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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 2169.PDF
970 FLIGHT International, 12 December 1963 AIRPORT EQUIPMENT ... the operating position, and tipping the refuse container. A smaller type of suction sweeper, princi pally for use in and around airport buildings rather than on aprons or runways, is the Verro Minor, made by Alf'd Miles Ltd. Rolba Ltd manufacture a range.of snow- clearing equipment comprising rotary ploughs of from 7 h.p. to 1,000 h.p., together with improved blade-type ploughs. Large British- built Rolba machines on chassis by All Wheel Drivs Ltd have been supplied to LAP, Prest- wick and other MoA airports, as have smaller Rolba snow blower/loaders. Recent orders from Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft) Ltd for their Wisley and Weybridge airfields have specified a Swiss-built Rolba-Unimog blower, giving a clearance width of 9ft 10in, and two Rolba-Peitl reversible side ploughs to be Douglas Cargomaster and (lower picture) Raggagemaster with conveyor elevated Left, Rolba cab-on-plough snow blower in action Right, Short Bros' new cargo lift operated by large Douglas aircraft tractors. In one of the newest Rolba blowers—the cab- on-plough type, widely used in America—the snow is ejected behind the driver's cab, giving him complete visibility even at 20 m.p.h. A number of British airports have lately been equipped with Sicard runway snow-clearance vehicles, for which Mercury Airfield Equipment Ltd hold a concession from the Canadian manufacturers. Thirty are now in use by the RAF. Cargo and Baggage Handling Equipment in the cargo and baggage hand ling field includes devices ranging from mechanical high-loading platforms to simple four-wheel baggage trucks for hand propulsion or towing behind tractors. In the first category comes a new freight lifter developed by Short Bros & Hariand Ltd. Consisting basically of a platform elevated within a "foilr-poster" frame by an electric motor which can draw its supply from any 112V d.c. GPU, it can raise an 8,0001b load to 12ft in a little over 2min. With much experience gained from their car-ferry connections, Aviation Traders (Engi neering) Ltd now produce six types of the Hylo hydraulic scissor-lift platform, in capaci ties ranging from 5,0001b to 35,OO01b. The latest, the Mk VI as supplied to KLM, incorporates hydraulic pitch-and-roll control to secure accurate alignment with the doors of side-loading aircraft and will raise a load of 11,0001b to 13ft 9in. Among other manufacturers of high-load ing vehicles are Access Equipment Ltd, Dennis Bros Ltd and the Rootes Group. Two versatile vehicles by F. L. Douglas (Equipment) Ltd are the Cargomaster and Bapgagcmaster. The former ii. in effect, a six-ton-capacity van-type vehicle with a bridge-type conveyor-belt floor which can be elevated to 12ft 6in on four telescopic pillars operated by the road propulsion engine. Stabilizing ground-jacks are automatically operated from the cab. On a similar chassis, the Baggagemaster also has a conveyor floor and, in addition, a forward conveyor elevated to the required loading height by a hydraulic jack. Conveyors can be of either the wooden slat or rubber belt variety. From the almost limitless range of ground equipment made by H. W. Edghill Equipment Ltd comes the Mk 2 Edghill-Moy aircraft loader, a hydraulically operated rubber-belt conveyor on a Land-Rover chassis. Apart from the overall elevating movement, both upper and lower ends of the belt can be in dependently articulated to various heights. An ingenious conveyor system adaptable to various types of loading vehicle, and for ware house interiors, is the Retract-A-Track, the rollers of which are changed from "locked" to "live" by a simple pneumatic device. The makers are Lloyd's Mechanical Industries Ltd, and the equipment was described in detail in our last week's issue. Conveyancer fork-lift truck A freight or baggage loader of particular refinement in design is the Aydee (Auto Diesels Ltd), a slat-type 17ft conveyor on a four-wheel trailer. Powered by a 6 h.p. petrol engine coupled to a Dowty hydraulic pump, it lifts through 3ft-5ft at the vehicle end to 5ft- 16ft at the aircraft end. Distributed load capacity is one ton, or unit load lOcwt. Baggage trollies, both self-propelled and towable, are listed by Edghill Equipment, and cargo-loading equipment by the same company includes car ramps. Alf'd Miles Ltd market a drop-side truck, primarily for use by building and runway contractors, but suitable for many apron duties; it is built on the stan dard Land-Rover short-wheel base chassis. Baggage trollies are now among the ground equipment manufactured by Aviation Traders (Engineering) Ltd. Widely used in industry, the fork-1'ft truck has for many years been a useful tool for air- Aviation Traders Hylo cargo lift
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