HELICOPTER LOGGING

Helicopter logging is expensive, more environmentally friendly than conventional logging and more dangerous.    Because helicopter pilots can only work a limited amount of time they have to be relieved with another pilot during the day.  The number of people on the crew can be double from what there is on a conventional yarding crew, plus the fuel, related safety equipment and helicopter mechanics are very costly.   It is environmentally friendly because it can reduce the need to construct roads, prevent stream and riparian area damage, and do a better job of preserving residual trees and soils.    

For safety concerns log landings are an acre in size and usually require two log loading machines to handle the incoming logs.   One machine must clear the logs from the drop zone and another machine is used to load logs onto to trucks.    Next to the drop zone will be some sort of barrier, maybe a log structure that protects the landing crew from flying debris when the helicopter drops a load of logs.   There is a 80 to 100 foot cable attached to the helicopter with a electronic controlled hook at the bottom end where 20 foot choker cables are attached with logs.    All designated trees are cut and bucked into logs weeks or months in advance of logging.  Chokers are preset in the woods based on log weight by a rigging crew.  There maybe one or two people, called hookers that have radio contact with the pilots that attach the chokers to the hook on the cable attached to the helicopter.   If the pilot has problems during flight they can release the logs if necessary.   A small helicopter is used to return chokers to the rigging crew and to ferry people back and forth from the harvest units, which are usually within a radius of one mile from the landing, depending on uphill or downhill flight patterns.   A separate smaller landing or wide spot along a road is used as a maintenance area for fueling and working on the helicopters, and where pilots spend their down time, usually in a trailer.    

During my career with the Forest Service as a timber sale contract administrator, I had four helicopter sales; one on the Greenville District removing bug infested trees and three on the Gold Beach District removing dead and dying Port Orford Cedar.   Contract logging helicopters on those sales included Erickson Air Crane, Columbia Helicopters, and Siller Brothers.  These helicopters are also used to fight wild fires by using large water buckets.