Airtight access
in B.C.’s Interior by Bill Tice
Canadian Forest Industries magazine
June/July, 2004 |
| New techniques and tools developed by Canadian Air Crane make heli-logging more affordable in the BC Interior. 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.” Air & ground 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.” Extreme steep 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.” Weight is key 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.” |
