Material or article handling – Wheel and wheel-type article handler and transporter – Opposed horizontally reciprocable engaging elements
Patent
1988-03-07
1989-03-07
Reger, Duane A.
Material or article handling
Wheel and wheel-type article handler and transporter
Opposed horizontally reciprocable engaging elements
B64F 122
Patent
active
048101575
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention relates to a tractor for maneuvering an airplane without a tow bar, having: a chassis which includes a rearwardly, upwardly and downwardly open recess, a rear portion that is forked due to the recess and has a pair of coaxially mounted, powered rear wheels, and a front portion having two steerable and perhaps powered front wheels; a pair of approximately horizontal cylinders of a first hydraulic cylinder piston aggregate that are arranged parallel to each other on the chassis and are for adjusting the length of two telescoping bars which are adjustable parallel to the respective side walls of the recess and are each provided at their free rear ends with a hinged pulling arm, which can pivot through a right angle between a relatively open position relative to the free end of the bar parallel to the axis of the tow bar and a relatively closed blocking position perpendicular to the axis of the tractor about a vertical axis which perpendicularly intersects the associated tow bar axis; a support surface which is arranged on the chassis at the front end of a recess and is inclined downward toward the rear and underneath to allow for the elevation of the nose landing gear when the pulling arms and shortened telescoping bars are in their blocking positions; and an elevating device including a pair of second hydraulic cylinder-piston aggregates arranged on the chassis for lifting the nose landing gear after it has been placed adjacent to and on the support surface and locked in place there by means of the pulling arms moving into their blocking positions.
In a tractor known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,225,279 (Origin: FR No. 2,452,427) having the same purpose, a downwardly closed chassis recess is provided which is open upward and to the rear and which receives the nose landing gear of the airplane to be maneuvered without a tow bar in a pocket-like depression, after a flap hinged to the tractor chassis behind the pocket has pivoted down to the tarmac at an angle like a ramp and the nose landing gear has passed forward up this ramp into the pocket. To accomplish this, the tractor must back up, allowing the rear edge of the ramp to be pushed between the unbraked wheels of the nose landing gear and the tarmac, which entails high impact forces which can be damaging to the nose landing gear, particularly the wheels, and to the tarmac. As the nose landing gear passes relatively up and forward over the ramp into the pocket, the weight of the nose of the airplane produces an increasing torque relative to the rear axle of the tractor, which tends to lift the front of the tractor. It is therefore necessary to arrange the motor of the tractor as far forward on the chassis as possible and/or to provide ballast there, so that the front wheels of the tractor do not rise from the tarmac when the nose landing gear is loaded onto the tractor. Furthermore, it is difficult to control this loading process.
Therefore, to avoid these disadvantages, certain suitable tractors of the above-described type have been proposed, known from DE-OS No. 33 18 077, in which (see OS FIGS. 2 and 3) the chassis recess is defined by an at least U-shaped horizontal frame that is temporarily rectangular, can be raised and lowered by means of the elevating device, houses a brake shoe-like support body including the support surface in its forward portion, and the sides of which are formed by the two telescoping bars and the rear of which is formed, when it is formed, by the two pulling arms in their blocking positions, where they are rigidly connected with each other, and in which the brake shoe-like support bodies include respective support surfaces that slope downward toward the front and underneath. To load the nose landing gear into the rearwardly open chassis recess of this tractor, the tractor travels backwards until its front support body contacts the nose wheels of the perhaps braked, but in any event stationary, airplane, whereupon the two pulling arms of the tractor are folded into their horizontal positions and are locked together, thereb
REFERENCES:
patent: 3119502 (1964-01-01), Paul
patent: 4122963 (1978-10-01), Berglund et al.
patent: 4375244 (1983-03-01), Morin
patent: 4632625 (1986-12-01), Schuller et al.
patent: 4658924 (1987-04-01), Dobbie
Burkhart Patrick N.
MAN Gutehoffnungshutte GmbH
Reger Duane A.
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