The following article was printed in the June / July, 2004 issue of the Canadian Forest Industries magazine (http://www.forestcommunications.com/cfi) , and is a discussion of new techniques and tools employed by Canadian Air-Crane, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Erickson Air-Crane Incorporated
Heli logging is big business in British Columbia. And it's a business that is rapidly changing, as companies like Canadian Air Crane (CAC) based in Delta, BC, work in co-operation with forest giants like Weyerhaeuser, to develop new and better methods of economically accessing timber in steep and unruly terrain.
And these new methods of heli logging don't just apply to the coast, where challenging harvesting jobs are the norm. The technology is also being transferred to the province's Interior, where the two companies worked hand in hand last summer to access 21,000 cubic metres of Douglas fir and western red cedar above Sugar Lake, near the small town of Lumby, BC.
"Weyerhaeuser contracts a machine from us year-round, but this was the first time we had used it in the Interior for any large scale heli logging," explains John Smith, who looks after the logging side of CAC's operation, and is also the company's marketing manager. "We have had our program with Weyerhaeuser in place for about five years now, but it is more than just a customer and supplier agreement. We have worked out a partnership, where we share in the benefits of our technology gains."
The partnership Smith describes has allowed the two companies to develop better ways of bunching wood on the ground, which optimizes helicopter crane time in the air. In the past, most timber accessed by heli logging was harvested using standing stem techniques, where the base of the tree is cut through most of the way by a jigger before the helicopter snaps off the tree, or by traditional hand falling.
In the hand falling scenario, the helicopter crew has to build bundles that can be picked up with a grapple and then transported to the landing, which can be costly, especially for timber that is of only average value. In the Sugar Lake project, the groundwork was done with a combination of hand falling and mechanized harvesting, and then the logs were bunched before the arrival of the huge CAC Sikorsky S64E Air Crane.
"It was not practical for Weyerhaeuser to build a road into the Sugar Lake block because of the steepness of the hill, the creek drainages, and the fact that the block was above Sugar Lake, which is used extensively for recreation, meaning the visual esthetics were important," Smith adds, while conceding that Weyerhaeuser staff at Lumby were reluctant to try a heli show for this block at first.
"There was some trepidation on the part of Weyerhaeuser, but three of their guys came down to the coast to see what had been done by their counterparts at Powell Lake, which is part of the company's Stillwater Division, and at Henderson Lake near Port Alberni on Vancouver Island."
Dave Eddy, who left Weyerhaeuser in May of this year, had seen a magazine article about one of the projects on Powell Lake where Weyerhaeuser, CAC, Finning, and Tymatt Contracting had worked collaboratively to fly a TK-1162 feller buncher to the top of a mountain. The buncher was flown up in pieces using a CAC Air Crane, and then re-assembled using a jig on the mountain-side. After it was back in service, the buncher operator harvested and bunched the wood for the Air Crane crew. At Henderson Lake, the trees were hand felled, and then a small, European-made Spyder Hoe built the bundles for the Air Crane.
"We had originally looked at putting a road into the block above Sugar Lake and then using cable logging and ground skidding, but in addition to the environmental concerns of putting in the road, the cost put the project beyond the scope of profitability," Eddy explains.
After he saw the article about the Powell Lake project, Eddy contacted Lyle McMurdo, a veteran Weyerhauser employee who has since retired, but was instrumental in the TK-1162 "flying buncher" experiment at Powell Lake, and in helping the company develop "Plan 64," which is the name for the Weyerhaeuser/CAC partnership. Mc-Murdo, and CAC's John Smith, were happy to show off the work they had done at the two coastal divisions, and then travelled to Lumby, where they walked the block at Sugar Lake along with Jason and Dave Madden of Tymatt Contracting, which is based in Campbell River, BC.
