An inventive season
8 October 2018We have a surprising flurry of new crane launches this month. This includes a series of new tower cranes, new loader cranes, and a new rough terrain.
On the cover is Terex's new luffer, the CTL 272-18. I was invited to see this crane at its launch in Italy, along with some other journalists and—I estimate—around 200 customers. Terex kindly covered our local costs. The crane aims squarely at skyscraper construction in constricted cities with overflight restrictions, such as London. Talking to potential customers at the event, there was clear interest from companies in the UK and Germany.
The new Terex aims at a fairly niche market, of ~260tm luffers. Still, here in central London, there are not many spots I can walk and not see a half dozen cranes like this at work.
Jaso's new luffer, featured in our job of the month, aims at an even more niche market, the 700tm class. We surveyed this market back in July, looking at cranes from Liebherr, Wolff, and Comansa. At that time, the new Jaso had only just been launched. Now it is at work in Sydney. The company says it is aiming not just at electric rivals, but at Favelle Favco's diesel electrics, which have historically dominated the market for fast lifting on very tall skyscrapers in places like New York.
The other new tower crane in this issue is Comansa's new flat top, the 21LC1050. While not, perhaps, quite as niche as the two rope luffers, it is still quite a special crane, with a maximum capacity of 50m and a reach of up to 80m: a lot for a flattop.
On pages 14 and 15 we have six new loader cranes or related products. These include new cranes from Palfinger, Jekko, Hiab, Hyva, and Tadano, and a new control interface developed by Fassi for Volvo trucks. There were a couple of interesting trends shown here. Hyva has launched a crane designed to run purely on electric power, joining others like this that target 'green' operation in inner cities.
The new Palfinger is the first of the Austrian's company's cranes to be sold as a complete unit on a crawler carrier; the Jekko was the second of the Italian company's cranes to mount on a crawler an articulated upper from its new parent Fassi.
In this issue, we also have a feature on rough terrains, looking at the increasingly important 100t class. As RTs get bigger, with the 'sweet spot' now over 80t and many reaching well over 100t, I wonder if the crawlermounted heavy knucklebooms may start taking some market share from RTs, small crawlers and 'traditonal' telecrawlers.
Will North, editor
wnorth@cranestodaymagazine.com
