Erickson Sky Crane

Dang! Mine must be here Monday!
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Wow! tree eating monster. Those climbers were cruz'in, all of us would if we were going to be filmed. When that copter comes in, its like a monster enters the woods - Trees blowing everywhere unreal. talk about holding wood Not! much! . . . but enough I guess -- crazy stuff - You the man Gerry! /forum/images/graemlins/applaudit.gif /forum/images/graemlins/beerchug.gif
 
Got mine. Thanks Jerry!

My thoughts on this logging and questions:

Many of you made comments about the climbers were stripping the trees super fast, at the risk of sounding full of myself, seems like normal speed to me for a decent climber.

One problem I had was the part on swinging from one stripped tree to the next one to do. I do it and I'm sure we all do this from time to time on certain situations. Now the example they showed was way too time consuming, much faster to continue down to the ground and spike up the next tree. Now, the second time I watched it, I did hear a guy say, "now in this situation, this one would have been faster to go to the ground and start over". I guess they just had him do it for the video. Any swing over needing to use the grapple hook and then pull yourself all through that mess of branches seems stupid to me. Then the climber left his climbing line on the standing pole while he stripped the new tree. That didn't seem smart either, what for, so you can have stripped limbs bouncing off of the draped line? If you are going to swing to another tree to get a head start, it should be close enough so that you should be able to do it by pushing off and should start near the bottom of where the limbs start and you better have about 50 foot of tree below you to make it worthwhile. What did you think about the distance he was pulling himself over to the tree? I haven't used a grapple like his, but I would think there would be some times it would slip off. Man, he would have slammed that other trunk hard.

I don't think I'd like to be standing around with all those trunks standing on that little bit of holding wood. Maybe they skip around and the next tree they work on is out of range from the first tree. Did you see that one snap off as the heli-grapple bounced it, the grapple closed up in time before it fell away though.

I like the idea of stripping them while standing, beats doing it on the ground with all the underside limbs crushed underneith.

Why take them to such a small diameter, they using the small diameter stuff for pulp wood?

What about all that knotty stuff. The butts are clear, but half of the tree is very knotty. What are they doing with that? that pulp wood too?

Nice that there is no erosion problems with no-skidding logging like this.

That stand of timber; the trees seemed few and far between, or had they already cut a lot. I don't think so cause they seemed quite limby. Those were white pines right?

Just my thoughts.
 
MB, are you sure?, there is an extra long pause with the helicopter carrying a log, after that, it starts playing again.
 
Yea, and repeats. Over and over.

It's cool, Jerry's already got another copy coming to me.
 
Hi, Dave

You ask some good questions there, many that I wondered about too.

First of all that logging job was a demonstration that Erickson put on for Serria Pacific. I assume in hopes of future contracts with SP using the standing stem method in remote access areas. I have another disk that shows a real job in B.C. where 5,000 stems were harvested this way. The Erickson rep said standing stem was 15% of their logging up there. I heard scuttle-butt that they have 5 climbers working. Now, I haven't heard any numbers but I believe the pay would be decent enough for a young man to venture out and give it a try. Certainly would be exciting.

The traversing? We do it a lot here, the conifers grow thick enough. As you mentione, it's a toss up sometimes whether it actually saves any time, or effort. But I like doing it sometimes even if it doesn't. Have any of you ever seen that grapple that one climber was using. It looks kind of familiar. Most of the time I set a line in the objective tree using the boomerrang shot, very secure that way, but sometimes I use a hook or jam-knot. Banged off a few trunks before doing it that way too. one time was lucky not to be impaled. Back when I was young and dumb.

There must be some order in the way they cut the stems prior to the chopper coming in. And yes, I seen that one stem that got knocked down by the grapple and caught just in time. I wouldn't want to be any where around there when that chopper comes in.

One thing for sure about it, it is easier on the standing timber and reproduction. Though I wonder if it would really be cost effective down here. Fir prices are about $400 camp run right now. In Canada the stumppage is pretty cheap. Kevin might know about that. The trees in the Demo DVD are Sugar pine. 5 needle bundles and sure enough a member of the White pine family.

What you metioned about the climber leaving his line in the other tree caught my attention too. Myself, I'd pulled it out and coiled it up. One time had a small top catch my climbline draping like that. It come off the stup, pulled me around, slide down the line and slamed me hard between it and the trunk. That was the wrong thing to do!

If anybody is interested to learn more here's Erickson's contact numbers: Tel. 541-664-5544 Fax 541-664-9469 www.ericksonaircane.com

Jerry B
 
Xman, got the same good feeling that the woods weren't being skidded up, and all the other colateral damage associated with flop'em logging. Pretty exciting video .. . were I a young man I'd sign on for some of that

Thanks again Gerry
 
[ QUOTE ]

Many of you made comments about the climbers were stripping the trees super fast, at the risk of sounding full of myself, seems like normal speed to me for a decent climber.



