Here at the GIE+EXPO in Louisville, Kentucky, there are about as many farm-related machines to look over and run as a guy could ask for: I’m talking John Deere tractors, Bobcat excavators, Cub Cadet garden tractors, Stihl and Husqvarna chainsaws, Ford trucks, and about as many zero-turn mowers as a landscaper could wish for.

One of the coolest things I’ve seen so far, is some cutting-edge technology and engineering that enhances utility of two staples on the farm that previously often went underutilized: the UTV and ATV.

Kirk Jones, of ProMan PTO has engineered a cool way to add power take-off points on UTVs and ATVs that can power a cutting deck, log-splitter, leaf blower and more on either the front or back of these machines that in most cases are used only for hauling equipment and pure fun on the farm.

For the ATV, you’re looking at adding the system for around $5,500. For the UTV ProMan PTO mobile hydraulic platform, it’s going to run you around $6,000. Something to consider, though, especially if you’re considering adding a completely separate machine with PTO attachment capabilities. 

The system relies on a hydraulic pump attached to the motor and a reservoir cooler mounted to the machine – on the front-load rail of ATVs and under the front seat of UTVs – that run hydraulic hoses either to the front- or rear-mounted attachment.

It opens up a whole new arena for consumers, dealers, and manufacturers alike.

Imagine using your ATV, attaching the log-splitter, and splitting your log segments right on site, rather than loading them in the truck, hauling them back to the barn, unloading them, splitting them, and stacking firewood. Or, better yet, attaching the splitter to the front of a UTV with a trailer on the back, and you see where the application goes from there.

Or, rather than mowing pond banks with a tractor bushhog that never feels safe enough, attach a mowing deck to the ATV or UTV and bush hogging in a much safer manner.

It takes UTV and ATV utility to a whole new level.

In fact, the whole idea originated because Kirk Jones felt there had to be a better way of mowing his farm in hilly central Southern California. He turned to an ATV already on his place, took off the casing of the engine, reverse-engineered a fitting for the hydraulic pump, attached the cooling reservoir, and voila, a mobile hydraulic platform took the ATV into a whole new level of production and safety.

It takes 5 to 7 hp to move an ATV in low gear, so you’re left with 40-some-odd hp that isn’t being used. My biggest question is with engine torque, and how the log splitter holds up when the engine isn't at full-throttle, or how fast the blades spin on the cutting deck when not at full-throttle. Nevertheless, these guys at ProMan PTO designed a system to tap into leftover engine power, and now it’s on the market. The system is currently compatible with Kawasaki, Yamaha and Polaris engines, and hopefully Honda, John Deere and Kubota will follow. Proman PTO seems to be onto something, and it could change the game when it comes to farm equipment and the small farmer getting more out of his or her machines, and in a safer mode of operation in some case.

Leave it to a small landowner to come up with such a cool concept.

Our work here at GRIT affords me the ability on some occasions to visit some really special places and interact with some really inspiring people. Visiting the Flight 93 Memorial outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania, was as chilling, moving, and proud of an experience as I’ve ever had.

The idea of visiting this location and how special it would be occurred to me after reading a column by Rick Reilly (the link forwarded to me from my brother Josh), who writes usually sentimental sports articles for ESPN.

In the days leading up to September 11 of this year, he wrote a moving piece in which ESPN published the actual transcript of the audio recovered from the Flight 93 plane. It was the first time I’d ever read it, and it’s really something else.

For those who don’t know, Flight 93 was the fourth plane that never made it to its intended target on September 11, 2001. Heroic passengers stormed the cockpit behind a passenger plane drink cart and caused their aircraft to crash about 18 minutes by air from the most probable intended destination, the U.S. Capitol building.

 
Photo courtesy Flight 93 National Memorial/U.S. Department of the Interior

From the follow-up trials following that day, we’ve learned that Osama bin Laden most wanted to send the fourth plane into the White House, but other planners and advisors favored the Capitol. Apparently one of the reasons September 11 was chosen was that the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate were both in session that day.

