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Clearing the ROW with a Helicopter

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Clearing the ROW with a Helicopter
Posted by rdamon on Monday, September 7, 2020 2:15 PM
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Posted by Overmod on Monday, September 7, 2020 2:48 PM

rdamon
Wonder if I can rent that at Home Depot?

It can't be long before the robotics crowd tumbles to what a good octo and some sliding tuned-mass-damper style counterweights can be fitted with ... a multiaxis-wrist arm with a pole saw attached.  Don't fly it over 400' and you'll be legal!

Then only weeks until the first horror script with revenge-of-the-social-misfit-nerds hits the slushpile!  I am almost tempted to start writing it now to surf the inevitable wave of commentary...

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Posted by rdamon on Monday, September 7, 2020 2:52 PM

We may have just written the script for the next Saw movie!

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Posted by diningcar on Monday, September 7, 2020 3:56 PM

MC, would you need one like this when you were a Roadmaster?

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Posted by York1 on Monday, September 7, 2020 4:06 PM

I'm not sure I'd want to be standing there filming this unless I could run fast.

York1 John       

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Posted by tree68 on Monday, September 7, 2020 4:09 PM

James Bond managed to dodge one in one of those movies...

LarryWhistling
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Posted by Flintlock76 on Monday, September 7, 2020 5:25 PM

I hope that vid was shot with a telephoto lens!  I wouldn't want to be any closer than 200 yards to the thing!

I don't run as fast as I used to!

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Posted by BaltACD on Monday, September 7, 2020 5:57 PM

Surprised the railraods haven't developed a Jordan Spreader with vertical chain saws on the full extended wings - with the chain saws standing vertically 30 to 40 FEET to do that job.

Using the saw just suspended from the helicopter doesn't appear to be very stable or controlable.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by mudchicken on Monday, September 7, 2020 6:23 PM

diningcar

MC, would you need one like this when you were a Roadmaster? 

In eastern Colorado, you would have to have trees first. All we had were glorified shrubs. In LA, the issue was ice plant and shrubs. (We had a contractor nic-named Edward scissorhands with a modified ballast regulator and a 4WD Massey Ferguson with a sliding boom on the rear which were mounted four whirring rotary cutting blades that made short work of anything up to 4 inches in diameter that dared encroach on Uncle John's R/W....Worst offender tended to be the little used Aluminum Spur in Torrance near Del Amo Blvd. going back to the Harbor Sub main.)....Adjoiners used to get upset with us when we brought Edward Scissorhands out.Mischief ; threat of an FRA Code 1 fine usually ended any discussion.

Saw one of those helicopter borne flying mayhem multiple radial saws work in Alabama. No thanks. (The cleanup is still a bear, especially where rubber tired vehicles can't go)

Plenty of times out surveying when a crap-on-line removal device would have been handy.

Mudchicken Nothing is worth taking the risk of losing a life over. Come home tonight in the same condition that you left home this morning in. Safety begins with ME.... cinscocom-west
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Posted by zugmann on Monday, September 7, 2020 6:33 PM

BaltACD
Surprised the railraods haven't developed a Jordan Spreader with vertical chain saws on the full extended wings - with the chain saws standing vertically 30 to 40 FEET to do that job.

They kinda do:

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mjscanlonphotography/27725115587

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

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Posted by tree68 on Monday, September 7, 2020 6:38 PM

zugmann
They kinda do:

We have a Gradall with what I refer to as the "mother of all weed whackers" at the end of the boom...

LarryWhistling
Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) 
Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you
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Come ride the rails with me!
There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...

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Posted by zugmann on Monday, September 7, 2020 6:39 PM

The NS brushcutters are neat. They have an arm on each side and two operator stations.  So they can do both sides at once if they want to. 

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

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Posted by JPS1 on Monday, September 7, 2020 7:00 PM

rdamon

How do I get in touch with this outfit?  I have some neighbors that have allowed their trees to overgrow my property.  

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Posted by Backshop on Monday, September 7, 2020 7:09 PM

I showed that video to my brother, who has 7000+ rotary wing hours (along with 15,000 fixed wing). He said no thanks.  You have to really be hurting for money to do that job.  Low, slow, reduced power and not enough altitude to do an autorotation if the engine quits.  Then you add to it the giant chain saw that you're falling towards.

PS--My brother spent years flying to offshore oil rigs and landing ship pilots onto tankers in the Persian Gulf.  So it's not like he didn't do risky things.

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Posted by Semper Vaporo on Monday, September 7, 2020 7:22 PM

I vaguely remember some YouTube videos from I think one of the former USSR countries where they were flying a similar device to trim trees.  It was not a "chain saw" per se, but a long blade like structure with multiple counterrotating circular saw blades of 20 or 30 inch diameters.

I figured they could get away with it since they didn't have OSHA to contend with.

Semper Vaporo

Pkgs.

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Posted by SALfan on Monday, September 7, 2020 7:38 PM

Sure wish I had had that beast when building farm fence thru a swamp as a teenager.

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Posted by jeffhergert on Monday, September 7, 2020 7:58 PM

Wow!  I wouldn't of believed it if I hadn't seen it! 

No, not the contraption being used.  That someone actually is cutting back trees.  I wish some of our wooded areas looked as good as that spot before the overgrown weed wacker got to it.

Jeff 

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Posted by CMStPnP on Tuesday, September 8, 2020 3:28 PM

rdamon

We may have just written the script for the next Saw movie!

Actually they use one of those to come after James Bond in a James Bond movie, sawing apart the warehouse he is in.    Forget the name of the movie though, it was relatively recent and starred Pierce Brosnan as James Bond.

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Posted by mudchicken on Tuesday, September 8, 2020 11:44 PM

JPS1

 

 The NS self-propelled brush cutters *(w/ Brown Brontosaurus workheads) are built in their own work equipment shops?
rdamon

 

How do I get in touch with this outfit?  I have some neighbors that have allowed their trees to overgrow my property.  

 

https://www.fairlifts.com/helicopter-services/agricultural/helicopter-trimming-for-vegetation-management-proven-more-effective/ 

The NS self-propelled brush cutters *(w/ Brown Brontosaurus workheads) are built in their own work equipment shops? 

Mudchicken Nothing is worth taking the risk of losing a life over. Come home tonight in the same condition that you left home this morning in. Safety begins with ME.... cinscocom-west
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Posted by mvlandsw on Wednesday, September 9, 2020 11:17 PM

CSX used the helicopter version to clear trees around the line poles in areas that were hard for maintainers to reach on foot. The falling branches took out the wires and the maintainers had to get into the hard to reach areas anyway.

Since the line poles are gone they don't do much trimming until a tree lands on the track.

Mark Vinski

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Posted by blue streak 1 on Thursday, September 10, 2020 7:34 PM

The Southeast has had double the rain as usual since mid November..  Tree growth has expoded with many tree growing so much that limbs are hanging down for lack of strength.  If we get a bad winter storm the tracks and roads are going to be one tree cemetery.  Clean up will be weeks.  

Have spent most of this summer just clearing the many branches on my property that hung down so low that hit me when on the mower.  

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