Winco Powerline Services

Winco is a helicopter powerline company headquartered in Aurora, Oregon, south of Portland. It has more than 30 years of experience in helicopter assisted transmission line construction and maintenance across the United States, and it is part of Quanta Aviation Services, a unit of Quanta Services that it describes as having the largest private utility rotorcraft fleet in the world. It flies specialised MD 500 series helicopters.

Its history in aerial linework goes back to 1992, when its first linemen worked from a helicopter skid. Today it runs integrated aviation and line crews on transmission construction, including conductor installation, insulators, spacers and marker balls, and on maintenance, repair, replacement and upgrades of energised lines. Its techniques include human external cargo, skid and platform work, in which line workers are carried to or work directly from the helicopter.

One of its notable projects is Energy Gateway South, a 416 mile, 500 kilovolt transmission line from Medicine Bow, Wyoming, toward Provo, Utah, where it says it completed 413 miles of conductor installation and logged more than 6,400 flight hours.

Winco is a utility helicopter operator rather than a charter operator, so this profile is listed for reference.