Words: Alex Wakefield
Pictures: Goldhofer/Auto-Ungar/Autoline/R-pics via Reddit
It’s hard to say exactly when private air travel stopped being glamorous, and started to become an ordeal to be tolerated in the furtherance of a summer holiday or a visit to some distant relative. These days, it’s all about cramming bums onto seats and selling them as many sandwiches and scratch cards as possible, rather than serving cocktails and caviar whilst cruising ten kilometres above the earth’s surface.
Only the aircraft we travel on still hold on to some distant association with the high life that international travellers once knew; at least they still look like their boundary pushing forebears, even if their engines are quieter and their cabins are crammed full of people on their way to a stag do in Benidorm.
Whilst those graceful silver birds get all the headlines, it’s the supporting cast that really deserves our appreciation. Much like the end credits of a film featuring a handful of A-Listers, nothing happens without the help; often unseen, or playing only a walk-on role, there’s an enormous team of skilled and highly specialised workers making everything happen.
Specialist airport vehicles are the Oompa Loompas of transport. Destined to remain in the same place for their working lives, and then invisible after, we are unknowingly entirely dependent on an enormous variety of tugs, baggage trucks, load carriers and tow tractors for our holiday to be a success.
Glimpsed through an aeroplane window, or parked under a service tunnel, you’ll probably have wondered where these vehicles come from, how fast they can go and how much they cost. Of course, those thoughts are then banished until next year’s holiday once the in-flight movies start to roll.
Before your attention has waned, you’ll have spotted one of those little tractors pulling behind it several small trailers absolutely stuffed with suitcases. Chances are, it’ll have been produced by Germany’s MULAG. Apparently unaware of the unfortunate associations with the failed airliner of the 1950s by the same name, their Comet range of ground handling vehicles is sufficiently broad as to put most car manufacturers to shame.
With smaller units like the Comet 3D suited to outdoor baggage and cargo shunting duties, the meatier Comets are actually capable of fulfilling aircraft pushback requirements, rated up to 150 tons. That’s a fully fuelled Boeing 757-300 to you and I, and this is a tractor that is no larger than a typical city car.
It’s probably easier to try and convince you that airport vehicles are heroic, by pointing to the wonderfully futuristic looking fire tenders that you hope you’ll never see posed by the runway with their lights flashing as you come into land at your destination. Far more likely, you’ll have picked one of these up from the toy section at the duty free shop as a last minute guilt purchase on the way back from a business trip.
Austrian based Rosenbauer claim to be market leaders in this particular specialism, although there’s no easy way to verify that. What can be said is that their Panther range of 4×4, 6×6 and 8×8 fire trucks look incredibly cool. Forget their more run of the mill conversions of existing commercial vehicles; we are here for the ARFF.
Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting (ARFF) vehicles are the most impressive machines you hope never to see, or at least, not see spraying foam in your direction after a difficult landing. Four, six or eight wheel drive, and powered by two Volvo engines for a total of 1,450HP in the Panther 8×8, firefighters must spend their lives secretly hoping for a very significant misfortune to occur so they can sprint down the runway in their tender.
Airfield operators will have to stump up seven figures for a new Panther, and finding one pre-owned isn’t easy. But if you need to complete the look at the grass strip on your private estate, you could buy a 9.2 litre Cummins powered aircraft crash tender for £21,000 excluding VAT, from tanks-lot.co.uk, although the cost of filling it with foam may add to the outlay.
If that’s out of your price range, then a mighty, diesel-powered MULAG Comet 6D can be yours for around £10,000. Don’t forget this is a machine which can drag a modern airliner all the way to the runway. It’s a pretty impressive feat that may still impress your friends, even if you can’t stretch to the Panther.
When it comes to airports though, bigger is better. Despite being a bit of a damp squib on the sales front, the Airbus A380 airliner remains a truly impressive sight from any perspective. Dwarfing anything else on the apron, these gigantic four-engined jumbos need their own special equipment. Not even the brawniest MULAG Comet can shift one of these.
Burning through thousands of litres of fuel just to propel itself away from the gate to the start of the take off roll, it’s easy to understand why you might want to try and reduce aircraft operating costs by giving your A380 a push instead. To achieve this, you’re going to need a Goldhofer AST-1X 1360 6×6 towbarless pushback tractor.
Like the aircraft it is designed to handle, everything about this specialist vehicle is scaled up; propelled by two 16 litre Deutz diesel engines, it also carries another 4.8 litre diesel Ground Power Unit (GPU) to keep the Airbus running whilst it’s in (slow) motion to and from the departure gate. It is also extraordinarily flat and low; most adult humans will look down over this horseshoe shaped tug, designed to embrace the nose wheel of the superjumbo and shepherd it in the direction of Dubai or Disney World.
Offered by German plant equipment specialists Auto Unger, a 2007 AST-1X 1360 is on the market for a shade under £70,000. It’s reasonable to assume that this is the most power you can buy per pound anywhere on the planet. In the closed world of airport vehicles, the unseen contest for supremacy on the taxiway certainly breeds unconventional heroes.
Which overlooked vehicles would you like us to cover next? We’d love to know in the comments below.
