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).
In addition to truck production in the U.S., Ford also manufactured commercial vehicles in Great Britain beginning in 1911, at times under the Fordson name. The three-axle trucks of the 1930s were called Surrey (6x2) and Sussex (6x4). The airfield tanker pictured is a Ford Sussex, built about 1938, the photo is from 1949.Before there were aircraft tractors of their own design, commercial tractors were often used. The picture shows a Hanomag type R 455 ATK road tractor from 1952.An American General Motors 2.5-ton truck from about 1943 as an airfield tanker. The photo of the military truck is dated 1951, location unknown, probably Germany.The Dutch truck importer Beers from Rijswijk also built its own commercial vehicles in small numbers from 1933 to 1950. The photo from around 1953 shows a Beers Handyvan as a personnel transporter at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. Photo: Niels Jansen CollectionIn 1959, the largest tanker in the world was the British Foden FRTU 6/40. A Rolls-Royce type C 6 N diesel engine powered the semitrailer, which was designed to refuel the then-new jet aircraft. The capacity was 54,500 liters (14,400 U.S. gallons). The photo at the top shows the same vehicle.Keeping runways clean is a priority at airfields. The picture shows a Swiss-built runway cleaning machine. It is based on a Berna, type L 2 US from 1960.Small tractors are still a familiar sight at airfields today. The 1968 example pictured is a diesel tractor from Maschinenfabrik Esslingen, type DZ 10, for up to 35 tons towed load.The special Tempo vehicle, known as an on-board service vehicle, was based on a 1959 Matador transporter. The scissor-lift body could hydraulically raise the aircraft's on-board catering by almost four meters. The cramped conditions in the driver's cab were accepted in exchange for staying dry in bad weather.The mobile "passenger stairway 2693" from the German manufacturer Ruthmann was height-adjustable between 2.8 and 4.2 meters. It was powered by a Volkswagen gasoline engine.Douglas Aircraft Handling, based in Cheltenham, England, built aircraft tractors and other equipment until the company was taken over by the American Textron Group and the plant closed in 2021. The illustrated type sheets date from 1962 and 1964.This night shot is from 1968. In the foreground is a Mercedes-Benz Unimog S 404 equipped with a Total dry powder firefighting superstructure.English Commer brand five-ton truck with a scissor lift body from Rootes called "Cargo-Lift. The photo was taken in 1960.Magirus-Deutz aircraft tractor type "Orion 70" in elegant white for the airline Air India, taken during delivery in 1960.This Magirus-Deutz "Orion 250" aircraft tug had the legendary Boeing 707 on its hook. The tug could move aircraft weighing up to 140 tons. Year of photo 1960.Scissor lift bodies through the ages: top left, a Commer Maxiload CE with a Tillotson body and Edbro hydraulics, which could raise the case to a whopping 18 English feet, making it suitable for catering the "Boeing 747" jumbo jet. To the right, a Mercedes-Benz LP 608 with Eylert scissor lift body. Below that, a Büssing BS 11 T with a body from the German company Trepel Airport Equipment from Wiesbaden. On the right, the cover of the magazine Econic Profile with a second-generation Mercedes-Benz Econic from 2010, whose body comes from the Irish manufacturer Mallaghan from Dungannon. The three black-and-white photos date from 1968.This 1965 American P-2 type FWD was destined for the US Air Force. The 8x8 chassis carried a special body as an airport fire engine.The "Airport Mobile Lounge" came from Chrysler. The vehicle served as an airport bus and provided seating for 73 and standing room for 17. It had a driver's cab in the front and rear and a complete drive unit (Chrysler V8 with 172 hp) including a steered drive axle. The body came from Budd of Philadelphia, a company that from 1912 to 2014 manufactured railroad cars in addition to bodies for automobiles and commercial vehicles. Twenty of the vehicle pictured were in service at Dulles International Airport near Washington in the 1960s.The vehicle, called "Elektro-Lastwagen EFK 2002 L, Baureihe 5" by Still GmbH of Hamburg, Germany, had a payload of 0.25 tons and was in service at many German airports and also at railroad stations.Semi-trucks were used at many airports in the 1950s and 1960s to transport passengers from the terminal to the aircraft. This 1968 photo shows a Mercedes-Benz LS 323 with a Kässbohrer trailer for 70 passengers against the backdrop of the Frankfurt airport building, which at the time still exuded a certain coziness.Founded in 1846, Maschinenfabrik Esslingen AG (ME) in Esslingen near Stuttgart manufactured locomotives, railcars, streetcars, aircraft tractors and cable cars, as well as electric trucks and industrial trucks. These included the 1968 van pictured, which was equipped with a Mercedes-Benz OM 636 diesel engine. Most recently, ME was a subsidiary of Gutehoffnungshütte. The industrial truck production was sold to Still GmbH in 1968.At Frankfurt Airport, this VW Transporter type T 2 A, built in 1968, served as an aircraft control vehicle. The yellow and black checkered livery was common for such airfield vehicles in Germany at the time.In 1969, an exhibition of special airport vehicles was held at the Rhine-Main Airport in Frankfurt. The photo shows a detail; in the foreground are Hanomag and Henschel trucks with bodies for runway cleaning.Buses that operate at airports are called apron buses. