This is a ladder truck with beefed up ladder support and control. The truck shows up at the site and has to unroll a large roll of conveyor belt with stiff rubber handholds/foot rests. The conveyor belt is loaded onto the ladder. This allows the fireman to fasten a child or unconscious person to the belt ladder (handhold) to let the ladder bring the person down. Extra equipment can be sent up the belt ladder. The fireman can ride down. No more ladder climbing. The conveyor belt is stored in a roll in the truck body. The roll of belt is more than twice as long as the ladder at its fullest extension. The rollers and drive that move the belt are internal to the truck. ADDENDUM - The ladder frame would be extended to the height needed. Several woven steel cables would pull the conveyor belt ladder up and over the top of the extended ladder and then down to link up with an end. Using a series of idler rollers tension would be maintained. Once the ladder is loaded, it can be pivoted like a standard ladder. Once set up, transport of personnel would be significantly faster than with a conventional ladder truck ladder. This idea originally showed up in the SPORTS category, by mistake. D'oh!
-- gorath, Sep 19 2003

It sounds like it would be complex to deploy and I'm not sure how well it would cope with different amounts of ladder extention.
-- oneoffdave, Sep 19 2003


Can't they just be catapulted to safety?
-- thumbwax, Sep 19 2003


What's this have to do with tennis?
-- ghillie, Sep 19 2003


Okay, I'm altering the 'design' some. I'm making it, now, such that the ladder belt with the handle/footrests would be in linkable lengths. You would determine by laser the height the ladder would be extended, and the onboard computer would tell you how many lengths of ladder belt would have to be linked to make the coninuous belt required. There'd still be a tensioning system, but there would not be yards and yards of extra belt moving around in the system. Metz already makes a truck & ladder that would serve.
-- gorath, Oct 06 2003


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-- DesertFox, Aug 28 2004



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