What are "bullets" on high voltage pylons for?

Hello.
Why are there balls above the HV lines? Sorry for the poor quality photo, but back then I had a 1.2MPx toy

So that the lines can be seen from helicopters

greg789 wrote:

So that the lines can be seen from helicopters

I didn't think the explanation was that simple.
Tell me more, why are the pieces, where are the balls and where aren't they?

Because they are not needed everywhere. Most often they are near landing sites, hospitals or emergency centers where helicopters can fly low.

They are installed near landing sites or airports.

It also seems to me that I saw something similar over the water canals in Masuria.

You have seen, yacht masts are made of aluminum alloys, they reach a dozen meters (depending on the size of the vessel), they are supposed to warn against power lines. There are also navigation signs placed on the land, informing about the height of the line above the water level.

alikatek wrote:

I didn't think the explanation was that simple.
Tell me more, why are the pieces, where are the balls and where aren't they?

This is known professionally as obstruction markings. I also apply to bird migration routes.

Abroad, they are often seen along the highways. What is their purpose there?

Kpc21 wrote:

Abroad, they are often seen along the highways. What is their purpose there?

The same - so that the rescue helicopter efficiently reaches the victims of the accident and delivers them to the hospital, and not hitting the line, it increased the size of the incident.

And I always thought that these spheres were used to change the resonant frequency of cables, e.g. when swinging them by the wind.
Slow helicopters or paragliders, on the other hand, okay, but a fighter or assault pilot, what time is there to act from the moment the bullet is noticed to the time to react, like taking a mowing flight?

And why should it do it in areas other than a military unit (where such obstacles should rather not be present) during peace?

Because in the event of a war, the possible breakage of high-voltage cables is not a problem for the attacking state, on the contrary, it is even in its interest. One wonders how much they could possibly damage the plane - thick and heavy wires, after all. The fact that they are energized seems to be the least of the problem - lightning strikes a lot and is not a threat. The current may aggravate the scale of damage caused by mechanical damage to the cables - but if the crash could have been caused by any birch, then not only by heavy cables ... But military planes are probably more resistant to various types of mechanical damage.

A flight mowing 30m above the ground is only near airports or in American movies. We have such marking on the supply lines to the transformer station, which are located at the approach to the landing field.

Oprysk Stonki wrote:

fighter or attack aircraft pilot, what time to act from the moment the bullet is sighted to the time to react, like taking a mower in flight?

Certainly bigger than in the absence of these balls ...

zbich70 wrote:

Certainly bigger than in the absence of these balls ...

You know, even the Su-22 in ground flight reaches a greater speed than a centipede on the highway. Take the plane's sluggishness at the controls and the pilot's reaction time ...

The question of what "caliber" the plane was.

You can see that the wires were intact, he didn't even break them.

And the line is not even high, but medium voltage. In Poland, these usually operate under a voltage of 15 kV.

You can't see what happened to the plane itself. Some part (a piece of the wing?) Fell off, but the plane, before it "landed" of course, looks like it was essentially intact.

Apart from the "fireworks" - the effect is probably the same as with the birch tree.

Kpc21 wrote:

You can see that the wires were intact, he did not even break them.

.

You know, a cable car crash in the Dolomites .....

Link
How is a small plane and strong cables.

http://geociekawostki.blogspot.com/2014/05/amerykanski-samolot-vs-woska-kolejka.html

There, the plane cut the line and escaped unscathed. So, probably, in the case of a military plane, it would end up breaking the line. From the electrical side - which was not the case in the Dolomites - I also can't see what could happen if the outer shell of the plane is resistant to this type of mechanical damage.

ladamaniac wrote:

Link
How is a small plane and strong cables.

The one in this link is a big plane compared to the first movie where the toy played the main role.

Airplanes, not only military ones, are great at dealing with electrical discharges. So much so that planes don't even mind a direct hit by lightning.

But the steel rope in the road is something else.
Overhead cables have a steel bearing core. And this is a direct threat to the airframe structure.

And how many cases in the last 10 years, say, have gone down, no matter what, "in the wire" because of the pilot's inattention? Because I can see high poles, there will be wires as well.

It doesn't look so great from the air, it is visible against the sky, but if you have mountains or industrial in the background, you can't see that well. A radar does well in large aircrafts with high-voltage cables.