A Pretty Helicopter But Too Stormy Today

[RPM]

I think he was talking about the helicopter. Foresters. geez.

just kidding

We'll fly under value wood for a net loss, but only enough to let us do some semblance of forestry during an otherwise high grade only economic model due to flight costs. But I think we could do a lot better job of utilization with a KMax than the model we had here, lower cost/ton

Yup ... probably was now that I read it again....foresters . The nature of the business today is killing any fun left in this job .... I'd much rather be running saw or pulling rigging.

Thats the other downer now is that we don't practice any semblance of good forest management - high grade all the way (till next year ... maybe).

Is it Friday yet?

 

[slowp]

Here's some bad video. Sorry for the wiggling but my arm got tired. The helicopter worked from 7 to 3 at least. They have a miniscule yarding distance. You'll be hearing the traffic from the highway that I was parked off of.

If you want it to be like Axmen, you'll have to add the LOOK OUT, BLEEP, and all the other sounds. All I could hear was highway and helicopter.

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I have some still photos that are in focus but need some tweaking. Zooming is hard.

 

[Greystoke]

Cool vid. Amazing how quiet those things are.

 

[slowp]

Some still photos. I find it hard to believe that those rotor work so well in sync. It would scare me to think too hard about it.

This one shows some of the terrain. There's always a way through, up or down our rock bluffs. This one is like we used to do firehose belays down.

 

[forestryworks]

that is one quiet bird

 

[Buckethead]

Kaman makes the K-max It's a great copter, just never as wildly successful as they would've liked...they were hoping it would pickup a lot of the slack as their military contracts declined. I know they've made a UAV version of it they've demonstrated to the military for hauling cargo.

My mom went to high school with a fellow who became President. They had one of their factories in a neighboring town, but they've since re-trenched back to the Bloomfield HQ.

Charlie Kaman was a character.

One of the stories I watched him tell on TV is they were testing the first turbocharged helicopter, and he was the test pilot.

Test was going great. They got up to the maximum elevation they wanted to test, and it was time to come down.

There was just one slight problem. Between Charlie and the rest of the engineering staff, they had all overlooked that a turbocharged engine becomes more efficient the thinner the air is when putting everything together.

He kept throttling down.

Helicopter kept going up.

Finally had it at the "idle" setting on the throttle, and was still gaining elevation.

He had to turn off the motor and auto-rotate back to ground, which is where the helicopter blades basically act like a glider.

The rotor/gearbox design dates back to the 50's when Kaman was building HH-43 Huskies for the Air Force. My father worked for Kaman in the 60's as a mechanic on the HH-43 and SH-2 Seasprite. The K-Max was advertised as an "aerial pickup truck." During the development of the K-Max they purchased an old HH-43 from somewhere in south america for some reverse engineering. The goal for the K-max was minimum weight and maximum lift with an eye on the logging, aerial lift, and firefighting markets.

In the early 80's I worked for Air Kaman (their FBO operation) in Windsor Locks, Ct. and met Charlie Kaman a couple times. To call him a character is quite accurate. He always had a pair of german shepards with him that did everthing he did without a word. He was heavily involved in the Fidelco seeing-eye dogs. As of a couple years ago he was still alive but in a nursing home. I was bummed that the K-Max didn't become more popular. I thought it was a great concept and filled a perfect niche in the market.

 

[joesawer]

I have worked on with a K Max several times and they seem like great logging choppers if you don't need a whole lot of lift.
They are rated at 5000 lbs but with a low fuel load 7000 can be bumped along but watching those rotors flex is a little unnerving.
I have bucked a lot of short logs and ripped more than a few to get them to fly.
I was hired on one job to run around and buck or rip every thing that would not fly. That was a very tough job.
I talked with some of the FS fire fighters in charge of the contract choppers and they where not to fond of the K Max because it was not very competitive $ per gallon as the heavier lift choppers so it was not there first choice.