Chalkey,
I never meant to belittle anyone and if that's how anyone read my post I apologize.
As far as you asserting that the hst is safer, easier, and faster to operate again you are stating your opinion based on your experience. I am basing my opinion based on my experience. This weekend I did a variety of jobs. I cut, raked, and baled hay, moved rock, made a loading ramp, and mowed pastures. In my honest to goodness no holds barred opinion I would not have saved one bit of time or been any safer with any of those jobs with an hst than with my gear tractors. That's my honest to goodness assesment. You may have done the same jobs and said oh my gosh you are a fool for not having an hst. have literally been driving a tractor since I was five years old. In the summers I would spend 16-20 hours a day on tractors, dozers, combines, swathers, etc. In the winters I probably spent 3-5 hours a day on them. I would say I easily would have spent over 30,000 hours on machinery just by the time I was 18. We had every kind of tractor you can imagine growing up. We had over 50,000 acres of range to take care of and about 10,000 acres of crops to take care, not to mention all the other ranch jobs and roads to build and maintain. To say the least we were always looking for better and faster ways to get the jobs done. We tryed hst's, powershifts, powerglides, shuttle shift, etc. etc. so I've experienced them all. I was stuck on an old 1940's D-7 cat most of the time building roads as Grandpa didn't think I could tear that one up /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif. Later I got to drive the better ones but I don't think I did any better of a job or got the work done any faster.
In college I still came home every summer and worked all the way until I graduated from grad school nine years later. I still worked incredibly long hours. Now alot of you know why I am still going every waking hour, I don't know any other way, /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif. During grad school I had alot of experience working for a landscaper and drove alot of hst tractors. Since then I have not put near as many hours on tractors but still log probably about 20 a week average. As far as I know there has never been any studies done on saying that the hst or the gear tractor is safer, faster, etc. for any kind of job be it farming, ranching, small acreage work, etc. At this point it's our opinions. You state that my assertions are untrue, "And all the more especially so when it's patently untrue". Another is that you say that anybody can be faster on a gear tractor. That's not what I said. I said that I can get work done faster on a gear tractor and I know alot of other guys that can too. I'm curious as to why your experience is better than mine and because you are experienced you say I am basically full of it because I assert that with my experience a gear tractor is a better choice? If we want to talk experience only as our criteria I don't think there's too many people on this board that have spent more seat time than myself. I don't think that's too important either though. The guy that has thousands of hours of experience or the guy that only has two hours of experience they should be just as qualified to make an assessment as you or I and for what they have experienced they are totally right.
Now with all of that said let's just remember that these are opinions not based on any kind of "real facts" at all. I don't care if it's you, Gordon, Rat, etc. You're all good guys and I'm sure that you're more than capable of running machinery. You all have very valuable opinions but they are just that. You don't know that you can move dirt faster with your hst than my 4600 nor do any of the other guys. We all think we can do the job faster but we don't know. I'm guilty of it too. But seeing where this post has gone and there not being any evidence on one side or the other I don't think any of us should make that assumption. I have raced a few guys before but that doesn't mean you're not a better operator than them. All in all I'm only right from my experience and you're only right from your experience. They certainly aren't global truths by any stretch. There's no "objective" data anywhere to say that you or me are right. There have been several times in medicine where I have said that something was true only to be completely disproved by scientific fact. I have literally caused some of my patients to spend thousand of dollars because of my perceptions. The case in point that I'm talking about is ibuprofen vs. celebrex. When celebrex came out it was touted as the cure all for a number of arthritic profiles. I prescribed it for a number of patients. Well now the reasearch comes out and celebrex is no better than plain old ibuprofen. In fact once I researched it more and looked at the new studies all celebrex really is is extra strength ibuprofen that you only have to take once a day and was also said to be easier on your stomach. Well the research has shown that wasn't true either!@! To say the least I just tell my patients to purchase OTC ibuprofen now instead of getting celebrex or viox. I only point this out to show how erroneous our opinions and what we think are true can really be.
