A friend of mine discoved what he now considers to be a very important advantage of hydro over gear. Last week he was clearing some land down near the river. He was using a Kuboto with a fel. I haven't had a chance to speak with him directly, and what I have heard has been heersay, and what was published in the local paper. It seems he managed to flip the tractor on its back and then rolled it on its side. He was trapped underneath the rear wheel. He said the tractor ran for a loooong time, it finally cut off when the oil flooded the engine. It smoked and snorted and just kept running for what seemed like an eternity. His arm and shoulder were pinned underneath the rear wheel. He was able to get his pocket knife and dig out enough space under his body to enable himself to scratch and claw with his finders to dig enough of a hole to make clearance to slid himself out from under the wheel. It took him almost four hours to get out from under the tractor. He then walked to a nearby house about a mile away. He was very lucky. His worst injury was a broken collar bone. He said that if he had been using a gear drive tractor, the wheel would have just chewed him up and spit him out. He was very grateful that since it was a hydro, the wheels stopped turing when he fell off. He learned several lessons that day, many of which he had forgotten in his 40+ years of driving tractors.
