Quote:Understand, I got nothing against a tiller ladder truck, in fact, I considered it a religious experience to watch Truck 9 swing out onto U Street with the Q pegged and the tillerman dragging the trailer a little bit in the other lane as they responded on box alarm in their own 4th Battalion. After over 20 years of rear mount aerials being used in Fairfax County, I fail to understand the justification for their purchase. Please send me a private message with the details of how the TDA out performs the current rear-mount spec.
For a size check on a Pierce TDA, check out one of the latest pics by Terry Dawson ...
http://www.firepics.net/groupboards/inde...22&page=84
Rest assured, if Fairfax County buys them they will be at least this big if not bigger, the tiller might as well have blinders on because all he or she will be able to see is a bunch of ladder and not the cab. Bigger stopped being better a while ago, look at how much discussion there was on the "ideal" sized Pierce Arrow XT's that ACFD purchased when a FXCO Velocity was benchmarked against them. And, I think dollar for dollar, I could get four more rear-mount aerials instead of three TDA's.
There are some functionally sized tillers being sold that do work in dense urban areas; LAFD operates nothing but TDA's and check out the latest KME TDA's being delivered to Atlanta (GA) as well as the Seagraves being operated by DCFD. Those particular Seagraves "won't work" in Fairfax County because the tip load is not heavy enough for the almost daily stokes basket operations (insert snarky laugh) that occur within the Kingdom of Fairfax County and KME cannot meet the section (not sure if it's still there) of the purchase contract which stipulates "vendor must have authorized dealer within 25 miles of Fairfax County"
Oh, and when the TDA's go in for service or repair what will they be replaced with from the reserve fleet? A rear mount.
Really, if anybody has the "Tiler Justification Packet", send it to me. Please.
The 250 # tipload TDA's won't work in Fairfax for a legitmate reason as well. In a city, the rig is usually positioned very close to the building, creating steep angles and relatively short extension lengths. In a suburban environment like Fairfax, I would imagine the ladder gets used at max. extension at very low angles at your typical garden apartment fires, McMansions with large set backs, etc., leading you to run into your actual tip load. DC probably has plenty of headroom left load wise in most situations they operate in.
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