The name Henry Fear is synonymous with innovation in New Zealand forestry circles. Whether it be as an early disruptor in silviculture with mechanical planters, introducing ‘smart spades’ which identify exactly where to plant a tree seedling, or hydrogel to extend the planting season, where there’s transformation you’ll find Henry in the thick of it. His latest project is no exception. The Kobelco ED 160, aka the Blade Runner, using an MDE Koala 400 tree shear attachment, is doing the job of three machines when we meet Henry in Kaingaroa Forest.

Henry of HA Fear contracting says, “Possibly the only three-in-one machine in New Zealand that can fall and bunch trees and bulldoze at the same time, the Blade Runner is a great example of a ‘one man, one machine’ operation and it removes the need for a whole lot of additional more expensive equipment.”

He explains: “There are three aspects to it. Because it’s an excavator top half, we can dig with it; we use the tree shear to cut the trees down and directionally fell them; and then the bulldozer blades sweep the skid sites and form them – all in one machine.”

For a small machine it’s clear it can do a lot. The 16-tonne excavator base with upgraded final drives and drive system give it the same pushing power as a D4 bulldozer with a six-way bulldozer blade, so this excavator/bulldozer combination is “really manoeuvrable, incredibly powerful and can push a large volume” says Henry.

This becomes clear as we watch operator, Anton Kereama, deftly take the Blade Runner through its paces. Instead of the processor coming through to cut the trees into logs; the forwarder taking them off to another skid site and the bulldozer doing the earthworks to form the skid site, the Blade Runner cuts the trees, stacks them off the edge of the skid and forms the skid site without any double handling. 

“It’s good… quite a bit different. It’s the first machine I’ve driven with a blade and head sheer,” says Anton.

“It’s much more efficient,” adds Henry. “We can do a 40x30m skid site in about four-and-a-half hours for production thinning, which is pretty good going. It averages about one week a month doing that particular job and the rest of it is general earthworks and roading for Timberlands and the Kaingaroa Processing Plant (KPP) or on farms.” 

High efficiency

Henry has come a long way, from starting in earthworks in 2010 to now thinning, cutting and removing stumps in a single operation. When work with a chipping contractor dried up, he approached Timberlands and put a machine into land preparation for spot cultivation. The rest, as they say, is history as he “slowly grew the business, one machine at a time”. Now there’s the Blade Runner, four 20-tonne excavators, two 30-tonne 6x6 articulated trucks, one D65 dozer, one transporter and a metal truck and trailer.

The idea for the Blade Runner came after initially building skid sites using a D65 bulldozer, working in conjunction with the logging...