forestry1

Hayes Heli-Log Services Limited
Background
The Hayes Group includes Hayes Heli-Log Services Limited which is a fully accredited aviation Company with a Canadian Operating Certificate for the commercial operation of helicopters. The Company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hayes Forest Services Limited.

The Hayes Group has been involved in aviation since 1979 when it purchased it's first Bell 206 B helicopter. For over 21 years, the Company has flown over 25,500 hours providing support to it's conventional logging operations, fire fighting and other external load operations throughout British Columbia.

In 1995, the Company expanded from conventional logging operations to include Helicopter Logging (Heli-Log) with the operation of a Sikorsky 64E Skycrane. In February of 1996 the Company acquired the first of two Sikorsky S-61N aircraft, and added its second in January of 1997.

S-61N "Shortsky" heli logging

S-61N "Shortsky" heli logging
S-61N "Shortsky" heli logging

Heli Logging
Hayes Heli-Log Services Limited currently operates two Sikorsky S-61N "Shortsky" helicopters, each of which is paired with a Bell 206 B support helicopter.

"Shortsky" with Bell 206 B support helicopter
The Company provides its customers with a fully mobile and self-sufficient helicopter logging operation, including pilots, maintenance engineers, ground support personnel, support equipment and support facilities. In addition to the falling and heli yarding phases, the Company offers a full range of other services and phases as required by the customer. The services provided are tailored to individual customer requirements and can range from individual phases to complete delivery to the mill or market place.

Hayes combines the use of both a conventional choker system and heli grapple system to optimize the productivity and utilization of its helicopters. The heli grapple system is selected in applications where it is most feasible, and where safety and environmental concerns dictate. In each case, we are able to adapt our timber harvesting methods on a "site specific" basis, depending on the terrain and conditions.

The nature of the heli logging and conventional logging business is such that the operations are often situated in remote locations. To this end, we have become extremely experienced in mobilizing our operations to remote locations, and we are fully equipped for both land and water (barge) based operations.

During fire season, the Company exceeds the Ministry of Forests requirements for on-site fire fighting equipment.

Heli-Logging
Although helicopter logging was introduced in Canada in the late 1970's, it was the 90's before this alternative method of timber harvesting really began to expand. The reasons for the explosive growth of this industry are simple:

Environmental - no road clearing on mountain face, no ground furrowing, less watershed damage, selective clearing in sensitive areas and clear cutting can be controlled.

Efficiency - the volume of wood extracted is substantially greater per shift than a conventional operation.

Effectiveness - crews can be relocated quickly and less expensively, access to remote areas possible and can operate almost year-round.
Although 10% of the current allowable cut is heli-logged, the Ministry of Forests expects that this number will conservatively increase to 30% before the end of the decade. This kind of growth will force existing contractors to add new helicopters to their fleet, will attract new contractors into the industry and will push conventional forest companies to develop their own heli-logging operations. Each helicopter requires a ground crew of approximately 10-40 employees.
Heli-logging is expanding rapidly in many other areas including the interior of British Columbia, Western Canada, the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, Russia, China, South-East Asia and South America.

My thanks to Niel Doerksen for giving me his heli-logging photos that were taken in the spring of 1996 at Houston River, north of Gold River. He is currently an employee of Canadian Air Crane and is working on his heli-logging book which he hopes to complete sometime in 1996.

Also thanks to International Heli-Logging Training Institute Ltd, in Courtenay for their information on heli-logging.

The photos of conventional logging shows two fallers nearing completion of their back-cuts of the huge fir trees. These were taken at Nimpkish Valley on Vancouver Island during the mid 1970's.

Heli-logging with the S-64 Skycrane is a cost-effective and environmentally sound method of harvesting wood. Timber is picked up and flown out from where it is felled, rather than being skidded across the forest floor.

This is state-of-the-art forest practices.

Benefits include far less damage to adjacent stands of trees, soil and riparian areas. In addition, timber harvesting by helicopter minimizes the need for road development. Through the use of irregular cut block boundaries, visual impact concerns can also be significantly reduced.

