Report No 57-Use of Helicopters in British Forests
Two files containing about 65 Head Quarters Mechanical Development Committee Reports from 1950 to 1958 were saved from destruction by Jim Christie former Forestry Commission HQ, Plant Engineer. Jim, from Crook of Devon, has kindly made the reports available for scanning and entry onto this website. Please open the PDF to see this full report.
Report No 57 covers a practical trial as well as a bit of crystal ball gazing and predicts quite a bit of the future roll of the air machines. This trial was carried out at Duror.
The Augusta Bell 47G Helicopter had a payload of some 600 lbs and in this case was fitted with under-body racks for pipe carrying against which some logs were tied and ratcheted tightly in a horizontal fashion. They did manage to carry a 27 foot tree in this manner.
The initial plan was to hover and pick up a load on a winch but this machine was not fitted out this way and also possibly did not have a quick release under-slung hook otherwise, one would imagine, long slings could have been tried. Surprisingly there was scepticism on the possibility of helicopters handling under-slung vertical loads!
On the whole an interesting trial of the very early days of helicopter capabilities in forestry.
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Groups: Aircraft in Forestry Work, Other Vehicles and Machines