It is interesting, but now they have to develop a forwarder o go behind it that walks. What good is it to send a cut-to-length feller-buncher into an area that is environmentally sensitive, or too difficult for wheeled or tracked machines, when there is nothing to follow it to get the wood out, or follow it and compact the soil, destroy the wetlands, or just plain cannot reach the wood that was cut? I don't think it would be difficult as how hard is it to mount a loader and set of bunks, but watching a walking harvester/forwarding team would be really cool. But honestly, I am a bulldozer guy and just plain like tracks. I got a skidder, and yes its nice and fast at getting the wood out, but even my wife says that when I drive my bulldozer, I smile.
Definitely has a weird element to it since we all are so used to wheeled or tracked heavy machinery. But even those will have less traction being confined to just the space under the tracks. It is looking like a mechanical spider.
That appears to be a little challenge to handle but with much of it being computer controlled it should be a breeze. I could enjoy running equipment like that. I also agree with LodgedTree in that this is only part of what is needed. Indeed, getting the product out can be challenging and sometimes even more challenging. As for the dozers, they have their place too but do tend to tear up a bit more ground. For some applications they are super but I've never run many of them. What I did do with them was a piece of cake except for that time my buddy buried one so bad we could not even see the top of the tracks... I don't remember how many pieces of equipment it took but we did eventually get it out but ruined many hours of work doing so.
Seems like a wild way to recoup a "loss" if something is dug in that far. I haven't really been around heavy equipment much but the "heavy" part just seems ridiculously tedious in mud-stuck situations!
If I recall correctly those walking fellers were ment to be used in conjunction with multiple mobile spar and yarders in a high lead mainline cable system. No forwarder needed. I worked for such an outfit briefly in Oregon for awhile. Sadly no fancy legged fellers just good ol' chainsaws.
Getting unstuck is not that bad, now putting tracks back on...that sucks. It took 5 hours to get this track back on.