Canadian Air-Crane can handle all logging prescriptions, including: shelterwood, patch cut, selective and clear-cut methods. Our S-64 Skycranes can dead lift larger timber pieces and can fly uphill as well as they do downhill. This allows us to use landings or road systems that may exist above a cut block.

Heli-logging is changing the face of the forest industry. Today's loggers are not bound by the limitations of conventional logging practices. Canadian Air-Crane provides a vast number of harvesting options. Heli-logging allows industry to capitalize on prime logging opportunities while preserving the natural beauty of the forest.

Heli-Logging

With over 30 years of experience in the forest industry, and heli-logging since 1995, we can provide a full stump to dump service.

We utilize the Bell 214B for heli-logging, with its excellent hot/high performance, and a hook capacity of up to 8000lbs.

Experience
in the
Logging Industry

Prism Helicopters has been serving the Heli-logging industry for the past 10 years. As an experienced support company in Canada and the US. Prism knows the importance of efficiency and quality of service.

As a 369 Series operator, Prism provides you with the best helicopter for Heli-logging support.

Customers that we have proudly supported include; Helifor Industries, Erickson Air Crane, Canadian Air Crane, Coulson Air Crane, DK Heli-Cropper, Canadian Helilog, and Croman Corporation.

Our support work includes:

Transportation of fallers and hillcrew
Longline of gear and equipment
Setting out chokers
All other related work

For more details please contact our Flight Operations Department.

For more details please contact our Flight Operations Department

Heli-Logging

From the medium-sized "Huey" to the Sikorsky S61R, HELiPRO can meet all of your heli-logging needs. Our pilots have thousands of hours of logging experience, having worked all around the globe.

Heli-logging training adds to workers' skills
MAPLE RIDGE- Forest Renewal BC is investing $255,000 in helicopter logging training in the Pitt Lake area to secure employment for 34 workers, parliamentary secretary to the minister of forests Harry Lali, Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows MLA Bill Hartley and Forest Renewal BC chair Roger Stanyer announced today.

"These workers are not only benefiting from extra employment now but are gaining skills that will put them in demand in the future," said Lali, MLA Yale-Lillooet.

J.S. Jones Timber Ltd. of Maple Ridge and IWA Local 1-3567 will oversee the training and employment of the company's ground crew and fallers to heli-log 20,000 to 30,000 cubic metres in the Pitt Lake area.

"Heli-logging is an environmentally sensitive way to log, something which is needed in this area with the recent designation of Pinecone-Burke as a protected area," said Hartley.

Instead of hiring people already trained to heli-log, the company wanted its workers to be trained to do the work, effectively extending their regular work year by six to eight weeks each year.

"As we're moving into a more integrated helicopter logging operation, we need to have access to a flexible workforce," said project manager Dale Clark of J.S. Jones Timber Ltd.

This training is being conducted by the International Heli-Logging Training Institute Ltd. at the University of B.C. forest research facility in Maple Ridge. It involves understanding the Forest Practices Code, gaining experience in all rigging practices, instruction in CPR and First Aid and learning how to safely work on hillsides and at high elevations.

"This kind of investment in workers and the land base is the essence of Forest Renewal BC's objectives," said Stanyer. "The corporation has committed or spent about $90 million dollars on land-based activities in the Pacific region this year."

Forest Renewal BC funding -- from increased stumpage fees and royalties that forest companies pay for the right to harvest timber on Crown lands -- is reinvested into the forests, foresst workers and forest communities. Forest Renewal BC is a partnership of forest companies, workers, environmental groups, First Nations, communities and government.

HELICOPTER LOGGING…

Currently we are utilizing the Kaman HH43F helicopters

that are optimal for external load operations, including uphill yarding and high altitude lifts. With a working lift capacity of 4,000 pounds we are able to move approximately 750,000 to one million board feet of timber per month per helicopter. The Kaman HH43F Husky helicopter has proven itself to be a safe, reliable and efficient helicopter. Its unique intermeshing rotor system eliminates the need for a tail rotor thus providing an additional 35 % more power for lifting while its unique design greatly reduces the noise output normally associated with helicopters which is becoming of an increasingly greater concern for highly populated areas.