"Heli logging scares the hell out of them in the Interior, because in the past it has not been successful with larger machines due to the cost," says McMurdo, who is now contracting to CAC in his retirement, through his own company, Safor Management Services Ltd. in Campbell River. "I described what we could do, and what our objectives would be with the helicopter and everyone involved decided the Sugar Lake block would be a good candidate for this type of project."
The big difference between the Powell Lake project and Sugar Lake is that for the Interior show, Weyerhauser built a small trail to get the equipment up the mountain, rather than flying it up. One of the concerns for Eddy, and his supervisor, Deric Manning, was the steepness of the terrain, which McMurdo estimates was as much as a 75% side slope in extreme areas, and averaged 50% over the entire block. In the extreme areas, the slopes were short, and the trees were hand felled to less steep areas, where they could be processed to remove any waste, and bundled for the Air Crane.
"There were some concerns and a lot of discussion about having the feller bunchers work in ground this steep, but by using a combination of mechanical harvesting and hand felling, we were able to make it work," McMurdo notes. "The operators on the coast are used to working on slopes up to 50%, but the operators in the Interior are more familiar with somewhat flatter ground. It was because of the concerns, that we ended up bringing in Tymatt Contracting, as they had done much of the work for us at Powell Lake."
Tymatt, which is owned by Jason Madden, brought in the same TK-1162 they used at Powell Lake, except this time they moved it up the mountainside on the 1.5 kilometre switchback trail Weyerhauser had built. They also brought in a smaller TK722 feller buncher, a 300 John Deere for hoe chucking and piling some of the hand felled logs, and a John Deere 850 crawler for miscellaneous work.
"The slopes were steep, but we had enough benches that we could work up and down from, so that helped," says Dave Madden, who is Jason Madden's father and oversaw most of Tymatt's work at Sugar Lake. "I am from the Interior and had worked here when I was younger, but this was the first time we have worked with CAC in a setting away from the coast. Overall, I would have to say it was a very positive experience. Weyerhaeuser and Canadian Air Crane are always good to work with, and like Tymatt, they are always looking for better ways to do things."
As for Weyerhauser, who was the customer in the project, logging superintendent Deric Manning says they were very happy with the results. "We learned from this and we would do a few things differently next time, but for an organization that had never done this in the Interior before, we were very happy with the project and with the end results. Timing would be the biggest change we would make. We would do it earlier or later, just to get cooler air, while still having more daylight hours."
CAC's John Smith estimates the project went six weeks over because of the hot, dry summer and the major fires BC's Interior experienced last year. "We had to shutdown completely in the middle of the summer, so it was starting to snow when we finally got out of there." When the Air Crane was flying, Smith estimates they were averaging production numbers of 172 cubic metres per hour and were completing 28 turns per hour. He says by pre-bunching the wood, the turn times are de-creased by 20%, but there are a couple of other added bonuses. "By building the bundles first, we can eliminate waste so we are not paying to fly branches and slash down the hill, and we can build the turns to the crane, meaning we can start with the lighter bundles when the Air Crane has more fuel, and then work up to the heavier bundles as we burn off some of the fuel."
With heli logging, weight and volume play a key factor in the profitability equation. The Air Crane is designed to handle up to 9,100 kg (20,000 lb), but with the weight of the grapple and the 1,200 m (4,000 ft) elevation at the Sugar Lake block, the operating weight was reduced to about 6,350 kg (14,000 lb) on this job. Because the Interior trees are shorter than coastal trees of the same diameter, CAC had a new grapple designed by T-MAR Industries Ltd. in Campbell River, BC, that allows for up to 25% more volume within the grapple arms. Even with this extra, however, Smith says they "still maxed out on volume before maxing out on weight."
Another factor that helped crews on the Sugar Lake project succeed was having the right ground crew at the landing. Weyerhauser contracted the landing work to Gudeit Bros. Cont. Ltd. from Lumby. There were three landings built for the project. One was "a hot landing" where the logs were dropped after the 600 m (2,000 ft) turn distance, a second landing was used to further process the logs, while the third landing was used as a service landing. The crew had to clear the hot landing of logs between each turn.
