When his helicopters are hovering hundreds of feet above the ground, perched just inches from high-voltage power lines, Southern California Edison senior aircraft technician Donald Southworth is reminded there’s no room for error.

Southworth has spent the past 50 years dedicating his life to meticulously maintaining the safety of SCE helicopters and those who occupy them. The aircraft are used to transport crews and equipment between transmission line towers and to complete air inspections of power lines extending across SCE’s service area. They’re especially useful for replacing poles in hard-to-reach locations.

SCE’s Air Operations unit was founded in 1959, the first among electric utilities. Southworth has spent thousands of hours painstakingly inspecting each helicopter.

“These aircraft are like my girlfriends. I spend so much time with them my wife is jealous,” he laughed.

The love affair began when Southworth, now 77 years old, was drafted into the U.S. Army. While serving in Vietnam, he trained on choppers, but it was far from love at first sight. He describes his first time in the air as “damn scary.”

“It got louder and louder, rolling down the runway on the nose gear. When it got into the air, I looked around wondering, ‘Am I going to survive this?’” Southworth recalled. “You could tell all the other military guys in there were trying to figure out if it was fun or scary.”

The fear and uncertainty didn’t last, thanks partly to safety improvements over the years, and Southworth soon found himself on a flight path that would land at SCE.

“We’ve come so far with the technology of these things and the maintenance; we don’t have the same issues we used to,” he said.

Southworth has watched as the dated choppers from his early years evolved into the sleek and secure aircraft SCE crews operate daily to safely transport electrical equipment and delicately carry lineworkers as they dangle in the air, flying from project to project.

“We’re now into the Bell 429s that are right up to speed, and we fly people underneath them. We pick them up on a longline, sit them up on a tower and take them from tower to tower. It’s a very reliable aircraft,” said Southworth.

With lives literally hanging in the balance, Southworth’s team focuses on precision by conducting routine maintenance checks. After every 100 hours of flight, they dive even deeper, breaking the machine down piece by piece, actively looking for any problems. They rely on each other to check, recheck and then check it all again.

“We work as a family,” Southworth said. “When people I know are on it or underneath it, we want to know it’s as safe as possible when it goes out. We don’t want to have any doubts.”

After half a century of upholding a premiere safety threshold, he’s ready to hand that responsibility on to the next generation.

“It’s going to be hard on me to face that music, but I see the younger guys coming in and see how capable they are. It’s time for me to hang up my hat,” Southworth said.

His next stop is retirement.

“My wife and motorhome are waiting for me.”