I came home the other day to one very animated husband. He'd spent half the day being completely distracted while trying to work away in the home office. Here is his very low-key account."For the last hour or so, I have had a large helicopter coming and going outside my window. It gets to within about 60 metres of the apartment. The locals are removing some trees in a very Swiss manner - with shitloads of expensive equipment and very little labour.
"The trees are near a pathway so they can't just cut the tree down and let it fall. It may land on someone. Instead, they bring along a helicopter (with two blades for extra stability - no tail rotor) and attach a cable to the top of the tree. The guys on the ground then cut the tree down and the helicopter holds it in place vertically. Once it is completely cut, the helicopter just carries it away about 1km to a place where they can cut it up easily.
"Unfortunately my pictures don't do the process justice as I was too gobsmacked to take pictures of the first dozen trips. The first trips took away the big trees what were too large to just cut and let fall in the woods. The little bit hanging down below the helicopter in the photo is part of the later process of tidying up bits that they had cut down by hand. I reckon that the big ones were about 80 cms in diameter and 40 meters tall.
"Amazing - and very distracting."
What I also gleaned was that our very secure double glazing was positively rattling, the 'copter was so close. And it kept him indoors spellbound for about three hours! I had a detailed description of the unusual setup of the helicopter which I shall have to get him to repeat because I don't quite get it - something about no tail blade but two top blades rotating in different directions.
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