Tankers, fire engines, apron buses and what else is on the road at airfields
Airfield vehicles are specially designed for use at airports. They perform various tasks on the airfield to ensure the safety and supply of aircraft and passengers. Anyone who does not have to deal with them professionally or is about to embark on an air journey hardly ever sees these vehicles. That's because they are hardly ever on the road.
In our article, we take a look at the airfield vehicles of recent decades: aircraft tractors, special tankers, baggage and catering transporters, as well as buses that can only be found on the airfield, plus huge fire trucks that help save lives in the event of a disaster. From a multitude of photos, we have selected the most interesting ones. The captions reveal some of the details we researched about the individual vehicles.
The first ever powered flight took place in the USA in 1903, when Orville Wright flew a biplane called the Flyer 120 feet and landed safely. Edmund Rumpler founded the first aircraft factory in Berlin in 1908, and the first mail plane took off from Frankfurt in 1912 and landed in Darmstadt, some 19 miles away. The engine-powered airplane is thus still a relatively young means of transport, which initially competed with the gas-filled airships, which at the beginning of the twentieth century carried a total of around 34,000 passengers, including across the Atlantic, and whose development ended in 1937 with the catastrophic crash of the "Hindenburg" in Lakehurst near New York. 23000 cubic gallons of hydrogen gas, with which the 800-feet-long airship was filled, exploded shortly before landing, killing 36 people.
The development of powered aircraft took off in the 1920s, shortly after World War I, and with it the construction of vehicles needed to operate airfields. Horse-drawn fire engines were replaced by motorized vehicles, as were the baggage carts, which were usually pushed by hand and were now motorized. Tankers received increasingly powerful pumps, and the commercial road tractors used to move aircraft on the runway and apron could be replaced by specialized vehicles of a new breed, aircraft tractors. Initially, modified tractors performed this task, but later, independent designs prevailed.
In the mid-1950s, the transition from propeller to jet propulsion began. Parallel to this development, the requirements for vehicles on the airfield also increased. Tankers, fire trucks and apron buses had to cope with the growing capacities of the ever larger aircraft. This resulted in tankers with large-dimensioned pump and fittings cabinets and special firefighting vehicles with enormous capacities in terms of extinguishing agent supplies and the speed with which they can reach an accident site. After all, seconds often matter in an aircraft fire. Buses have also become increasingly larger and, above all, wider in order to carry as many passengers as possible. In the 1950s and later, semi-trailer buses or other designs were often used, some of which seem quite bizarre today. Nowadays, airfield buses are usually up to ten feet wide, with the lowest possible boarding height and standing room for up to 150 passengers. An advantage is that all these vehicles are not bound by the restrictions of road traffic, since length and width are subject to different criteria than in public spaces.
In addition to the powerful and eye-catching large vehicles, however, there are also many less spectacular vehicles on the road at airports around the world. After all, aircraft need additional power and starting assistance, and the tarmac has to be cleared of dirt, snow and ice. In addition, baggage and catering have to be transported, mobile gangways have to be driven up to the aircraft, planes have to be serviced and their toilets emptied. For all these tasks, there are special vehicles that ensure that the traffic on the tarmac and apron resembles an anthill.
Anyone who would like to take a closer look at the subject is recommended to read the book "Flugfeldfahrzeuge" (Airfield Vehicles), published in German by Motorbuch-Verlag Stuttgart in 2008. The authors Klaus Holl, Alexander Franc Storz and Matthias Braun show on hundreds of photos and detailed texts what kind of special vehicles have been cavorting on the airfields of the world since time immemorial (ISBN 978-3-613-02874-6).
Text: Steve St.Schmidt Photos: Archive of the Edition Diesel Queen