Amazing stuff. I keep thinking it must be a fake, speeded up or something, but no it looks perfectly real. What a great pilot.

You can't speed that video... the length of the cable sets the pendulum period of the load.

The question is what happens at the other side? How do they attach the trees so quickly?

That's what gets me about it. I don't see how it's possible to connect the next load so fast, unless there's some very brave guys hooking up the load and hoping that they don't get dragged away with it.

It does look backwards, but even if he is unloading he still got a good swing of things. Definitely not something I could or would want to do.

I don't think this is extraordinarily hard on the machine. Pretty typical long line operation by a small helicopter with a skilled pilot. This video really shows the easy part of the job. The really hard work takes place on the ground....by the choker setters (those that set the choker cables on the groups of trees), the hookers (they attach the helo's long line hook to the choker) and the chaser (they remove the chokers from the load after it is dropped). It can take hours of preparation on the ground (cutting and grouping trees and setting chokers) to get ready for the rapid movement of trees that you see in this video. Regarding safety, the flight track is kept clear of personnel in case of an an inadvertent load drop, or in case the pilot needs to punch the load in case of an emergency. Regarding stress on the engines and airframe, no unusual G's being pulled here. The loads are well within limits. I would say a helicopter used in flight instruction endures more abuse (doing a dozen or more full autos a day by student pilots). My experience: 5000 hrs in helicopters, two years with a helicopter logging operation, 3 years as a flight instructor.

Wallace, I have no idea if your right or not. After watching the video a few times the physics seemed to make sense. I checked the thread on this video at reddit before I posted here to see if anyone had called baloney and didn't notice any negative comments.

Looking into this again because what I looked at earlier was after sleep time before coffee. Here's a different one from the pilot perspective. Why? Because it's a helicopter and I like the song. Enjoy.