Like one guy said he would maybe save a few minutes a year using a hyrdrostat over a gear tractor with mowing. That's probably true. Same with Bird talking about using one to mow hay. 90 some % of the field you go in one gear to bale the hay, mow, rake, etc. In the few areas that you do slow down yes you maybe save a few minutes over the course of a day. Most of the guys that use cut's on here probably won't spend but a couple hundred hours a year on their tractors at best. I'm talking average. I know some people more and some people less. Let's just take your argument that you are right about it saving time. If you take those few minutes that you say a person would save then they maybe have a few hours less time a year on their machine. Maybe to some that's important and to others it's no big deal. If you want to save a little time over the course of the year then fine you save about 5% or less in time. Now does that hst do any better of a job moving the load of dirt? Does the hst do any better job drilling post holes? Does the hst do any better of a job mowing the grass? Does the hst do any better of a job leveling that road? Does the hst do any better of a job tilling the garden? Does the hst do any better of a job plowing snow? etc. etc. These are all jobs done with the cut. Did the hst make any of these jobs get done better time not considered? I don't think an argument can be made for that.
With regards to safety I still fail to see how an hst can be any safer than a gear tractor IF you follow safety guidelines. As far as stopping you are talking about maybe a millisecond difference between just taking your foot off the accelerator or between clutching and braking. Try and say one one thousand faster than a good operator can push in the clutch and stop. Other than that these tractors have so many stops in them that I just don't see where an hst is superior to a gear tractor. You may have a fraction of a second in reaction time but not enough to make much of a difference. We can theorize all we want but that doesn't do anyone any good. We have no test data on reaction time. Other than that if you even move from the seat on most cut's they shut off that fast. With regard to creeping and such take a second put the tractor in low gear and use the brake or power reverser. There's not a whole lot of difference between creeping in low gear on the tractor or creeping along in low on the hst. If you're talking about speed you certainly don't want to go from forward to reverse real quick or you will get quite a jolt. Even on an hst it's better to come to at least a little bit of a stop before going back. In that half a second your are slowing to reverse directions I've already shifted gears and am going backwards too. As far as stopping goes most of these tractor brakes are pretty dang good. If you're gonna slide with the tractor brakes you're certainly going to slide with the hst locked as well.
All in all can I have certainly debated enough on this. I just have a problem with you guys that like the hst's telling us guys with gear tractors that your choice is better, that you're safer and that you get jobs done faster. Just throw out the inexperience comment. I only said that because you guys brought it up and I was trying to come to some middle ground so that someone that had no experience had a little better basis to go from. I'm not saying that the hst is inferior to the gear tractor for most CUT applications, but neither is the gear tractor inferior to the hydro. Some people like yourself may save a little time. Others won't save any time. I still maintain that if you use your head and practice tractor safety you will not end up in any accident that you wouldn't have ended up in with a gear tractor. They both have a ton of safety features built in. The only argument I have seen made is on the stopping issue when you take your foot of the hydro pedals. Maybe a millisecond saving in time. Might make a difference someday but in my opinion I doubt it would. I think a good driver can do the same thing with a gear tractor. Other than that I haven't heard one other thing about how an hst is safer. We've heard how an application for one person mowing steep hills is maybe faster but certainly using a comparable CUT in a gear drive and practicing tractor safety you would get the job done just as safely. Use low gear creep down and use the power reverser and come out. Or if you have no power reverser creep down start to apply the brake just before the clutch and you stop just as good and take a half second shift to reverse and back out. Still just as safe. A little faster with the hst, maybe a second or two, but certainly not any safer. If you're going down a steep enough hill that you can't stop it with the tractor brakes again that's not very safe and you shouldn't be there with either tractor. Certainly you can't confuse poor judgment with tractor safety. I just can't think of an instance where you are safer if you use good judgment and practice safety.
Lastly I would just like to say that although we disagree and such I hope we're all still friends. Most of you that have posted on this issue I have complete respect for your opinions and your tractor savvy. Even this issue it gives those that don't have the experience benefit from seeing explicitly why we do or don't agree on what's best for a person.
