I suspect this line might be dead during the work - unlike a similar video from a while back where the operator would draw a quite impressive arc with the hand-held "wand" before making contact with the wires.
I've seem some similar work done on a line near me - they seemed to prefer attaching a kind of gondola arrangament to the wires themselves and move that along between pylons. Probably not quite as exciting as a helicopter ride, but maybe a bit more efficient once you're up (in this video he seemed to have to keep stopping work to get the pilot to adjust position) - and probably a lot safer for people on the ground too - a dropped spanner or nut from that height is going to hurt if it hits someone on the ground - only falling as far as the gondola floor would be much safer.
Helichoppers have many uses in the electrical field and ....... others. In the old British Aluminium smelter at Invergordon, NOSHEB periodically patrolled the transmission lines and the hub using thermal imaging; they also showed cracks in the 6 pot room chimneys, these were only about 4 years old at the time. This had to be kept quiet from the unions.
