It can be a pain in some situations but 90% of the time it’s not noticeable for the work I do. We are almost strictly removals mixed with a little bit of line clearance. On the truck you’re asking about both buckets have a full set of controls so I just get in whichever bucket fits the shape of the tree and work my way in from that side. It’s also great for training new people, teaching knots in real time and letting groundsman see your end of the work. I find new guys that I take up in the air catch on way faster and move faster on the ground when they can see first hand what you deal with and are trying to accomplish with rigging.
When doing line clearance sometimes it’s nice to grab another person and have them hold branches as you cut to avoid them contacting the lines. When we are trimming small regrowth or suckers it’s so much faster than rigging in situations where the branches can’t be allowed to free fall. Once in awhile they’re a pain try to maneuver through tight trees or when trying to do pine trees when you need to trim out the middle. Both buckets rotate so you can maneuver them around sometimes to get them out of the way in some situations. I have the schematics for the hydraulics I’m sure you could figure out how to delete 1 bucket and set of controls but it has not bothered me enough to be worth doing it.
