| Author | Message | ||
     Sifo |
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| Etennuly |
That looks like one of those high speed, intense, can never make a mistake, type of jobs. If you were a really good pilot I'd bet it is fun! | ||
| 46champ |
It is one of the most dangerous forms of flying there is. The Christmas tree season lasts for just over a month and it is a rare year when at least 1 copter isn't lost. Yes the pilots are skilled and at the end of the season they are more skilled. | ||
| Bluzm2 |
I saw that a few days ago, I was speechless. | ||
| 86129squids |
"If you were a really good pilot I'd bet it is fun!" That looks like the grab-it game from the state fair, or Chucky Cheese... it'd be GREAT fun to kinda live inside it. | ||
| 86129squids |
But then I've chased down a bunch of you BW'ers, and here I am telling about it...  | ||
| Torquehd |
Amazing! | ||
| 86129squids |
I wonder what the $$$ that tree might bring... | ||
| Reepicheep |
Impressive flying, but I don't get it... seems like there are much more cost effective ways to solve the problem. One wrecked helicopter (of which there will no doubt be) would eat a decades worth of potential profits. | ||
| Court |
>>>seems like there are much more cost effective ways to solve the problem. I'd do the math before making that assumption. I'm getting ready to start a new project which on which my plan is to perform nearly all the work, 66 of 69 locations, by helicopter. When I got the quote from the helicopter service I was amazed at how cheap it was. The pilots are good, very good. Many are my peers from the Viet Nam ere and have amazing skills. No helicopter has ever filed a bogus back injury lawsuit and in my case . . having to deal with right of way damage, for up to a mile long and for 7 years, just to ready a structure location can get pricey also. It was a consideration years ago but now each small stream, with a potential Snail Darter nightmare, I cross represents risk. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Good points Court. What strange times we live in. | ||
| Court |
>>>>What strange times we live in. Ooopps . . .as we rarely do . . . I am going to again take you to task and suggest you consider changing "strange" to "amazing". I have, just last night, attended a holiday party (to me it was Christmas, but there was a diverse group on hand) with some of my new friends who are all scientists at The Rockefeller University. Part of them were from the Steinman Lab and were instrumental (great lab term) in his Nobel Prize 2 years ago. The times we live in are beyond our Grandparents wildest imagination. I'll give you one of the snippets from the address I delivered to the graduating class at Columbia University in 2009. My Grandmother Canfield was born in 1899 and clearly recalls when flight was the domain of a few barnstormers. Even though Wilbur & Orville Wright had done their thing the same year Harley-Davidson was founded, in 1903, flight, by the time she was 10 was pretty much a once a year deal of watching a barnstormer as he passed through Nebraska. Spin the clock ahead to 1988. I was sequestered away in the Advanced Management Program in Dallas and my Grandmother, having seen her health diminish, was living with my Astronaut Uncle and my Aunt in Palm Desert, CA. One of the things my Aunt and Uncle do, having been involved with the Manned Space Program since it's inception, is throw the annual beer bash for the Astronauts. As lunch was about to be served on the patio near their pool, my Aunt Sandy went into Grandma's room and suggested she join them on the patio for lunch. She grabbed her walker and made her way to a round 5-place table. Grandma, until the day she passed away a few months later, had lost much of her physical capabilities . . . but her mental faculties remained strong and I'll never forget her amazement as she told the story of sitting there at lunch . . .she was the ONLY person at the table who had NOT walked on the moon. We do indeed live in amazing times. | ||
| Xdigitalx |
That flying looks fun... but how does it pick up and drop the tree so fast? | ||
| Hootowl |
There's a guy on the ground who is pretty handy with attaching the load. The pilot can release it remotely. Look for other videos of tree harvesting on youtube. There are a few from the pilots point of view, and they show the hookup. | ||
| Xdigitalx |
cool.thanks. that area.... the video shot, with the fog and all... is creepy...would be a great opening scene for the new Godzilla movie... they always have an scary intro scene... (same as Jaws) where the guys on ground start feeling the ground shake from footsteps and the pilot is unaware till it's too late.. u only see small glimpses of the monster.... haha ... I can't wait for that movie. | ||
| Hootowl |
Yeah, I saw a preview at the theater. Looks good. | ||
| 46champ |
that area.... the video shot, with the fog and all... is creepy Welcome to western Oregon in the winter. The land in that video is flatter than most christmas tree farms. Most are on the side of a hill that can't be farmed for much else. | ||
| Uncle |
