I jump out of planes and this gives me vertigo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N93FpcvWGTo

Worth watching full screen.

I have balls of steel and I'm not too sure about that last bit.

I'd do it. if the tower were lying on its side.

I can handle flying in a F-16 but to change the light bulb on a radio tower... no effing way.

Made me dizzy, sitting in my chair. Out of curiosity, how much does an average base jump parachute weigh, and couldn't they take one with them ?

Cheers

Nico

Parachute tends to be about 35 pounds with reserve. If they did that, I be they wouldn't have a reserve and it'd suck to burn in. We had a burn in the other day. It was a hard time for the unit.

As someone who does that for a living (although no where near that high), this guy is asking to get himself killed. It's also completely against OSHA regulations.

http://io9.com/5639113/the-scariest-video-you-have-ever-watched-in-the-name-of-science

http://natehome.com/2011/03/03/tower-association-responds-to-erroneous-and-dangerous-video/

I couldn't watch past the first few steps up the ladder.


Wheels

the tower association link is a bunch of BS nonsense.

people who work in high places rarely use fall protection gear. when i was young i worked as a roofer and NOBODY used their fall protection equipment except when the chance of falling was very high like on a rainy day - even then the older guys never used it.

tower workers are the same. fall protection gear gets in the way and in some cases could make injury more likely than if it had just not been used at all.

Interesting. Now where is the video that shows how he climbs down again? That should be at least twice as scary.

Jump out of a perfectly good airplane, 14k ft. high? Check.

Climb some tower to change a light bulb? Pass. Without a parachute? No way...

I thought I was going to throw up.

You doing trees or towers?

I do towers, in fact in getting ready to go to work and climb a 100' one this morning to change out an antenna. Lucky for me the highest I have to climb for work is around 150-170'.

Tower climbing gear has come a long way in regards to comfort. I agree its not the most comfortable stuff to wear and double hooking up a tower sucks, but its better than falling to your death.

One slip, or something you grab on to breaks and your dead. If you look at most deaths of tower climbers its because they didn't use their safety gear properly or at all.

Was posted here awhile back. There is no way in hell i'd go up that tower.

I change light bulbs and drive by these towers all the time. Even I would have a hard time doing this.

Though, I haven't gotten the night jump yet.

Ah yeah, no way.
I get nervous cleaning the flue on my Ranch House roof.
Gotta give that guy his 'propers'....he sure does earn his money.

Nope, no way.
Not for any amount of money.

We've been putting up small towers as a side job for the last two years. 60' to 90', depending on how high we need to go to clear the tree line.

I've worked with a lot of climbers, and done some myself but not at their level of expertise, and they tell me that once you clear about 100', it's all the same. Does that ring true with you?

That's pretty much how I feel. If you fall from 100' your going to be dead, even from 30' your going to be pretty messed up when you hit the ground.

The majority of the towers I have to service are in the 100' to 120' range, some free standing so guyed. The highest I've climbed so far is a 150' guyed tower.

This is a picture looking down from around 120' or so. Stupid dropbox makes it so I have to link to the image.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hvphigm5cadekvt/2012-09-04%2014.16.36.jpg

Funny how the view from the towers there and the towers here look the same.

You're using much nicer quality tower stock. I think in spring we're supposed to put up new style towers. Maybe they'll be more like yours, though I doub't we'll ever need to go beyond 90' or 100'.

We have ton's of those golden nugget towers like your on in that picture. Our highest is a 120' one. Not my favorite to climb. We've been moving to Trylon 100' Titan free standing towers.

A picture of one of our titan towers.



Just adding these two because of the beautiful view from one of our solar sites.

ever watch those video's of the kids in russia climbing all over these buildings and towers without anything to catch them. One young kid did fall to his death, but those guys are nuts and I get sick just watching.

Nice pics! That's some gorgeous terrain.

I've never heard the "golden nugget" expression before. But getting up to 120' with one of those things... yeah, I don't know. Installing the last few sections would be a bit scrotum condensing.

The worst part of putting the towers up is that sometimes we have to carry the entire assembly up the mountain. Not mountains like you have there, but respectable hills by anyone's standards. Eh tabarnac! The tower sections, all the hardware, rolls of guy wire, tools, chainsaws, gas, oil, lunch, water, and a lovely 20kg bag of crushed stone that goes under the base section. The worst took us about six-hours to mule the stuff up the hill... and then we had to put the tower up. My God.

The view from the top of one of our towers.

Vertigo is funny in the way it works. I did four photo shoots from helicopter skids with no issue, and yet I can't stand on 100' and look straight down.

Goalie, I suppose double-hooking means you climb the extend of your safety line, then hook the next one above you and clear the one below?

That's pretty much it. We use something like the following so we can maintain 100% tie off. http://www.haberkorn-textiles.at/uploads...alldaempfer.jpg

We are lucky in the fact we can access most of our sites via 4x4 truck and if not we usually use ATV's if we have a lot to pack in. Winter is a lot more challenging though. I think this year we've had to rent snowmobiles a dozen or so times.

Ah yes, I know that from my Firedepartment time - the wrapped up part will expand and dampen the fall into the harness.

This is the type of stuff that makes my stomach just go crazy!

The video picture is enough to make me queasy Top Gun.


Wheels

Yeah, jumping does seem easier than climbing towers like that. Of course, the fear with tower climbing is that you'll lose your grasp or footing. I haven't done much climbing like that, but I did get a little uneasy when hiking on Angel's landing at Zion and on the metal spire staircase at the very top of the Münster in Ulm, Germany. Child's play comparatively. I don't believe the public is allowed to climb the metal staircase on the munster anymore, though, or so I've heard. Perhaps a friendly Bavarian could set the record straight.

Reminds me of the bridge in Taviana.

Just realized that it is in Baden-Württemberg, not Bavaria. Pretty close to the border though. I guess that's why a Bavarian didn't bother.