For everyone involved this was a learning project, but for John Smith and Lyle McMurdo, it was very satisfying to have the project come in on target in terms of production and cost.
"We were very pleased with how close we came to our targets, and we did this even though we were dealing with shorter Interior timber and a density of approximately 450 cubic metres per hectare vs. 900 cubic metres per hectare on the coast," McMurdo says. "What it comes down to is that we are giving the tenure holder an opportunity to access more of their timber profile by reducing the cost of heli logging. It is just one more tool that companies can reach for when they need to access timber in steep or otherwise inaccessible areas."
MacMillan Bloedel's new reality includes a significant and growing role for helicopter logging. With this comes the challenge to heli-log, and practice non-clearcut retention logging, without paying a heavy price in safety or fibre cost. Canadian Air Crane's grapple logging system may be part of the answer.
By Jean Sorensen
The men wait on the mountain ridge some 2 000 feet above sea level on a cool, B.C. summer morning. The ground tumbles down at a 70-80% slope, pouring out rich hues of timber greens and browns slashed with the colour of fireweed. It is beautiful scenery but treacherous terrain.
A fluke fog is a problem - delaying the heli-logging operation. So, a $15 million Sikorsky S-64E sits grounded and the MacMillan Bloedel field staff and the men from Canadian Air-Crane (CAC) wait on the ridge. The cool morning has shown one foible of heli-logging. Weather is everything. "He won't go until he is sure he can get back to his service area," says marketing manager John Smith for Canadian Air Crane (CAC). The helicopter is 25 feet high and 88 feet long and no places exist below where the craft can sit down if required.
Yesterday, the craft worked from early to last light. Today, it is almost noon before the sun and wind burn and blow the wisps of white away and the Port Alberni Inlet appears on the horizon. Soon the blues of the ocean frame blend with the greens and browns. A crew member radios. Visibility is clear in the draw and it's a go.
Back on another hill comes the thunk-thunk-thunk sound of a huge prop blading the air; it builds, grows, intensifies and then the huge body of the Sikorsky sweeps over the group like surrealistic dragonfly in a shrunk-the-kids-flick. It is a sensual rush of power.
It's also a kind of emotional relief. Everyone wants wood.
"The pilots want to fly since they get paid for the time in the air," explains Smith, a former MB logging supervisor who moved over to CAC after the stress of dealing with enviro-kids took the fun out of the job. "I wasn't enjoying the work anymore," he says, describing the constant run-ins with young people often street kids recruited by the environmental leaders.
Smith now travels the B.C. Coast bidding on jobs for the Sikorsky 64E and it's bigger sister craft a Sikorsky S-64F that has a heftier lift capacity. Fall to spring is the busy season for putting in bids - and, tricky as the area is often covered with snow. Every job is challenging, different and interesting. He never tires of watching the big bird.
The Sikorsky is a craft that is visually commanding. In simple terms, it resembles that needle-like fly with the large head and vibrating wings as it swoops and zips about. "Many people say it looks like a dragonfly," he laughs.
Nevertheless, it is the workhorse of the skies. "They built it from the hook up," Smith says of the helicopter designed for Vietnam to lift heavy loads (machinery and buildings) into war zones. (Other models have been used in WWII and the Korean war). It has a lift capacity of up to 20 000 lb or ten cubic meters of wood while the F can go to 25 000 pounds or 12.5 cubic meters. It can travel 115 knots and has a climb rate of 6 000 feet per minute. The tremendous lift comes from the two Pratt and Whitney engines powering the main rotor that has a 72-foot diameter. As crew chief John Burns explains, it's not the frame of the helicopter which lifts the load. It's the lifting force generated by rotary prop powered by the powerful engines and the load is centred below the prop creating almost an elevator effect.
