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Oregon Christmas Tree Harvest With Helicopter. Amazing Pilot!

TheNorthwestReport · 5.2M views · 2011-12-26 · 1:50

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Overview

A short clip of a helicopter pilot harvesting Christmas trees at an Oregon farm with a sling load. The description adds facts about Oregon's Christmas tree industry.

On Hacker News

HN cites it as an example of the skill of sling-load helicopter pilots.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2019–2023

Topics

Aviation & aerospace engineeringEnvironment, agriculture & food systems
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helicopterchristmas treesoregonaerial harvestpilot skill

What people said

Modified3019 · 2023-12 · Reference

Some blueberry farms and vineyards here in Oregon use large fans to mix the higher/warmer layers of air with cooler/lower layers, or “drain” cold air away (by blowing it straight up, it apparently doesn’t come back down). This keeps cold air from pooling in certain areas, which is what is needed to cause frost damage. Here are some large mixers, which might be mistaken for small windmills. These are powered by propane (I think), which is what the tanks nearby hold. The heat produced is a bonus, even a degree can make all the difference: [LINK] So while helicopters used to shake water off of crops can sound crazy, it’s literally a big mobile fan you can call in when needed to save your established perennial crop from much more expensive problems (like a disease epidemic, which now requires bacteria codes/fungicides instead of just burning some fuel. Which can make sense. We also use helicopters to harvest Christmas trees. It’s too damn wet in the fall/winter to run most wheeled equipment up and down those horrible on red clay hills, which often have artesian springs temporarily form, resulting in clay mud that can grab and hold all land vehicles. [VIDEO] Agriculture is a whole lot of “sure it’s stupid, but it works and is cheaper than the alternative”

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ortusdux · 2022-04 · Reference

I have friends in forestry, and their industry routinely uses helicopters, despite the risk, for a much lower ROI. Below are some videos of a christmas tree farm and a remote logging operation. I can't imagine that what rocket lab is attempting will be anything short of 10-100x safer. [VIDEO] [LINK]

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RapidFire · 2021-03 · Reference

You would probably need to be the US military. Once you have a setup onsite; helicopters, pilots, fuel, maintenance, crew to rig containers, you could rapidly unload the containers. Check out this video: [VIDEO] US Military is probably the only entity that could pull this off in a timely manner. At great cost of course...

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Sources

Video by TheNorthwestReport, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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