Road link aids air
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WITH ALMOST a quarter of a century of providing a specialist road transport service for Dutch aircraft builders, Fokker NV, Var Deudekom of Amsterdam, has completed the 400th move of ar F 27 fuselage from Biarritz, on the French Atlantic coast, to the Netherlands.
The Fokker F 27 is a prop-jet aircraft built as a joint project by a Dutch-French (DassaultBreguet) consortium and the production programme is geared to the maintenance of a reliable road link over the 1,500km route.
Our Dutch contemporary Beroepsvervoer reported that almost all trips between the two plants have been made by the same driver, Jan Stoete, whose experience has ensured that in almost 1,230,000km of travel in eight years all fuselages have reached their destination in perfect condition.
Although weighing only 950kg, the untrimmed aircraft hull requires use of a specially designed semi-trailer on air suspension to avoid road shocks and possible damage from bad surfaces.
The overall length of the DAFhauled combination is about 20m. Van Deudekom is also the main contractor to the KSSU aircraft engine maintenance and repair consortium in which KLM, Swissair, SAS and UTA have rationalised maintenance of DC10 engine at a service base at Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands.
For this purpose Van Deudekom operates several specially fitted vehicles on regular journeys to and from the respective carriers' main bases including Copenhagen, Paris and Zurich.