Down in the draw, the Sikorsky is moving into position. Ted Kimoto, MB general manager for the Franklin and Sprout Lake operations, is pleased with the progress the heli-logging has made on the steep slope. CAC's Sikorsky is using a newly-designed grapple at the end of a 150-200 foot line and the whole operation on site is dedicated to grappling on the steeper areas. "It's a much safer way to log," says Kimoto, standing on the slope that drops down to a thread of a road below. The Sikorsky is only 1 500 feet from the landing and the cycle time is about two minutes on average. The aircraft is dropping logs at an impressive pace, largely due to the skill of the pilots and the bunching grapple that CAC has designed in-house.
While CAC's operation looks smooth, grapple heli-logging has taken a year to iron out the kinks. As Smith says, CAC's Sikorsky is the only machine on the Coast dedicated 100% to this type of logging. (Other companies mix chokers and grapples). For grapple yarding to work well in big timber, planning and skill must be present.
Kerry Walchuk is one of three pilots who fly the huge craft and for him the Sikorsky is the "ultimate logging machine." "If you have a 15 000 pound load of logs and an engine failure," you just shut it down and carry on with the other. This is a safe machine for logging," he says.
The mechanics of what Walchuk and the pilots do to bring in the wood are awesome. This is pick-up sticks big-time. The guys who fail or can't cut it, go straight home without passing Go and without collecting $200. In the pilot's seat, the right view window has been bowed out about a foot and a strut with a shoulder pad is built onto the seat. Walchuk leans into this cup looking several hundred feet onto the ground and while hoovering the machine must land the grapple on a log below. The controls send pressure racing down through hydraulic hoses to open and close the six-foot grapple jaws that can open over 60-inches.
The grapple, which looks like an oversized ice-tong with an over-bite, has gone through several designs. It now has what looks like two maple-leaves welded onto the inside throat of the grapple, an innovation that CAC came up in a bid to build a grapple that could collect wood. (CAC's Gary Gentile did the bulk of the work). The maple leaves came after discarding other ideas such as shark-tooth like prongs on the tongs. (These teeth made it hard to shed the load). But, the maple leaves points have proven more effective. As the closing tongs move beyond centre they push the log up into the gullet where this pressure pushes the maple leaf points into the bark of the logs holding them in place and allowing the tongs to open for a second and third large log. In cases, up to a dozen smaller logs have been bundled. This feature is especially valuable to have when flying smaller timber or doing clean-up on smaller pieces.
Since Walchuk doesn't have the luxury of a rigging crew on the ground to choke the logs, he's playing pick-up-sticks 150-200 feet in the air. Meanwhile the co-pilot is monitoring the weight of the load, the gauges controlling the helicopter and watching the Sikorsky's tail.
When the grade is steep like the conditions Walchuk is working on at the MB show, there is a lot of manoeuvring to get the logs. When the logs are felled across the hill, they still may roll, jamming up into pots. That means extra pulling to get logs clear of these piles so that he can pick them up. That exercise is often akin to trying to untying shoelaces with chopsticks.
Add to that the fact that each species has its quirks as to weight. A 41-foot Douglas fir log, 48-inches in diameter can weigh 24 000 pounds, while hemlock 43 inches in diameter would weigh roughly the same and cedar would be lighter.
The stress level soars. Walchuk says concentration peaks so high in the cockpit that even a trivial occurrence like the radio cutting in to ask a routine question can be a major annoyance. It is while this concentration level is high, a tendency exists to forget the immediate surroundings. The copilot ensures that Walchuk never turns his tail into the slope - a manoeuvre that can spell tragedy for all on board as such a move would cause it to crash into the bank.
"Grappling is a mind-set scenario," says Walchuk. This mental pressure is why pilots rotate from the hot-seat every hour spelling off into the copilot's seat and after four hours onto the ground.
