VERLINDE hoist for helicopter dummy

The equipment is to be used for safety training for offshore personnel, in which a simulated helicopter crash forms part of the programme. The training is intended to prepare offshore personnel to get safely out of a helicopter which has gone down in water: “To practise this situation, the crane drops the dummy into the water, where it is turned on its head. The trainees task is to swim out from the helicopter dummy as quickly as possible, after which it is lifted up from the swimming pool again,” says DCB sales engineer Kristen M. Jensen.

The crane is a suspended wire pulley running on a track which stretches across the swimming pool. This
type of crane is also used in many industrial applications, but the type of steel, the casing and the finish have been upgraded in this case to safeguard the crane from corrosion in the chlorinated environment of the swimming pool. The VERLINDE EUROBLOC VT3 crane has a lifting capacity of 2 tons, which comprises the dummy itself, weighing 1,200 kg and 800 kg payload. “ VERLINDE EUROBLOC VT3 wire rope hoist was selected due to the environement with extreme saline conditions and by using stainless steel components for rope, hook block and panels we found a solution suitable for public swimming centre.

“In addition a parking bay for the helicopter dummy is built into the crane girder, where it can be retracted when not in use. The bay is designed so that the dummy can be pulled up under the cover without any load on the crane’s moving parts, whilst at the same time the swimming pool users can safely move around below the dummy,” explains Kristen M. Jensen.