Precision Helicopters has already taken additional steps to protect our forest futures by using an environmentally sound approach to selective logging where only a portions of the available timber is removed. Most often the dead, diseased or dying timber is removed leaving a healthy *** stand of timber that can then thrive on the available resources of sunlight, water and soil nutrients.

Because the logs are lifted above the canopy and flown to the nearest road system there is very little soil erosion that is typical in conventional logging ***. By utilizing helicopters we protect stream courses, animal habitats and the residual stand of timber thus protecting our forests future. Our environmentally sound approach not only leaves a healthier forest but also provides an economical way of harvesting needed wood products and salvaging dead and dying timber.

I had a timber sale for cedar in the early 80's at the north end of Stave lake in B.C. Access was by boat and an old logging road at the end of the lake, to the base of a mountain. The timber sale was at the 5000 foot level of this mountain, so it was extremely difficult to log it and remove the shake blocks and sawlogs. My wife and I planned to log this sale, so decisions were made to build a self propelled barge ( I have also designed and built house boats and work boats) utilize a 1 ton flat deck at the end of the lake to transport the shake blocks and a helicopter to drop the blocks at the base of the mountain, and the sawlogs into the north end of the lake. This was going to be a larger operation than we have undertaken before, as our capitol was low and building barges and renting helicopters does not come cheap at all, even back then. I will skip ahead here and leave out all the headaches at the begining, as I do not want to bore you to death. I built the barge on the cheap because I knew I would have a problem selling it after, and it was not a work of art. Basically it was a pontoon platform that could easily haul about 80000 lbs of blocks or logs, with a winch and hoist. It was powered by 2 volkswagen aircooled engines from old VW vans. Empty it could clip along fairly good, loaded it was as slow as molasses in January. I used the the VW engines because they were aircooled and very cheap, considering I ended up with 2 engines that totalled 140 h.p. I used direct drive shafts through the hull to the props, with a rudder, which gave me excellent manouvering, as the engines were independent. The whole barge only cost me $5000 to build, so I came out cheap there.

We barged the 1 ton with all the supplies needed up the lake and then to the landing by the river, then went back out again to arrange getting the crew and the supplies in. This we were going to do by chopper as we planned to stay at the timber sale in 10 day shifts. This was accomplished by the best pilot I have ever seen, as there was no place to land up there and all he could do was place the tip of his skid on top of an old stump(4000 foot drop) and I had to walk along the skid to the top of the stump, as my wife Brenda passed the supplies out the door, this was all accomplished with the pilot hovering and compensating with the change in weight as I walked along the skid( scary ). We told the pilot to go back for the crew, about an hours flight, and set about moving the supplies another 500 feet to a fairly flat area, and waited for the crew. So here we were about 5000 feet up sitting on a stump looking down at the valley floor, the river and the 1 ton on the landing, which all looked so small from that height. The crew finally arrived and Brenda and I decided to take 1 crewman down to the bottom to help sling the building materials, and left the rest of the crew at the top to unsling the materials and find a flat spot to set up a quick camp for the night. On the very last flight the chopper came back down and landed, then the pilot gave us the bad news. He had just enough fuel to get back to his base, so he asked me if I wanted him to do this and then come back to get us and take us back up the mountain. Well considering it was $800 per hour for the chopper, and it would take about 2 hours return flight ( $1600 ) like a complete idiot, I said no, we can climb it. Well the chopper left, and there I was at the base of the mountain with my wife ( Brenda ) and 1 crewman, who by the way were staring at me in total shock, their expressions were priceless, where is the camera when you need it. I got a good dressing down from Brenda (well deserved ) and a crewman who wanted to quit on the spot. Sure the mountain was steep, but it did not involve climbing gear or anything like that. It was sloped, with an old slide area that went nearly to the timber sale, with saplings and small growth trees on it. I knew it would be a long and hard climb, but I thought why not save $1600. To this day I still apologize to my soul mate Brenda for this rotten trick. We started up and using the rock slide area got up about 1/4 of the way using the saplings then took a break. Brenda was really tired but we pushed on slipping and sliding over that slide area, but the problem was we could not go straight up, we had to crisscross the slide, and I could see it was going to take a long time. At the 3/4 point Brenda sat down and informed me she could not go another step, I was to leave her there to die, as she was not going one more inch. After a looooong break, a lot of cajoling, argument, we were finally able to get her moving again, with me pulling her up as much as possible. We finally neared the top, but because we were angling back and forth and the rock slide was a wide area, we did not know how close we were to the crew at the top. We started shouting until finally we heard the rest of the crew shouting back through the forest and made it to the bench of the mountain we were going to log. It was nearing dusk, it had taken 11 hours to climb and we were exhausted, and the rest of the crew did not know what to do, we had no means of communication with them, all they heard was the chopper going back. I had the crew lean pieces of plywood together to create leanto's for two people, crawled in and went to sleep.

