Many times my heart starts jumping when I see hungarian products in the international markets. Man is always taken by pride and by the heat when the products of his small country appear on shelves or on posters in abroad. I had the same feeling in my story too, but the only difference is ,that I could see how a machine manufactured and designed by a hungarian company became into life in Los Angeles, USA.

Thanks to its experience in  designing and manufacturing  customized  and special machines, the company  GD Gép és Daru Kft.  could reach the world’s largest suppliers’ cooperation group in the aviation industry. Today we have the chance to participate in projects, therefore producing  and designing equipments  for aircraft maintenance industry for partners, such as Latecoère, one of the largest supplier of Airbus, EXCENT, ANA Japan ( All Nippon Airways), Stelia Aerospace, and the subject of my story, Qantas Airways, Australian airlines.

Our company has the pleasure of working for over 10 years with Tubesca Comabi, who is one of the biggest Customer in the field of aircraft maintenance’ docking systems. In this case we had an order from the mentioned French company to design, manufacture and install a special, 1 ton load capacity, suspended crane in the newest hangar of Quantas, Los Angeles. The project was complicated mainly by the difference between American and European standards. Against all odds we decided to make the impossible to possible, en neering solutions came into life. 

The specialty of this crane is that its connected to the suspended runway via 3 suspension endcarriages. The runway is located at a height of 30 meters since the bridge is used to assist in assembling and maintenance the tail of the airbus A380 "Superjumbo" and the Boeing 747 "Jumbo Jet".

Unique feature of the crane is the trolley. The hoist placed on a console which can stick out 800mm and can rotate in 180°. With this feature the crane able to lift from the side the lateral parts of the tail  without any movement of the bridge.

Another interesting feature is that the crane thanks to its radio remote control, can be controlled from the surrounded tail docking platforms. Naturally, We prevented accidental collosion with up-to-date solutions. This  security feature is ensured by using a set of optical and mechanical elements.

First in its history, GD had to perform the whole crane in accordance with UL  standards.  UL  mainly outlines the electrical build up of the crane which needed to be considered during designing and execution. Of course, all components placed in the electrical system had been validated by UL.

It would have been impossible to complete this project without the support of a concerted and effective team. At the moment we can tell that on the eastern side of the Pacific Ocean, maintenance of the biggest aircraft in the world is carried out using a Hungarian product.

Nikolett Szekeres
Project Manager