Thine eyes do not deceive you.

If, in Bradford and Lewis Run next week, you swear you’re seeing a giant chainsaw suspended from a helicopter in the sky, you’re not wrong.

Penelec will trim trees along its power line running from the substation in Lewis Run to several substations in Bradford, with help from Aerial Solutions.

Work is scheduled to begin Tuesday and should take about four days, weather permitting. Windy or foggy conditions will ground the helicopter and saw, which consists of multiple 24-inch rotary blades powered by a motor suspended on a vertical boom. Videos of the saw in action are viewable on YouTube.

Sounding sort of like the stuff of nightmares, the aerial saw is typically deployed along power lines inaccessible to bucket trucks and other vehicles, and in environmentally sensitive areas.

“That perfectly describes the Lewis Run line that runs through a rugged, heavily forested rural area,” Penelec spokesperson Todd Meyers said. “This fast, safe and efficient method of trimming typically covers more area in a day than a ground crew might complete in a week.

“The saw also eliminates the risk of injury to workers using bucket trucks or climbing trees to cut limbs near high-voltage equipment.”

Meyers explained the saw cleanly cuts tree limbs 8 to 10 inches in diameter, which fall straight to the ground propelled by air blasts from the helicopter rotors. Ground crews move limbs that have fallen on roadways, yards, agricultural fields or streams into adjacent wooded areas.

Motorists may be flagged to stop if the helicopter saw is working nearby. Route 770 crosses beneath the Lewis Run line; flaggers will be in place to control traffic as needed.

Communicating with local airport personnel when operating within their air space, the helicopter pilot will maneuver the saw above and alongside power lines, and may circle around to perform additional trimming.

Meyers said, “The work is a key component of the vegetation management work we do to prevent trees or limbs from the edge of the right-of-way from contacting our wires and causing power outages.”

Given the area’s recent history of tree-related outages, the saw’s work along the sides of the 13-mile Lewis Run line originally scheduled for 2025 was moved up a year, Meyers said.

The upcoming work complements Penelec’s efforts completed in February to remove off-right-of-way trees endangering the Lewis Run line and several other lines in and around Bradford. Trees beyond the maintained right-of-way have contacted lines and caused a spate of outages for local Penelec customers recently.

Meyers said approximately 40 contracted tree trimmers worked for almost two months taking down roughly 1,400 dead, diseased or leaning trees that stood beyond Penelec’s right-of-way, yet posed a threat to equipment if they fell.

“Several winter windstorms this year that caused widespread power outages throughout Penelec’s service territory did not result in many outages in the Bradford area, which is largely fed by the Lewis Run power line,” Meyers said. “The forestry project cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and should make a real difference for our customers going forward.”