Appendix Helipace

 Jennifer Shiu

 

Introduction:

 

Helipace is a program that estimates helicopter logging production rates and costs. It utilizes a given stand table and simulates a helicopter logging system. In addition to computing rates and costs, Helipace has the capability to compute volume and weight estimates and to display stand graphics. This is performed by a program called FORSEE which is linked to Helipace. This is most helpful in making cost and timber estimates for an individual harvest unit.

 

Method:

Helipace needs various sets of data to perform its analysis: Sale data, landing data, and stand data.

Sale data:

This table requires information about the flying distance, ground distance, average speed, and special costs.

Landing data:

This table specifies the location and description for the landings and the construction costs. The location description requires northing and easting coordinates, as well as a relative elevation.

Stand data:

This table data can be manually entered or imported from the FORSEE program. Within FORSEE a stand table is entered and volume and weight estimates are calculated for you. Additional data that FORSEE does not produce can be found in the UNUTILIZED MATERIAL file.

 

Once we started a new file in Helipace, we must first enter the Sale data. This was found in the Sale menu and the View Sales item. This table displays a table of sale names, move data items and special sale costs. Within this table, enter the move information, as seen in Table 1. We used the same information as the "sample" program because this was found to be the standard specifications.

Table 1. This is the Sales Table that uses the standard specifications for a helicopter system.

 

 

Air Distance

Road Distance

 

 

 

Sale

Best

Worst

Best

Worst

Ave Road Speed (mph)

Special Sale Cost ($)

#1

100

100

165

165

45

0.00

Next, we described the landing settings in the View/Edit item in the Landing menu. This displays a table of log and service landings. It is important to specify the Easting and the Elevation. Because we do not have a coordinate system, for this harvest design, we used the approximate flight distance in the Easting cell, zero in the Northing cell and an average construction cost of $2000, as seen in Table 2.

Table 2. This is the Landing table that specifies the data needed to locate the landing for our setting boundary.

Landing

Easting

Northing

Elevation

Constr Cost

#1

2900

0

1960

2000

Now we must enter data in the Alternative Detail table. This table describes our design and any constraints affecting it.

Figure 1. This is the Alternative Detail Table that describes the setting of our harvest unit.

 

For the location information, we measured the area and elevation off of the map. Because we did not have a coordinate system, we used the approximate flight distance for the Easting and zero for the Northing.


In this section, we used the standard helicopter model and the average yarding distance for the flight path. Helipace calculated the new design load.

 


The stand data was imported from FORSEE, using the Stand Analysis Method. Here, Helipace computes the new pounds/Gross-BF. This value specifies our harvest unit. Because we are not part of the Forest Service, it is not required to yard add'l fiber, hence these input values are zero.

 

 

 

 

 


The majority of the wood information was calculated by Helipace. However, we needed to specify the Avg Available Load and Load Factor. The Avg Available Load was determined by using the standard minimum load and the Target Load as the maximum. The load factor is computed from the Avg Available Load/Target load with a standard maximum.

 

 

 

 


The production rate was calculated by HELIPACE using the above given information.

 

 

 

 

 

 



The production costs are the final analysis and summary that HELIPACE outputs. These values estimate the cost of the system and design specified. However, in this section, we needed to determine the crew and operators as needed by the logging production. We estimated this by assuming what production must be needed in order to keep the helicopter operable.*

 

 

 

*Note: The Production Cost $/Net Ton was found by taking the average of the Production Cost Range $/Ton. The Production Cost $/Net MBF was also found by taking the average of the Production Cost Range $/Net MBF. These are the values that will designate the cost of your system.

(After entering the data into each cell, the cursor will automatically move you to a cell that requires data to be entered. This helps in determining what cells need data.)

Now that all the data has been entered, we can view the Summary for Sale: #1, as seen in Table 3.