To condense the events (you can read about the events of that day on the Flight 93 Memorial website), the fourth plane was delayed 25 minutes before takeoff, so at the time of the terrorist takeover passengers learned from family and friends about the attacks on the other buildings: the World Trade Center and the U.S. Pentagon.

Trade, military, and government were all targets, and can you imagine today how morale would have been further affected if that fourth plane hit a Congress in session. Eighteen minutes of hesitation, it would have been a completely different and even more devastating day. And this was perhaps the most important plane to the leaders of al-Qaida.

After attending the fall 2011 Mother Earth News Fair in nearby Seven Springs, Pennsylvania, I used the opportunity to drive the 45 minutes to Shanksville along with colleague and Gas Engine Magazine's Christian Williams.

Photo courtesy Christian Williams

The Memorial outside of Shanksville is simple, yet elegant, and it reflects rural America and in some ways GRIT itself.

“From the beginning, our thought was that this memorial needed to be specific to this place, it should be about rural Pennsylvania, so when you are here, visitors should see the sky, and the fields, and the hillsides,” says Flight 93 National Memorial site manager Jeff Reinbold.

 
Illustration courtesy Flight 93 National Memorial/U.S. Department of the Interior by Paul Murdoch Architects and Biolinia

Rural landscape was a big part of architect Paul Murdoch’s plan. The colors of the memorial structures are grey, black and white, with the landscape of what once was a strip mine offering the brilliant appearance. 

One cool notion is that the land is healing itself along with American citizens who experience the Memorial.

 
Photo by Christian Williams

In fall, all the hillsides are bright in autumn color. Visit in winter, and you’ll see a hardened landscape. Spring is green and really lush, and in summer the fields surrounding the memorial are filled with wildflowers, “yellow wildflowers as far as the eye can see,” in Reinbold’s words.

While I stood there – it was September 26 – early fall felt hopeful on the surrounding pastures, but the large boulder placed directly over the impact site loomed incessantly. I felt extremely visceral emotions of gratitude, sorrow and reverence for those folks on board Flight 93 that day.

Since over 90 percent of the remains of the 40 passengers and crew members who were onboard are still scattered in the field where the plane went down (it was upside-down at the point of impact), the impact site and area immediately surrounding it are at this time closed to the public; only family can go into the field and approach the boulder.

But I stood about 150 yards out staring at it and thinking about what those people went through on that plane. In some ways, it was not a quick death, since passengers took a vote and knew ahead of time what they were about to go through. It begged the question and questioned my own courage standing there: Would you have done the same?

For most of us, I think the answer is probably yes, but seeing this site made me for the first time imagine being on the plane, upside down in these hills in late summer, the al-Qaida terrorists throwing the plane up and down violently, trying to throw the resisting passengers away from the cockpit. Even though we like to think many Americans would have done the same, it’s no less incredible, no less the ultimate sacrifice.

 
Photo by Christian Williams. The Wall of Names is erected along the exact path that the United Flight 93 Boeing 757 came down in rural Pennsylvania.

At the time of this writing, Flight 93 National Memorial is still about $10 million short of all the funds it needs to finish the project. The actual memorial is in place, but lacks an appropriate visitors’ center and 90-foot wind chime at the entrance with 40 softly speaking chimes (the future Tower of Voices), and the Field of Honor, with 40 memorial groves of trees native to Pennsylvania, “reinforcing this idea that this is not a memorial that you look at, it’s one that you are part of, you inhabit it,” as Reinbold says.

 
Illustrations courtesy Flight 93 National Memorial/U.S. Department of the Interior by Paul Murdoch Architects (2)

I felt it down to my core, and if you’re ever in the area, I would recommend experiencing this special rural American place; a place of which we should all be very proud.

To become part of this cause, visit www.honorflight93.org, and consider donating whatever you can. For one hour of your wage or salary, you’d be contributing to the memory of a group of regular American passengers who rallied to save hundreds of lives, it not thousands. It was the first victory against terrorism, as the Capitol dome still reaches for the sky in Washington D.C., and 10 years later, we’ve still not completed the memorial for those brave souls. 

 
Image courtesy Flight 93 National Memorial/U.S. Department of the Interior