Court, cool story about your grandmother. Most of us won't get a chance to meet an astronaut, never mind the subset of them that walked on the moon. And here's your grandmother having lunch with 4 of them!!! Awesome!! I know when I was growing up, my Apollo Space Program poster was one of my prized possessions. My father was born in 1918 and often said he felt he lived through amazing advances in aviation, automobiles, and technology. He claims to have seen Lindberg fly over his house when he made his historic flight. | ||
| Court |
These are indeed amazing times . . . . One of my favorite possessions are all the letters Uncle Craig sent from aboard all the recovery carriers. He was on each and every carrier from the day of the first sub-obital Mercury missions to all the Shuttle missions. I was always kind of a science buff and each week he sent me his NASA Technical Bulletins and any other stuff getting pitched. He's tried to retire but still gets roped into doing work for the International Space Station so he keeps an here and in Moscow. Fun stuff. And the rock he sent me for Christmas one year is very interesting . . . uh . . never mind. :-)  This is from the FIRST landing on the moon . . . | ||
| Reepicheep |
Incredible to think we did that. | ||
| Bluzm2 |
Court, I've told you this story before (I think..) but here it is for everyone else. A neighbor and one of my best friends grew up in Houston during the 60's. His father was/is a rocket scientist. He grew up in the same housing development as all the astronauts. Carpenter, Scott, Armstrong to name a few. He grew up with their kids and played at their houses all the time. Que ahead to Apollo 13, when the O2 tank blew up and they called the "A" team into the conference room with a table full of "stuff" and said, here's what you have to work with, make it happen." My friends Dad was one of the engineers in the room. Just like in the movie Apollo 13. Art Hinners is his name, he's still alive along with his wife, still living in Texas. I met the man twice and had some interesting conversations. Bottom line, we need more folks like this in our world. I just found this link from earlier this year! Go Art!! http://www.theeagle.com/news/local/article_7ac169b b-e2de-53d4-ab26-6f3eb1d9ab42.html?mode=jqm Brad | ||
| Court |
We were, and continue to be, an amazing people. Some of our talent has, temporarily, been obscured as we go through a "lazy phase" in our countries history. Even though the amazing . . . "I can do anything" folks may be temporarily less visible . . . the same folks who cut their engineering teeth by hot rodding '57 Chevys . . . have surrendered nothing and their spirit lives stronger than ever. It's a fabulous time to be alive and you're tempting me to post the 20 video of the speech I gave at Columbia to the graduating class of 2009 . . it's still making waves on campus. Merry Christmas to all . . . Court | ||
| Aesquire |
The footage above seems a little sped up. not a lot though. Amazing flying. Once upon a time....I mean "no shit there I was"... When I was a student glider pilot, one of the tow pilots was nicknamed "Crazy Kate". I asked why, of course, and was told she liked to knife edge the Citabria when she did the low pass to drop the tow rope. ( dragging the rope behind you on landing is..... unwise. Most of the time nothing happens, sometimes you snag a light and get an arrested landing, and do serious money damage to the field ) One day I was looking over the Citabria and she asked if I wanted a ride. Hell yes. She straps me in, then hands me a sick bag. We do a tow, and on the way down it's loops, barrel rolls, and a couple moves I'm sure have names, but I never learned them. The next weekend she let me try the controls. Barrel rolls are harder than they look, if you want them smooth. After a few weeks she let me land, and when we pulled to the pumps for fuel, they started commenting on the "basketball landing" ( dribbles, shoots and scores! ) and she allowed as it was my first tail dragger landing, "she'd seen worse". ( that's what is known as "damning faint praise" ) One week she shows up with a leather jacket with a horned, winged, pixie on the back. She'd been a WASP in WW2. She ferried planes from the factory, or repair center, to Air Corps units. I got a look at one of her log books, and I suspect she had more P-40 time than several active duty pilots. She insisted her only claim to fame was at the Ford plant at Willow run. She'd been assigned to ferry B-24's and when she picked up the new plane, as she did the control checks the inspector gave her the thumbs up and walked away. Something "bothered" her about that so she looked carefully at the wings as she again turned the wheel. The aileron controls were hooked up backwards. She said she shut it down, caught up with the inspector, laid him out cold on the concrete, then went in to the hanger, wrote up the plane, and asked for another plane, and another inspector. Truly the Greatest Generation. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Great story! | ||
| Rick_a |
On one deployment I walked out onto the deck just in time to see a CH-46 doing the same with what looked like a heavy load. Terrified at first, I watched with great amusement as the pilot repeated the feat time and time again. |
