think.