On the ground, the pilots along with CAC's logging supervisor Seppo Hassinen, a former manual faller on the coast for 22 years, talks about the changes needed to make grapple heli-logging more efficient. Travis Harold, a U.S. pilot on a contract to CAC from Erickson Air-Crane (which owns the license to the Sikorsky 64 air crane models and leases helicopters to the Canadian company), maintains that "we need to pay three times as much attention to the falling" as is now done. "We need to fall and buck for weight," he says.
It's the cost of the helicopter that has skewed the economics of processing the wood on the ground. Right now, fallers are bucking logs to meet mill specifications. However, that means if there is a tree length that has a short log, it is cut off while the pilots contend it should be left on and bucked at the landing. That short log may mean making another trip or not yielding the full potential of collecting logs.
The operating cost of the CAC Sikorsky is about $l1 000 ($7 500 U.S.) an hour. "That's quite expensive to carry short logs. The time to buck a log in the landing is cheaper," says Harold.
Hassinen believes the best solution for companies is to have trained fallers who understand the special requirements of the helicopter pilots who do heli-logging, whether it is grapple or choked loads. Fallers need to buck for weight not length. "The biggest problem is the felling - it will make or break an operation."
When the system works well, heli-logging can rain wood. On the side hill as MB woods personnel and CAC people are watching, the Sikorsky is firing wood into the roadside landings snaked over a hillside at a pace that keeps two TMAR Mark IV SK400 Kobelco loaders busy. The helicopter herringbones the logs along the side of the road, thus limiting movement required by each loader.
Ray Sumner, MB's logging manager for the area, estimates that in the Franklin River area about 20% of the l00 000 cubic meters to be cut this year will come from heli-logging. Heli-logging is expected to grow further as it lends itself to retention logging, which is part of the new era of non clearcut harvesting MB is now pursuing.
Smith says using helicopters to do retention logging has several advantages. When openings are kept small, there is less visual impact of the logging. As well, retention logging can mean less road construction into an area and less downstream reclamation work and costs plus environmental disruption. Finally, retention logging also has the advantage of being able to select pockets of species such as cedar and fir that is now selling on the market while other species are not.
Both Smith and Sumner point out another advantage. As the Mark IV loader loads a truck in the landing with the longer stems, Sumner points out that those longer lengths would not have made it into the landing using conventional cable yarding methods without having some breakage. The reduction of breakage is especially significant in today's market where cedar is selling at twice the price in retail yards as it was a year ago.
Sumner says that while heli-logging is more expensive than conventional yarding on a straight line comparison, there are other cost savings plus the reduction in breakage. For example, loading jumps up markedly. At the landing, he is loading out 700-800 cubic meters of wood per day. That is greater volume than the 200 to 300 normally realized. If a long line had been used to pick up wood 1 500 feet out, a good day's load out would only have reached 200 cubic meters.
The speed at which the Sikorsky can work is partially what holds the audience on the ridge over the Corrigan Creek area MB is logging. This speed comes from the pilot's ability, the machine power (it can dead-lift a load straight up) and also the design. Another factor of efficiency is the fact no ground crew has to clear the load. On the steep terrain, up to 80% grade the men on the ground cannot move quickly.
With no ground crew, the pilots move the hook about fast without having to worry about men below. Safety on the steeper slopes is a primary reason for using the grapple system. Crews on the ground not only are too slow to hook the loads, but the steepness of the terrain can cause logs to roll into gullies inaccessible or dangerous for men to enter. Or, there is the constant danger that a log on a steeper slope will roll causing injury to ground personnel.
The grapple is also able to handle blow-down on a slope as it can take a tangle of trees, pull loose the up-ended trees and place them to an area where a faller can reach them on the slope and buck the root ball and top in a safer location. That ability is also there for a tree that gets away from a faller before bucking and ends in a gully.
The bottom line on grapple heli-logging is - as Smith points out - it's a way of getting steep slope wood that would not have been accessible or economical by any other means - the Dragonfly pilots pull wood from ground most men fear to tread.