New hydraulic lift aims to boost contingency capabilities

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Scott T. Sturkol
  • U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center Public Affairs
FORT DIX, N.J. (AFPN) --  Contingency response wings throughout the Air Force rely on their ability to move people and cargo quickly for fast deployment. An Air Mobility Battlelab initiative is looking to make that process even easier.

Battlelab members, located in the U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center here, have been looking at how to help units who need to download rolling stock and palletized cargo from cargo loaders to the ground, but who do not have a deployable asset capable of downloading it. 

"CRWs currently rely on in-place ramps, which can cause extreme delays in aircraft throughput," said Tech. Sgt. Joseph Jones, the AMB's project manager for the initiative. "When ramps have not been available, non-standard techniques were used which could have resulted in mishaps. Our proposed solution is a hydraulic lift able to handle pallet trains and provide download-to-ground capability for rolling stock."

The new Deployable-Hydraulic Lift Initiative will enable units to be able to download cargo quickly in a deployed environment.

The AMB personnel have modified an existing hydraulic-lifting device to make it more deployment friendly. The result is a stationary hydraulic-lift platform capable of accepting air cargo pallet trains with rolling stock from the 25,000-pound capable cargo loader down to ground level. The hydraulic lift itself has a 25,000-pound load capacity. 

The AMB chose the 816th Global Mobility Squadron from the 621st Contingency Response Wing on McGuire Air Force Base, N.J., to deomonstrate the lift April 1. Also participating were subject matter experts from the Expeditionary Center's Mobility Operations School.

"We had four main objectives for the demonstration," Sergeant Jones said. "We first wanted to see how the lift could move rolling stock from the loader to ground level. We also wanted to determine if rolling stock could be manually moved from a loader to the lift without the assistance of other material handling equipment."

They also looked to determine if the deployable hydraulic lift could fit on to a single pallet for airlift and if two trained Airmen could assemble the deployable lift in one hour.

"On all the objectives, the criterion was met," Sergeant Jones said. "For example, on the assembly demonstration, the two Airmen put together the lift in 35 minutes which was well before our 60-minute time limit."

Tech. Sgt. George Gonzalez, from the 816th GMS who led his squadron's participation in the demonstration, said the deployable lift will save contingency response Airmen time when loading and unloading planes. 

"When we're deployed, we have to offload cargo from planes like the KC-10 Extender, and without a lift like this it takes a lot of time," Sergeant Gonzalez said. "The lift is nice because we can assemble it quickly and pack it up to take with us rather easily as well. It really is a big timesaver." 

The deployable-hydraulic lift concept is now being recommended by the battlelab to Air Mobility Command for development of a fielding strategy, said Lt. Col. Jeffrey Lathrop, the AMB commander.

"The demonstration proved this idea has value and could greatly benefit field users," Colonel Lathrop said. 

"The deployable hydraulic lift performed at, or above, all requirements demanded of it and was well received by others," Sergeant Jones said. "Our results gathered from the participants showed the system being safer, quicker and easier to use than non-traditional means." 

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