Aerial Yarding Sample Clauses

Aerial Yarding. Aerial yarding (e.g., by helicopter or balloons) is used where roads cannot be constructed to provide access to a harvesting unit for conventional (ground based or cable) yarding systems. Steep and/or unstable terrain is usually the reasons for the decision to use aerial methods, although lack of a road right-of-way may also trigger its use. Aerial logging uses cables or grapples suspended from long cables to pick up logs and hold them for transport to the landing. The logs are lowered to the log loading area and released without the aerial equipment landing. This type of yarding generates virtually no soil disturbance. However, a large landing is required to safely accommodate concurrent landing of logs, truck loading operations, and decking of logs generated during peak production hours. A separate service landing is also needed to provide a clean, rocked, debris and dust-free surface to protect the helicopter’s engines from damage. The disadvantages of helicopter logging are its expense (roughly three times more expensive than cable yarding) and the fact that lack of vehicular access to the area compromises the landowner's ability to accomplish site preparation, reforestation, and other forest management activities in the future. Helicopter service landing areas are appurtenant to the THP area.