[/ QUOTE ]
With no Landscaping,glass windows, power lines, birdbaths, lawn furniture, decks, sidewalks, cars, pedestrians, gutters, lights, fences, etc, it would still seem fast to me. I have this terrible habit of turning my saw off after I make a cut /forum/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
I read the article and saw the pics of the operation and was very impressed.

I think that this would be a great way for loggers,and environmentalists to get along on harvesting and cleaning up some of our national forests which are in need of having work done in them but are being road blocked by people who are ignorant in correct logging practices.

I live fairly close to the NH White Mountain National Forests and would love to hook up with a Helicopter Logging company and climb with them using the Erickson Sky Crane methods. I been wondering if I should look into this a little bit more.

Hey Jer, is that DVD still available to purchase?
 
One thing I found a little questionable about the second climber was his untethered saw and the hook he was using to carry it. Seems like a good way to snag a falling limb.
 
I'm still wondering where they could harvest that it isnt cost prohibitive. 5 climbers, maybe a couple of guys chasing, maybe they are saving some labor over a normal side, but I know in the mid 90's that ship was running around 900.00 an hour. It seems real tight, plus a little sketch on the load calcs. I would sure like to check it out.
 
I watched it again, with one of my brothers this time.

He had most of the same comments as I did.

But he talked about the high costs also. He doesn't understand how you could have a profit at all. He has heard that those chopper engines need to be rebuilt around every 3000 hours, the rebuild ends up being around 70% of the helicopter's original costs. So, I'm sure the helicopter bill is VERY high per hour.

I don't think it's possible to net any money on the log sales if you are cutting cheap pine stuff (Jerry said sugar pine right?). Can't see how that pine could pay for it. But what about that cedar? does that "insense cedar" pay a lot per BDFT? I heard a guy call it that on the video, is this the same as Western Red Cedar? Jerry, what's the going $/BDFT?

I heard several years ago that they were doing helicopter logging in New Zealand in some areas that were so steep that they had never been logged before. I don't think they were doing picks like this, they were just transporting them from a felled and bucked position.

I agree in the cost prohibitive questioning. I would think it would have to be a very high dollar specie to make it worthwhile.

Wiley, you said, "plus a little sketch on the load calcs". What did you mean by this? It can't carry 25,000 lbs?

Something my brother saw that somehow I didn't see. When the guy was making the butt cut, my brother says, "who cutts a tree like that!". Did you see it? The guy was cutting with his motor side of the saw down toward the ground. what the heck??? Really, who cuts like that? They strip the pole to a tiny 6" diameter at the top, but then waste some of the butt log by not clearing all the branches and then cutting with his saw engine down on the ground side.

Another shot I will scrutenize(sp), they show a climber clearing the fallen branches out from the small trees that they got hung up in (ahhh, he's so nice). But then the chopper bangs other trees as it carries away logs and at the log yard, he sets it down stripping the limbs off another standing tree :)

Still, the most incomprehendable; that climber leaving his climbing line on the original pole as he stripped the entire next tree. WTF?!
 
that guy was probably cutting with the motor down cause it was easier to cut from that side of the tree. i havent seen the vid yet but thats common, thats why they make the full wrap handles. and as far as wasting ,again i havent seen the vid, but if theres swell it will get scaled out at the mill anyway. great thread
 
[ QUOTE ]
...[possibly] those chopper engines need to be rebuilt around every 3000 hours, the rebuild ends up being around 70% of the helicopter's original costs. So, I'm sure the helicopter bill is VERY high per hour.

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Working a paper mill installation job once we had a helo come to set some equipment on the roof. I took the crew to lunch and chewed the fat a bit with the pilot. If I remember it right, he said for every hour in the air the choppers spend two in the shop. One interesting thing I'm quite sure I remember right is that he told me Sikorski had the mechanism worked out on paper and the in the first trial he was caught by surprise that all the expected responses were actually 90° off, so he merely rotated the control a quarter turn to set things right! I also asked him if hovering was akin to standing on a ball. He considered that for a moment and said it was probably a fair comparison.

Yeah, some of the neighboring trees got banged up a bit, but I'd bet there was far less damage in total than if the trees had been felled, and even more less than if they'd been skidded out. And depending on the density of timber being taken from any area, the cost of doing it by air like that may be the same or less.

I remember while watching the picks that it would be neat if they could have bunched some of the stems. I realize it would mostly be impractical, but it would be a neat trick nonetheless.

As far as any pick being too heavy, I don't see the problem. If the bird can get it off the ground it's obviously not. Surely the hardware components are not the weak link.
 
In another Erickson video the S64 was "bundle logging." First they dismantled a feller buncher and flew the pieces into a remote site where it was then reassembled and put to work. As the machine worked on the slope it bunched the logs into bundles by precalculated weight. Once it got so far ahead on the job the S64 flew the bundles out at a rate of 53,000 board feet per hour. I believe it was cedar. Now at that rate it certainly does seem cost effective.

Jerry B
 
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