Dawn came and we had breakfast over the campstove and got to building a small cabin, just a wood platform layed on the ground, 2 x 4 and plywood walls with a tin roof. It had no insulation or finishing inside so we had it up in 1 day.

There were a lot of tree's down on this bench, most were 3 to 5 feet in diameter, western red cedar, which we were going to cut into shake blocks. The standing tree's were mostly yellow cedar and these were sawlog material. This area had been logged before in the 1940's and you should have seen the monster stumps, you could stand 5 men across them shoulder to shoulder, and I measured 1 stump that was 13 feet across. You really have to applaud these men that logged way back when, even now with all our machines, it would be extremely hard to get 8 to 10 foot diameter tree's off a mountain. How they got that 13 foot monster out is a huge accomplishment, and I salute all you old timers that logged in the 1920's to 1950's, it was a tremendous achievement.

We had arranged for the chopper to come back at the end of the 10 day shift, in the early morning, so he could fly the blocks down to the landing and take us out for days off. We cut shake blocks all that 10 day period and it was hard work as there was not one piece of really flat ground anywhere. Cut off a 24" round of the log, flip it down, and split with axes into shake blocks. We laid down ropes and stacked the blocks on these ropes in the center of the block. The ropes had loops on the ends with a slip knot. We had blocks stacked all over the place and you had to know exactly where each stack was, with a chopper costing $800 per hour, you had better not be searching in the brush for each stack.

The 10th morning it was a sunny day, and we all waited for the beat of the helicopter blades coming up the valley, as we had no contact with the outside world for 10 days, radio's did not work in the mountains and there was no cellular phones in those days. Finally that heavy chop echoing up the valley, the pilot dropped off 2 drums of fuel at the landing and came on up. We had knocked down tree's around the cabin so he could get really low to give us a 2 way radio, but he could not land because it was not level enough. I tell you we all worked really hard that day as the chopper hovers over a stack of blocks, with a 100 foot winch rope and an electric release hook on the end. The ends of the rope under the blocks were pulled up and over the blocks and the loop was put on the chopper hook, by radio command, the chopper pilot lifts slowly and as the rope tightens, the blocks are pulled into a round ball, and then he is gone down to the landing, drops the blocks and comes up again. Well his turn around time is about 5 minutes and you really have to hustle to the next stack, scrambling over boulders, rotton logs, brush, and you do not want him hovering waiting to set the hook, as it is costing $13.33 per minute. We had 1 stack between some tall snags and I misjudged his rotor width, but that pilot was super good, he let down between those snags with only about a 2 foot clearance from the ends of his blades, not me I can tell you. Some pilots go by the book and will not take any risks at all, and I do not blame them, but this pilot was a risk taker, had flown in Vietnam during the war on medi-vac and troop placement under fire, he used to call the other pilots wimps.

