Is that a cooler (cool-box) on the floor of the helicopter? (next to the pilots’ left leg)
Man this is so amazing. I feel like I m not watching a helicopter at all, but some kind of giant insect, just going about it s business gathering food.
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The christmas trees look fake from that altitude. Like fuzzy gumdrops.
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Wow, my morning CO2 footprint went way up. It was already pretty high: I was a little shocked to realize that our Solstice Tree came from Oregon…and we live in AZ.
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Our AZ Christmas tree this year is a Festivus pole, and it’s a remnant of a long-lost shade structure.
Your CO2 footprint may vary.
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As my dad would say, “God didn’t put an evergreen in the desert.”
He says that when a non-native plant dies or flounders.
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this is totally cool. helicopter pilot friend sent me the pilot’s POV link someone posted above.
i’m an (adopted) Oregonian. we have a tree in our cabin that we cut down in the national forest ourselves with a $5 permit. it’s a bit charlie brown-ish. not too many noble firs around here.
these guys must be pro loggers. reminds me of the choker setters on high-line rigs back in the day. set the choker and get the F out of the way.
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Ironically, there are loads of them within a couple of miles of me. I guess it’s probably not a place to sustainably farm them, however.
Yeah I figured the mountains had some. But like you said, steep hills and thin soil don’t make good farms.
This seems like an awful lot of effort just for getting some firewood.
It is. Xmas tree chopper pilots need to eat lunch too, ya know.
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Awesome! However the precision and tedious repetition this job entails makes me think of one thing…
Giant quadcopters programmed to harvest Christmas trees.
Not to be TOO snarky, but you live in the desert. Your CO2 footprint might be a tiny bit higher than, well, someone living on the western side of Oregon (or, I suppose, northern california or the western side of Washington). 
Although I suppose if you have a bunch of solar panels and a rock garden rather than a big lawn and maybe you live in Flagstaff or something …then my comment would likely be invalid.
That would make a great first step towards “harvesting” smaller targets. Or should I say, “reaping”.
I think I remember 5 trees in the 2 minute clip. So around 150 trees per hour. I don’t know what it costs to have a helicopter in the air, but I’ve heard it’s expensive. It’s gotta be adding three or four bucks to the price of each tree.
For that helicopter, 400 - 500 an hour. The Bell 206b is comparatively cheap to fly.
And we’ll pray that’s all they harvest.
Entire helicopter as an extension of your own hand. There’s someone who is so comfortable with the machine it’s like he’s not even trying.
I guess Howlin’ Mad Murdoch is too old of a reference for this crowd.
Those power lines nearby are pretty serious business too. (in the pov video)
