Krampe tipper ensures safe landing and take-off at Paderborn-Lippstadt Airport

Many flight passengers, except perhaps the frequent flyers, may be familiar with that uneasy feeling that comes as the airplane is landing or taking off. Statistics show that airplanes are the safest way of transportation. Flight safety, however, involves more than safe aircrafts and good pilots. It is also involves all the people that work on the ground and the entire logistics chain.

During the winter months it is the winter service team headed by Dennis Hesse that ensures the Paderborn Lippstadt Airport in Germany is kept operational. The airport is frequented by 850,000 passengers per year and these naturally expect a safe travel in any type of weather.

Whenever the outdoor warning system issues an alarm of black ice Dennis Hesse's winter service team is deployed to establish safe conditions on the airfield. After passing security control, which is the daily routine, the men carry out a friction test on the runways, which involves one man driving a special vehicle at 100 km/h, pulling a test tyre that determines the surface conditions.

Based on the information gathered from this test run, the team then chooses the appropriate winter service and de-icing equipment. "This comprises the jet sweepers that clear the runways and driveways and the spreader which plays an important role. Therefore a new Krampe hook-lift roll-off tipper with a spreader from Küpper-Weisser was added to the airport's machinery fleet last year," tells us Dennis Hesse.

The Krampe THL 20 L tandem hook-lift trailer is a versatile machine that is compatible with a wide range of different structures and offers a payload and lift capacity of about 20 t. The spreader is pulled onto the trailer with the help of a special carriage and holds nearly 6,000 l of de-icing fluid and 5 m³ of granules, spreading the material at widths between 3 m and  21 m. The application rate is controlled automatically by a system that measures the ground temperature and that is operated from a cab-based head unit.
The salt that is spread at airports is not regular salt which would damage the aluminium, airplanes are made of. Instead, airports use a chemical substitute which is usually applied as a combination of liquid and granules.

“Airport utility equipment operates in an environment where safety is the number one priority and therefore this equipment must meet exacting requirements and deliver top functionality and efficiency.
And so it was its great flexibility along with its established hard-wearing durability that made the Krampe hook-lift trailer the best choice for us.
Unlike our existing self-propelled spreader, the hook-lift trailer allows us to use the tractor and the trailer both either in combination or separately and also in applications outside winter service. This gives us significant benefits in terms of versatility and viability," argues Mr. Hesse.
The long-term plans are to supplement the hook-lift with a dump bed and use the trailer for hauling clippings and dirt. Another application is hauling the firefighters' mountaineering equipment to the respective sites using containers and the hook-lift roll-off tipper.

"Winters are usually not very harsh in this area. Only once in recent years the snow falls were so heavy that it was necessary to clear the runways and remove the snow," tells the head of the operations team. "This, too, could be the job of the Krampe hook-lift trailer once it has received its dump bed. But naturally we always hope for little snow fall so everything runs smoothly around the airports and delays are kept to a minimum.

Go to this link to watch the Krampe trailer in action at the airport: http://youtu.be/fExdEZvV2Gk