Chinese Company Puts a Flame Thrower on a Drone and It’s Just Beautiful

A power company in China uses a radical technique in removing hard-to-reach trash that somehow gets stuck on high-voltage power lines.

Instead of sending workers atop a hydraulic crane, utility workers in Xiangyang, Hubei province, have devised a drone armed with what is very obviously a bad ass flame thrower, People’s Daily reports (via Shanghaiist).

Kites, lanterns or plastic bags carried by the wind would sometimes end up on power lines, possibly causing power outages, so taking them out is necessary.

Normally, it would take at least three hours to do it manually, with laborers dangerously reaching the debris using an insulating rod while atop a cherry-picker or climbing the pole.

In an impressive demonstration video, workers are seen maneuvering the remote controlled UAV. As it reached the trash, the drone blew an intense amount of fire to burn it. Since the power lines are composed of aluminum-conductor-steel-reinforced cables without any plastic wrapping, they don’t get burned by the fire.

The short clip, which has since gone viral on Chinese social media, shows the fire-breathing drone effectively burning the garbage in seconds.

“With a drone, we don’t need to climb the pole,” a power supply worker said. “It’s also more efficient.”

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