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was sometimes considered practical to have boarding and alighting at the front ends so that passengers could be processed expeditiously. The two photos show self-supporting buses built by Walter Vetter Karosserie- und Fahrzeugbau GmbH in Stuttgart in 1969 and 1973, which could drive in both directions and therefore had two driver's seats. Vetter was one of the largest bus manufacturers in Germany until the 1980s.At the International Motor Show IAA of the year 1981, Neoplan from Stuttgart presented the four-axle N 980 Galaxy, because "modern large-capacity air transport demands new dimensions," as the Neoplan advertisement put it. Probably the largest apron bus ever built, it was destined for Jeddah Airport in Saudi Arabia and was extensively tested at Frankfurt Airport before being exported. The dimensions were enormous: 15 x 4.5 x 4.5 meters and space for around 340 passengers. A movable entrance and exit with integrated stairs meant that it could be docked to any aircraft with boarding heights of two to five and a half metersFlight pallets are often covered with an igloo that matches the dimensions of the cargo aircraft and makes optimal use of the space. The top picture shows the loading of a flight pallet with a British Lansing brand electric tricycle forklift in 1969, while the bottom shows an American Cochran brand "Cargo-King" type flight pallet truck. The mobile unit, with a load capacity of six and a half tons, is powered by a Ford diesel engine.British Mercury Airfield Equipment Ltd, now Mercury GSE Ltd, of Luton, builds airfield vehicles of all kinds. The illustration is from a 1970 brochure and shows the Mercury MD 300 Mk II Airtug with a towing capacity of up to 30,000 lb, equivalent to 22.7 tons.Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke (VFW) of Bremen was primarily an aircraft manufacturer, but in the 1970s it also offered hydraulically operated tail lifts and other equipment, such as this aircraft maintenance bridge based on a modified Hanomag-Henschel F 35 6x2 transporter, the rear axle of which had been replaced by a twin-axle unit.Kaelble KV 600 F 4x4 with special body as a foam fire fighting vehicle for 8500 liters of water plus 1000 liters of foam agent, year of construction 1972.Magirus-Deutz's 20,000-liter FLF-80-20,000 airfield fire engine was based on an 8x8 Faun chassis with the type designation LF 1412-52 V. The colossus, which entered service in 1972, was equipped with two V-12 Deutz turbo-diesel engines located side by side in the rear of the vehicle, which together produced 1000 hp.The Schopf company was founded after the Second World War in Ostfildern near Stuttgart. Initially, equipment for underground mining was manufactured, for example 'Lowline' wheel loaders, which are used by all well-known mining companies. Later, aircraft tractors were added. In 2013, the company Goldhofer from Memmingen, took over the company. In the meantime, it operates under the name Goldhofer Airport Technology and also has aircraft tractors in its product range. The one pictured dates back to around 1970, with the type designation Schopf F 356, all-wheel drive and steering, and a 340-hp diesel engine from Deutz.The 1976 Still tricycle electric tractor pulled a mobile passenger stairway at Hamburg Airport. The hydraulically height-adjustable staircase had a sophisticated mechanism that kept all steps level regardless of the height set and thus the angle of the staircase's rise.Cobus Industries GmbH, headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany, emerged from Contrac GmbH, which was founded in 1978 and today mainly manufactures apron buses. The brochure illustration shows a four-wheel-drive mobile evacuation ladder from 1990, which can be used to rescue passengers from crashed aircraft in an emergency. The brochure text promises usability in any terrain and for all types of aircraft, even if the boarding height is increased from the normal position due to any sloping of the damaged aircraft.The two airfield firefighting vehicles on the brochure titles don't seem to have much in common. But both are already old-timers, even the Panther 8x8 from the Austrian company Rosenbauer, which looks so modern, already has about 30 years under its belt. The Thornycroft Nubian Major from 1975 with a superstructure by Carmichael & Sons from Worcester, England, had a 6x6 drive, a water tank with just under 6,000 liters and a tank for foam agent with a capacity of up to around 650 liters. The Panther Air Crash Tender, which was about 20 years younger, had a MAN engine (1,000 hp) and could spray up to 14,000 liters of water and up to 2,000 liters of foam concentrate and weighed 36 tons. Its top speed was 140 kilometers per hour.Walter was an American manufacturer of heavy four-wheel-drive vehicles, particularly known for its airfield firefighting vehicles. Based in New York, the company existed from 1898 to 1997, a period of 99 years, when it was acquired by KME, a fire truck manufacturer based in Holden, Louisiana. The 1987 Walter "Rapid Intervention Vehicle" (RIV) pictured, with the type designation R-2000, weighed just under 13 tons, traveled 112 kilometers per hour, and held 2270 liters of water and 285 liters of foam concentrate. As the name implies, the vehicle was designed for operations where speed was of the essence.The 1991 Rosenbauer Simba 8x8 Aircrash Tender was equipped with a 1250-horsepower MTU engine that made the 44-ton airfield fire truck 125 kilometers per hour, accelerating to 80 kilometers per hour within 25 seconds. The dimensions of the vehicle were (L/W/H) 11.5, 3.1 and 3.3 meters.Neoplan's apron bus, model name Apron N 9122 L, built in 2007, can carry 137 passengers, is 14.72 meters long and 3.17 meters wide, unthinkable in road transport. The photo was taken in February 2015 at Berlin's Tegel Airport, which was decommissioned on May 5, 2021, and thus closed down forever.The photo of the airfield tanker shown at the end of this article with MAN tractor type 18.224 with Steyr cab was also taken at Berlin's Tegel Airport. The complete tanker was built by the German tanker manufacturer Esterer from Helsa near Kassel. In the background is an Air Berlin aircraft, an airline of the past that filed for insolvency in August 2018 and has been history ever since.
Text: Steve St.Schmidt Photos: Archive of the Edition Diesel Queen
