what will it lift?

[bullbuck]

curious how much the erickson sky crane can lift on a turn,or total?i have only seen one in action in person, and it was very impressive,was 50 ft.or so below it when he was pouring the fuel on for his ascent back up the mountain loaded with water,very memorable to say the least...

 

[hammerlogging]

i'm gonna go with 22k

 

[bullbuck]

ok,that would mean approximately three turns per log truck load,that sounds not bad,i know nothing of heli logging i just wonder how they can afford to fly logs?ecspecially softwood!you must have to move alot of wood to foot the bills...

 

[cowtipper]

Payload: 20,000 lb (9,072 kg)
Empty weight: 19,234 lb (8,724 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 42,000 lb (19,050 kg)

 

[Gologit]

With an S-64 we always figured for 20,000 lbs . Density altitude and fuel load will cut that back quite a bit sometimes.

You have to fly a lot of wood to make it pay. A million bf a week on the landing is a good benchmark, depending on price etc.

 

[bullbuck]

...million bf a week,now thats impressive!

 

[Meadow Beaver]

Ya gota remember heli logging isn't cheap.

 

[bullbuck]

...talking with my dozer boss on a fire and he had said that even some of the smaller birds get $4000 an hour, i dont know if this is true?they tend to pay really well on fires also so that could be the gov.wage

 

[sILlogger]

A million bf a week on the landing is a good benchmark, depending on price etc.

ha ha. i usually do anywhere between 50,000 and 100,000 bdft a week (if all goes as planned of course) with me and one other guy and a skidder....so those boys are moving some wood

 

[Meadow Beaver]

ha ha. i usually do anywhere between 50,000 and 100,000 bdft a week (if all goes as planned of course) with me and one other guy and a skidder....so those boys are moving some wood

Well Caleb you also don't have the expense of running a helicopter to worry about. Those guys have to produce to make any profit.

 

[sILlogger]

Well Caleb you also don't have the expense of running a helicopter to worry about. Those guys have to produce to make any profit.

yea..i suppose pulling all that with a $20,000 log skidder isnt' too bad.

i still think it would be neat to work around heli's some time.

 

[Meadow Beaver]

Yeah Caleb I'm goin out to British Columbia in August for a week. I'm sure I'll see some heli loggin.

 

[sILlogger]

Yeah Caleb I'm goin out to British Columbia in August for a week. I'm sure I'll see some heli loggin.

maybe...i don't know that the markets will support much of that right now. i'm not sure if those boys are still working or not.

 

[Meadow Beaver]

maybe...i don't know that the markets will support much of that right now. i'm not sure if those boys are still working or not.

True true, BC is gettin hit hard too, off and on like it seems to be everywhere.

 

[hammerlogging]

Last winter was the first in 5 the outfit I work for didn't sub some heli logging due to the markets and wood value. But, most of those heli companies do a variety of heavy lifting, not just logging.

 

[Gologit]

...talking with my dozer boss on a fire and he had said that even some of the smaller birds get $4000 an hour, i dont know if this is true?they tend to pay really well on fires also so that could be the gov.wage

There are all kind of pay scales for aircraft and they usually do fairly well on fires. I don't know the latest rates for Skycranes or Vertols or Chinooks but they're definitely several thousand bucks per hour.

All helicopters use obscene amounts of fuel...the S-64 averages around 500 gallons per flight hour. Couple that with the fact that almost every mechanical component is life limited and must be changed or rebuilt when they're timed out and you have a machine that eats dollars at an impressive rate. Pilots, mechanics, support crew, parts wagon, mobile shop, fuel trailer, and support vehicles all add to the cost. And insurance...don't forget that. I'd like to have for a yearly salary what it costs to insure one of the big birds for a year.

If you're logging with a helicopter, moving a lot of wood in a hurry is the only way to make it. If the helicopter company itself is the logger or if they've hired out by the foot or by the ton to log for someone else it's the same story...get the wood down the hill as fast as you safely can.

 

[Meadow Beaver]

I'm sure it's gota be a good wood high ballin job to keep finances of a company up to be able to work in heli logging.

 

[hammerlogging]

lets just say... they ain't flyin' pulpwood.

 

[Metals406]

I've worked under helicopters... Back in 1996-97, while seismographing, our Bell Ranger cost $1,000.00 an hour for fuel, and $225.00 an hour for our pilot Ben... That was just the expenses I knew about. I'm sure it's more now, and the bigger birds would be more yet.

I could see them charging 3-4k an hour easily.

 

[corsair4360]

S-64 Capabilities

I participated in an analysis for Erickson right out of college for one of the initial sales using their S64. The biggest challenge they faced is an interesting one, that of how to accurately predict the load weight, and maintain a nearly full capacity load for each turn. The bird was loaded with minimal fuel (30 minutes of work) to maximize the lifting weight and a fuel truck was on site for that reason as well as a small helicopter to lift the chokers back to the hill, without wasting time for the larger machine returning low weight items to the sale site.

One not often discussed aspect of the helicopter logging is that for over weight turns one must very quickly dump the load, or the bird will reverse pendulum into the ground. Erickson lost at least one air crane that way early on. Emergency release switches (electric help) and I think they may now use an automatic release if the turn is overweight since the decision has to be made almost instantly or it can turn into a disaster really quickly.

The real challenge became how to estimate accurately the weight of the turn, such that it was not overweight, but right at the lifting load maximum. Unfortunately, log densities used to built the log weight tables were based on statistical averages, which meant that in order to not overload the helicopter one would normally not load it heavy enough. Given the cost of the bird to run per hour that reduced payload was not a good thing. I don't know if better estimating tools were eventually created for estimating the weight of the logs to make up a turn for the air crane.

I went on to other things, and have no been around them since (1973) although I am still keenly interested in them and airplanes.