[Closed] How on earth do you get to be employed operating one of these?

College and Uni.

I believe you'd need to go through Cumbria Uni school of forestry.

Might be a shortcut however?

I reckon it'll be amazing, for a bit.

Oh I dunno, I've chatted with a couple of forestry workers who rambled something about it getting under your skin.

I'd be surprised if the forum doesn't have a forestry worker lurking somewhere. Stoner lurking in a coppice wearing a loin cloth doesn't count.

Forestry at Uni then the appropriate plant operator licences I'd imagine, don't hold me to that though.

I'd be surprised if the forum doesn't have a forestry worker lurking somewhere

it does, or at least used to, i haven't seen him around for a bit. Rides a silly bike with one gear sometimes as well

Would you really need a degree to operate heavy plant? Most JCB drivers don't have uni qualifications, just the appropriate training course for that machine.

Don't think you'd need a degree to operate the machine, just loads of training but by what I understood today you need to know a LOT about your trees. As you'd expect, it's all computerised stuff & the driver has a 'laptop' & recieves emails advising him of which type of timber the yards are after at any time. Then it seems like it's up to the operator.

At my Uni in Finland they had a simulator, one of the programmes had Moose running past the harvester.

I know a couple of people who did forestry degree, and they marked the trees up, and some one came and cut them down.

I would imagine that once you have done 1 tree they are all the same.

Can't answer the op's question but for ages I've wanted to see one of these machines employed in a gory movie, perhaps involving zombies.

i had a mate who went to an agri college while we all went to college to do alevels. he used to drive stuff like that. pretty sure he just sells weed now though..... the git is probably still making more money than me 🙁

my father had a decent sized commercial felling company until he retired. a business i had no part of except for holiday and weekend work. co incidently he used to demonstrate at the GYS.

Frankly the opportunity to use such equipment is extremley limited. as a reesult i 'd hazard a guess there are more formula 1 drivers and cars in the uk than forestry machines that size.

During my forest surveying work I come across these machines working from time to time. Definitely not a uni degree requirement (given the last bunch of toothless drunkards I saw driving them). College forestry diploma, and LOTS of experience, probably starting off in tree surgery. Not a lot of these machines around, so felling jobs highly sought after, probably got to know the right people too.

😯

Tree murderer!

I was just in time to see the last tree on the mountain disappear.

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(Back of Ben Wyvis)

If you've ever seen Fern Gully, then this is Hexus. 🙂

Truffula? 😥

You dont need a degree but you might want to [url= http://www.barony.ac.uk/short-courses/forestry-machine-operator-training-ukfpa/forestry-machine-operator-training-ukfpa-2/ ]do this course.[/url]

That's sooo last year, you want one that walks 😉

You do get some really cool machines working in forests. I like the mulchers that basically knock trees over and then eat them!

Edit Too slow!

I used to spray crosses on trees for a living and worked with an ex arborist for a few months, he said he was close to suicidal spending long days on his own stuck in a big machine in the middle of nowhere! It does look like it could good fun though, for a bit.

bigjim - Member
I used to spray crosses on trees for a living and worked with an ex arborist for a few months, he said he was close to suicidal spending long days on his own stuck in a big machine in the middle of nowhere! It does look like it could good fun though, for a bit.

Could he not hunt Ramblers? 🙂

When we stayed in Argyll in the late 80s my dad (self-employed in forestry) had a forwarder to remove the felled logs/bings of pulp (softwood) down to the road for the wood lorries to collect, for my 12th birthday i got a 24cc chainsaw to help with brashing and thinning out which for a kid was quite a ****ing cool present really and needless to say i'd been brought up wi machinery and so-called dangerous equipment of all sorts from a very young age so have a healthy regard for safety and my limbs, From my birthday onwards he taught me to drive the forwarder bit by bit so by the time i was 13 or thereabouts i had free reign of the beast and loved going to work wi him at weekends and when i bunked off school as i got to drive about the hillside and tried to avoid setting off the tilt alarms but sometimes you just had to go by judgement and a sharp intake of breath - bloody good fun thinking back on it now and i had my own logo'd up boilersuit and everything - right down to my mini logging boots - made very good money for my labour which as a teenage kid bought me all sorts of stuff from old mk2 escorts to motocross bikes to canoes etc...etc, all ragged rotten up in the desolate Argyll singletrack roads and forest roads along wi paddling about Loch Awe with my early muddy fox mtb in the front of the canoe - halcyon childhood days indeed 😀

Dunno if i'd want to be driving one of those things for living these days though, admittingly the money is very good (a mate drives one of the Largest John Deere harvesters) but he basically lives in his mobile home/campervan in a forest for weeks at a time on his tod, rarely seeing a soul from day to day and when he does get time off he tends to get a bit hedonistic wi drink etc, but i guess it depends on your personality. I know he earns 7 times my current salary, but i get to go home every night and ride my bike when i want (i'm trying to convince myself i have the better deal).