By Mark Smith, director, advanced development – military programs, JBT AeroTech
Since that time, JBT AeroTech has built more than 400 loaders for the AMC. Then, when the Air Mobility Warfare Center’s Air Mobility Battlelab in Fort Dix, N.J., came to JBT AeroTech with an innovative idea to make loading passengers and cargo easier using existing JBT AeroTech military loader technology, JBT AeroTech built the first-of-its-kind, dual-use material handling equipment to load both passengers and cargo.
Design partnerships like these enhance the military’s ability to respond quickly during wartime and humanitarian aid missions. The adaptation of existing technology to meet military needs has resulted in cost-effective, new-generation solutions.
Deployable asset saves time and resources
 |
| The Halvorsen loader is named for famed candy bomber Col. Gail S. Halvorsen (retired), who dropped more than 250,000 candy-laden parachutes to the children of Berlin during the blockade following World War II. |
The Halvorsen loader is named for famed candy bomber Col. Gail S. Halvorsen (retired), who dropped more than 250,000 candy-laden parachutes to the children of Berlin during the blockade following World War II.
The rapidly deployable aircraft loader, named the Halvorsen loader after one of the U.S. military’s Berlin Airlift heroes, can transport and lift up to 25,000 pounds of cargo onto military and commercial aircraft. Its deck elevates from 39 inches to 18 feet 4 inches (1 to 5.6 meters) and has replaced outdated equipment that had a limited reach of just 13 feet (approximately 4 meters). Frequently referred to by the USAF as a “workhorse,” the Halvorsen cargo loader can be deployed in less than 30 minutes and can be transported on even the smallest military cargo aircraft.
The Halvorsen loader is critical to the USAF because its real mission is to be deployed in remote areas, such as small airfields in Iraq, where it has to operate with very little infrastructure. The loader must be very reliable and able to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week with little or no support.
Reliable start-up
The Halvorsen loader’s ruggedness and adaptability to any environment makes it a very reliable and low-maintenance piece of equipment, even after being stored anywhere from several months to several years.
Pre-positioning these loaders to remote areas for use in wartime surges or humanitarian aid is a great capability. This allows mobility air forces more flexibility in meeting their overall mission because they can have those assets readily available — and operational — when they need them.
New idea retrofits loader for passengers
With a lack of air stairs at forward bases and military air travel hubs, offloading military personnel from commercial high lift and military aircraft can be challenging. By retrofitting the Halvorsen loader to incorporate an air stairs capability when needed, JBT AeroTech and Air Mobility Battlelab personnel not only created the first dual-use loader, they created a safer method to unload aircraft passengers and improved AMC’s ability to execute quick-response strategies where cargo and passenger handling is needed. Built by JBT AeroTech, the Halvorsen Air Stairs Kit (HASK) attaches stairs (steps) to the Halvorsen loader so just one piece of material handling equipment is needed for on- and off-loading both cargo and passengers.
©2008 JBT AeroTech. All rights reserved.