Magnificent Men and Flying Machines

They say that it’s good to scare yourself every now and then, and I managed this spectacularly on Tuesday last week. A regular commercial client has a 40 year old building with concrete cladding, and it could be seen that some of them were deteriorating. A survey from close quarters was needed and, as the building is four storeys high and surrounded by plant, landscaping and car parking, the only solution was a cherry picker.

It’s all very well being told that the machine is perfectly safe, as well as wearing a five point harness that attached me to the basket, but it’s quite a different thing to actually get in one and fly over low lying things and up four storeys.

Frankly, the first half an hour was somewhat scary, but it is surprising how quickly one gets used to the conditions. By the time we got to the second elevation I was getting quite cocky…..until we got to the corner. As we slid sideways and I could see straight down the next elevation, I was reminded how high up we were and had a small wobble.

Soon recovered though, and managed to exceed the work programmed for the day, cutting the number of required visits down from four to two, with the resultant saving.