Lombardy Fell Incident

[daddyola50]

Good post.

 

It just comes down to practice. A forestry operative will fell many times more trees in one day than most tree surgeons will fell in a month. We used to average 40-70 a day (hardwood, 12" dbh, 60-70ft on average) years back when I still felled trees regularly. As someone who is at the relatively inexperienced end of forestry, I've probably still dropped 30,000 reasonable sized trees. How many tree surgeons have done that?

 

I don't think tickets are the answer. I've only got CS31 and have never felt the need for more for ground cutting. Experience is what counts, and it wouldn't hurt budding tree surgeons to go spend a few months in the woods.

 

nail on the head

[MattyF]

Quite a few I know of ... People forget that a lot of hand cutters came to tree surgery in the early 90's when harvesters only really became the norm on felling sites... That's not that long ago.

[Thesnarlingbadger]

Good post.

 

 

 

It just comes down to practice. A forestry operative will fell many times more trees in one day than most tree surgeons will fell in a month. We used to average 40-70 a day (hardwood, 12" dbh, 60-70ft on average) years back when I still felled trees regularly. As someone who is at the relatively inexperienced end of forestry, I've probably still dropped 30,000 reasonable sized trees. How many tree surgeons have done that?

 

 

 

I don't think tickets are the answer. I've only got CS31 and have never felt the need for more for ground cutting. Experience is what counts, and it wouldn't hurt budding tree surgeons to go spend a few months in the woods.

 

 

That's a fair point maybe these larger felling tickets are not needed if you are felling all day everyday in a forestry environment. However if you rarely fell trees and are more of a climber it may be an advantage to learn to problems that can occur felling larger trees and it's not always a simple gob and back cut with a rope on with some of these big buggers.

[treequip]

I thought one of the main reasons for bringing a subby in is to help on jobs that are assessed to be beyond the skill level/experience of the day to day crew. That way the crew can gain the experience in these kinds of jobs safely.

 

Yes to the first part but if you are hiring a contract climber then that's what he is.

 

If you can pick up by observation that's fine but if you want to accredit it as a training session it needs to be set up as such.

[richy_B]

I know of many companies who've done exactly that and continue to do it for reassessments.

It's a total joke.

Every single operator I know, knows that this happens. Surely the AA are not so naive that they don't know this happens!?

That's ridiculous. I have never (perhaps nievely) even considered companies did this. I would have thought an assessor would have some method of checking employment status of the teams, how long they have worked their etc. It's like bringing someone in to sit your driving test for you! No ethics at all.

[TIMON]

Yes to the first part but if you are hiring a contract climber then that's what he is.

 

 

 

If you can pick up by observation that's fine but if you want to accredit it as a training session it needs to be set up as such.

 

 

That's what we try and do. Our subby is also an NPTC trainer so he is really good at passing his skills on.

Obviously old fashioned apprenticeships are the ideal for someone to progress from rookie climber to seasoned pro. I doubt there are that many around anymore.

[stihlmadasever]

I can only speak from a climbers point of view and to be honest id rather climb and dismantle a big tree and reduce it to a 30ft stem then knock it over even if it could be felled in one go.I get twitchy felling big trees because i dont do it regular enough to have a lot of confidence in my capabilities infact one of the ground guys has forestry experience but only has cs30/31 but ive seen him fell some trees that id get nervy about.

Simple fact is he does it because he has lots of experience and confidence in his capabilities.

[inthewoods]

 

 

 

I don't think tickets are the answer. I've only got CS31 and have never felt the need for more for ground cutting. Experience is what counts, and it wouldn't hurt budding tree surgeons to go spend a few months in the woods.

 

Spot on!

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

That's all gone a bit Forestry v Tree Surgery (Arb, or whatever it wants to be called.)

 

Volume of fells, and making mistakes in a (relatively) low impact environment is a very valid point, to a point.....

 

But...

 

For me, it looses a bit of focus when talking about only needing CS31 (in old speak) which is 8-15" diameter at felling height to suggest commercial felling makes for a safer operator.

 

For tree surgery / arb (maybe it's peculiar to Cornwall?), 8-15" is generally done by the home owner before they even think of calling somebody in. 8-15" is hedging, not felling....

[Joe Newton]

That's all gone a bit Forestry v Tree Surgery (Arb, or whatever it wants to be called.)

 

Volume of fells, and making mistakes in a (relatively) low impact environment is a very valid point, to a point.....

 

But...

 

For me, it looses a bit of focus when talking about only needing CS31 (in old speak) which is 8-15" diameter at felling height to suggest commercial felling makes for a safer operator.

 

For tree surgery / arb (maybe it's peculiar to Cornwall?), 8-15" is generally done by the home owner before they even think of calling somebody in. 8-15" is hedging, not felling....

 

 

Well said.

 

Although I've only had two fells from memory cock up resulting in damage. One was sub 15".