Helicopters are designed to lift a certain weight and everything has to be calculated, especially fuel, as the more fuel you have in the chopper, the less weight you can carry. We had 1 more stack left to finish off and he radio'd back up from the landing to hook him up really fast as he only had about 5 minutes fuel left, I told him to shut down and fuel up, but he tells me he is already on the way up. I started praying about this time and counted down on my watch, boy did we hook him fast, he did'nt even tighten the rope, he went up like a rocket then straight down like a jet fighter. To this day I would swear I heard his engines stutter as he landed. That was the end of the first shift, and we all went out in the chopper for a really good rest.

The next shift went smoothly and all the others, so I will skip to the last shift, as this is getting long winded.

We had built a level landing pad for the chopper to land right at the cabin and spent most of the day hooking logs and shake blocks. The clouds and mist were rolling in and I sent all the crew down to the landing, Brenda and I stayed up top while we sent all the equipment down by the chopper. Finally it was all done and there was only us two to come and get. Please keep in mind that this is the same pilot ( you know-the risk taker ) I radio'd him that the mist and clouds were moving in fast, and he answered that the ceiling was 1/2 way down the mountain, but he was determined to come up and get us. I was very much opposed to this, as it was all closed in now, could'nt see 50 feet. Well he came up and the only way he got to the cabin was by radio contact, I would tell him when he sounded closer or farther away. Finally this super pilot comes out of the mist and the beat of the blades cleared the landing pad, Brenda and I got in fast and up we went. The mist and clouds had closed in around us, there are mountains all around us, and the valley was about only 2 to 3 miles across to the next mountain range. This risk taking pilot shuts of Brenda's intercom and tells me that this is going to be really dicey, as there is now no vision at all, lots of air pockets bouncing us around, like flying with all the windows painted grey. I turned on Brenda's intercom and explained the situation, now we are really worried, well the actual expression is terrified. The pilot asks us to look for any hole in the clouds and mist, meanwhile I don't know if he is flying in circles or straight across the valley. After about 10 minutes we saw a hole, well have you ever been in a plane in a full dive, that pilot dropped that chopper like a rock, then it closed in again. It went on like this for some time, until we got low enough that the crew could guide us in by radio. They said they could hear us occasionally flying around up there and they knew we were in trouble because it was socked in right to ground level. When we landed I looked over at the pilot, he was soaked in sweat, pasty face colour, and I knew right then just how bad it had been. He told me later that he would rather be in a Huey landing marines under fire, than go through something like that again.

We waited hours for the mist to clear and fly the crew home. Brenda and I took the 1 ton to the barge and finally made it out of there, after a slow barge ride down the lake. Brenda and I talk a lot to each other and we are very close, and I swore I would never ever put her in that position again, and thankfully I have been able to keep this promise to her.

HELI-LOGGING

The next shift went smoothly and all the others, so I will skip to the last shift, as this is getting long winded.

Helicopter Logging Capability Guide

Heli-logging remains a practical harvesting alternative in many of British Columbia's mountainous regions.

Tech Update Editor: Mel-Lynda Andersen
Copyright 1996. Contact publisher for permission to use.

In spite of falling timber prices and rising stumpage fees, heli-logging remains a practical harvesting alternative in many of British Columbia's mountainous regions. BC's tough new Forest Practices Code has not only imposed increased roadbuilding restrictions, it now requires forest companies and individuals to meet visual quality objectives when logging sensitive sites. These factors, coupled with the reality of logging on steep, unstable slopes, make heli-logging an increasingly viable harvesting method.

Distance and weight are key factors when deciding whether or not to log with helicopters. Maximizing weight per turn and minimizing cycle time are critical. If the timber is located a short distance from the landing site, more can be harvested in a day; and maximum payloads translate into fewer trips, keeping costs down.

Listed here are the heli-logging companies currently operating in BC and their experience, crews, equipment and payload capacities. For more information on the services offered by the heli-logging companies listed here, please circle the reader service card numbers adjacent to each company listing on LSJ's enclosed product information action card.