Geeze, I was getting worried for a minute that nobody would chime in.
I'm going to have to jump with both feet on Heavy saying you don't need brains to run big iron. I have my office in a logging shop, I trade mechanic and woods monkey time for cheap rent and power-tool privileges.
The partners are long-time buddies of mine. None went to cowledge like me, but they have ridiculous skills that a lot of smart people don't ever try, much less develop. I've had the chance to work the toys I can comprehend, that's the skidder and the Cats, but its going to be a big leap for me to run anything further up the food chain and not kill myself.
Skill set 1: Three dimensions, over time. They have to know where they are, what's around them, where everything will be when the move is over, and whether that move sets them up properly for the NEXT move. It's hard enough on the flat, try it on the side of a hill. Big Stick and Loggah can relate. It is effing hard to input/output 28 tons or so of irritable iron. Just TRY running a clipper on a crunchy mountain. Or just process logs with the computer thingie. Don't smash into the log truck or the skidder or the yarder. See if you can feel that soft spot in the ground through your operator's seat BEFORE you flip over a quarter million dollars.
My dad was a fighter pilot, ran Cats before the Air Force and logged for a time after retiring. His phrase, and he should know, is situational awareness. Flying demands the same kind of awareness, of "otherness" -- or bad stuff happens.
Skill set 2: Mechanics. If you've ever opened the access doors on any hunk of green or yellow iron, you will see a greasy mess of hoses and wires, lube points, et cetera et cetera. The manuals on these things are three inches thick and in Chinese. Now, imagine you had a fire in the valve body and the machine is hundreds of yards up the mountain. In snow up to your waist.
Go ahead, figure out how you're gonna isolate the plumbing so you can crawl the thing down to the road and then to the lowboy so you can get it to town. Go ahead. In a blizzard.
Or let's do something easy -- find the leak in that there hose-bundle, and then swap the $*%$^# out for the right replacement! Or just try to drive the pins that hold everything together without killing somebody.
I'll concede that grading and trenching and good crane flying (I used to rig red iron) is wonderful stuff, I've worked with the best. But to have that finesse in the woods, or on rough, uncertain ground -- that's darn near voodoo. Add to that the ability to run and maintain and FIX your toys, and I'd say pound for pound, modern loggers win.
