IDGC Holding, which controls power transmission lines throughout Russia, and Russian Helicopters have agreed to cooperate to produce aircraft ideally suited to power line inspection and repair missions.

According to Nikolay Shvets, air patrol operations are becoming a more and more popular technique among electricity distribution grid companies: "IDGC Holding controls over two million kilometres of power transmission lines, which equals 51 times the length of the Equator, mostly located in difficult to access places.

"When technical breakdowns occur, traditional ground patrolling to find the damage could become an inexcusably long process," he says. "Improving situational awareness about the current state of the power grid is one of the key points in the policy of IDGC Holding."

Expanding helicopter usage will allow Russian power engineers not only to conduct aerial monitoring but also immediately send accident recovery teams to the points where power lines are disrupted. It also allows use of state-of-the-art technologies such as laser scanning for technological certification of power transmission lines.

Dmitry Petrov, director general of Russian Helicopters, is delighted: "The cooperation with IDGC is an important stage for us in fulfilling our strategic tasks to provide the Russian economy with modern helicopters. I'm sure that using Russian-produced and climate-specific helicopters will help IDGC to enhance power line monitoring effectiveness."

One candidate helicopter for power line inspection is the light multi-role Turbomeca Arrius 2G2-equipped Ka-226T.