skycrane

[onesidedcoin]

Sometimes its all about getting it there.

[BaldLoonie]

Nice load of AAONs waiting to go up. What's that heap coming down? Old Lennox?

[aircooled53]

When I was with Dyna-Ten they used a similar type helecopter to set unit at Texas Motor Speedway.

The last time I used one was a high-rise downtown Ft.Worth and it was 2500 per hour..

[BaldLoonie]

That a mall? Boy sure a wide variety of equipment up there. Bunch of different splits, the little rooftops, the monster McQuays.

[onesidedcoin]

There are a few older malls in my area that the mall is just responsable for treating open areas and the like, tenants are responsable for there own equiment.As time go by rental customers change along with store size which is why there is so much junk up there.

[Diceman]

We used a helicopter once, to set cooling towers in the middle of the city here. Pretty scary in a way. Heavy units, dangling that far down on a cable ain't easy to stabilize, they can knock you right off the roof.

[Edited by Diceman on 03-28-2004 at 07:55 PM]

[tinner73]

i've been on a few of those.....bring your RUNNING shoes. thosen happen fast.

[mccool]

Them heli lifts can be exciting. We did one where the rigger made everyone on the roof secure their hardhats with several wraps of electrical tape around hard hat and chin, looked pretty goofy. The pilot overestimated the load of the old condenser and took off to fast causing the condenser to swing violently below. Apparently he came close to releasing the load to save his ass, but managed to fly it out. 2nd condenser was sitting on I beams and getting hung up as 1 side of the legs dipped below the beams and snagged when he was lifting, thought he was gonna crash down on us as it happened.

In a related scenario I had 2 apprentices tear apart 2 old condensers with grinders and sawzall and they managed to reduce both to manageable pieces carried to the roof edge that were lifted off by a small crane in 1 day! Much cheaper.

[Green Mountain]

Back when I was working union in Albany Ny I was on a crew made up of electricans, carpenters and pipefitters to assist in setting a load of big American Standard RTUs. We had to be there at day break because the air is denser in the morning and the helicopter is more manuverable

Carson Copters came up from PA. They hooked on to the first one. The copter blowing fire out the tailpipe and the pilot barely got the unit up on the roof. The Carson crew called a time out. They but a scale between the copter and the next unit on the gound. Then they tried lifting it. The unit weighted 5600 lbs. The copter the engineer ordered only was rated for 4600 lbs.

Evendently someone fugded the invoice to save shipping charges and said that the units only weight 4600 lbs. Anyway it was a big mess and a lot of overtime wages was paid. The following week they came back with a bigger copter and all 12 units where set in about 45 mins.

[Edited by benncool on 03-30-2004 at 09:56 PM]

[i_got_ideas]

That is neat. I have always been residential and small commercial only. A 50 ton unit to me is BIG. I would like to get my hands into commercial just for 1 day for the experience of it.

[william antley]

A company I used to work for did chopper lifts quite often. Two different occasions setting about 10 TRANE air handling units each time for a chiller system at a new mall and 33 units for a distribution warehouse done in about two or three hours.
Bad thing was, being the senior technician there, I had to do my work after the lifts were done. I never had the opportunity to witness a lift. Wish I could have seen that, woulda been somethin'!

[Diceman]

It is neat, those pilots ear their money. We had rented a parking lot in the middle of town too, did the job on a Sunday.
Had to pay some cops OT and the whole bit.
It was tight squeeze all the way around.
And very pricey.

[tinner73]

Originally posted by i_got_ideas
That is neat. I have always been residential and small commercial only. A 50 ton unit to me is BIG. I would like to get my hands into commercial just for 1 day for the experience of it.

trust me.........you're not missing anything

[Diceman]

Originally posted by tinner73

Originally posted by i_got_ideas
That is neat. I have always been residential and small commercial only. A 50 ton unit to me is BIG. I would like to get my hands into commercial just for 1 day for the experience of it.

trust me.........you're not missing anything

It can be exciting but ya still have to pay me to be there.

[onesidedcoin]

Here are some other shots http://www.pbase.com/onesidedcoin/westfarms

[Diceman]

The bald guy with the beard?
I think I saw him on America's Most Wanted last week.