Overhead utility wires pose a significant safety hazard to low-altitude aviation. Of the fatal ag aviation accidents over the past decade, nearly a quarter were caused by striking a wire. NAAA and NAAREF have expended great effort on education and outreach for wire strike avoidance, and they continue to reach a broader audience each year. Far less progress has been made on physically marking difficult wires to increase their conspicuity. The reason for this lies mainly in the disparate and disjointed US utility network, wherein there are thousands of individual utility companies. While wire strike accidents are significant at a national level (not only from low-altitude aviation, but more commonly from construction/farm equipment), the individual hyper-local utility company may not clearly see the investment potential in wire marking.
In an effort to educate local utility companies and/or municipalities on the advantages of wire marking, NAAA provides a short powerpoint with video, which can be customized and used by Operators, affecting change at the local level. This presentation highlights use of the ROTAMARKA™ rotating wire marker, which is distributed in the US through Sicame USA.