Complex lifting projects at Deltion College

Koninklijke Saan unloaded an Alouette III helicopter and an F16 at Deltion College in Zwolle and placed them inside. A work of extreme precision that was carried out with special care because neither would fit easily through the door. Both the helicopter and the airplane are being used as teaching aids for the MBO (intermediate vocational training course) in aircraft maintenance.

Deltion College in Zwolle was given an Alouette III helicopter by the Dutch Royal Airforce for the aviation training course. In April 2013, Saan carried out this special lifting project by unloading this helicopter and lifting it inside with extreme precision. The helicopter was actually too wide and too tall for it to be moved into the college. But Saan knew exactly how to accomplish this complex lifting task with the TB80JL truck-mounted crane. As soon as the chopper was placed on the ground outside the building, its gearbox had to be removed. The chopper with its gearbox was in fact too tall to go through the hangar door.

Without its gearbox, the chopper was in fact able to fit through the door but with only 5 centimetres of headroom. But the door was also only 2.50 metres wide and the chopper is a good 2.65 m wide.

This challenge was also overcome with extreme care by the experienced Saan employees with the use of a zig-zag technique. Once the chopper was inside, the gearbox still had to be reinstalled. The truck-mounted crane was able to fit through the hangar door with its arm bent and get inside to put the gearbox back on top of the chopper. A lifting project where Saan’s expertise and problem-solving employees came in very handy.

In May 2013 Saan lifted an entire F16 into Deltion College. Before the F16 could be unloaded and lifted inside, a part of the glass canopy had to be removed and the old mock-up instruction F16 had to be lifted out of the hall and taken away. After the space in the hall was freed up again, the aircraft was lifted inside in pieces. First the fuselage, then the wings and lastly the tail were fitted. Everything fitted precisely. The F16 first had to get around a corner and then it was placed in an extremely tight position in the hall. Saan was also able to complete this complex task using two truck-mounted cranes, the TB80JL and the TK80LT, simultaneously.