@Mr Jerry 1 or 2 people can drive the truck you can lock the rear axle and drive it like a regular truck trailer the rear steering is so you can maneuver in tight spaces and position the truck in industrial areas.
When I was a tillerman starting in the late 70s, we sat in the aerial, not behind it. The seat, windshield and steering wheel had to be cleared before you could stick the roof. When backing up I would turn to look over my right shoulder and steer with my left hand rarely switching hands. Better view in the aerial than the box. The box is nice because it keeps you dry and warm. Tillering is by far the most fun you can have driving apparatus.
I was a Captain on a tiller truck in the SF Bay Area. They are the best. I rode up front in the tractor as Captain but sometimes I’d ask my firefighter if I could trade spots and steer the rear end. Of course he/she would say yes. It is the best job in the fire department. Everyone is looking at you, kids and adults waving. You really can’t see much in the lane next to you on both sides and you follow the tractor so you don’t get a little sideways and smack into a car next to you. This big long truck will go in places we can barely get the standard engine company into. Being retired after 30 years I miss the hell out of it. Real fire departments have tiller truck companies! Seriously each department can use what they like but I’m a true supporter of tillers.
I used to think It was a fun cool job to be a Tillerman. But I was lucky enough to go to the fire academy, where they gave me the ends and out of it. There is NO room for error when they are going super fast to a fire !! This guy almost messed up at 15:24 . I wouldn't want this job. God bless the whole fire department and the brave men and women who do what they do ! 🤗 👏👏👏👏👏👏✌✌✌✌
@@EnjoyFirefighting Nope it won't . Your concept of auto steering ie: tillering is a very unreliable concept.I had done some looking into it and nothing you wrote on the so called virtues of it is valid.You seem to be the type that invested money or stock into some company that wants to sell the auto tillering and are on here trying to push it....sit down, recover your money and don't try to fix something that does not need fixing.
@@stevenkelly9731 I'm just a paramedic, so it's none of my business to try to sell automatic or, now getting populat, adaptive rear-wheel steering. It's around for so many years already, successfully. It doesn't need to be pushed, departments purchase it in great numbers ... tbh it's almost a standard on modern fire trucks. Down here in the south several departments purchased the identical rear-mount 105' Tower Ladder with all-wheel steering. Some departments also get Engines (to be correct: Rescue Engines) with all-wheel steering. And well automatic rear-wheel steering indeed is a standard on modern fire trucks with 3 or more axles. I know some few which don't have it, but that's really really rare here. Even the largest fire trucks here don't have a 2nd driver steering the rear. No matter if it's a gigantic Tanker or a massive Aerial I don't know if it's cost effective to pay several crew members 24-7 over years vs. purchasing a simple standard system once and maintaining it.
I've always wanted to try to drive a tiller truck. Been driving fire trucks for over 24 years and tractor trailer for 17 years I always thought to be cool to try out
WolfFace the fire brigade could order one but the shipping costs would be astronomical. A department I visited had a European telescoping ladder truck made custom for them. The price tag was $1.2 million (USD) and added costs of $3.4 million (USD) in shipping and insurance. There is only one ship at the time that could accommodate the shipping. They waited 2 and a half years form it to arrive from start to finish. Was in service for 4 years before they retired it due to maintenance costs. Broke an axle and it would be 6-8 months for large parts.
@@N2NDF not just shipping, but also maintenance with spare parts being on the other side of the pond; Even the fire and rescue services from the US Army in Germany has switched to European apparatus ... well concerning Aerials they've been using European ones for decades already, but they do the same with Engines and Tankers etc. In many places in Norway a Tiller wouldn't be relevant; Even in some of the large cities they went to more compact instead of even larger Aerials
yeah i know the standard firetrucks in Norway is scanias for the most part. and driving a Tiller in Norway would be a nightmare because of the tight streets and corners.
Ever seen boeings special trucks where you are under the load in the back driving a mini truck with no engine no brakes and only 30 cm above the ground? That looks scary but also fun.
Yes just a test drive I replace the transmission no one showed me how to drive it just had to figure it out and for as much as that machine cost I was kind of nervous
@@aaronswanderlandadventures9561 did a pretty good job for having no training. You probably did better than most tiller men with 2 years on the job do. It just came natural to you I guess.
Although tillermen aren't supposed to have the door open during a response because of safety concerns, in most departments you will usually see the operator with the door open. The FDNY tillers most of the time do it because it gives more air flow and it gives the operator more arm room because the cab is pretty claustrophobic although there's 360° view windows.
Just a dumb question, and I'll bet you've answered this already. Did I see correctly that the wheel had to be turned opposite of what would be the normal direction? It would take me hella long to get used to it.
If you watch closely you will see he turns opposite briefly then turns the wheel like normal. It is so the vehicle does not cross lane dividers while turning reducing chance of an accident. Long vehicles like to cheat when it comes to the trailer.
4:20 The POTS sign was a dead giveaway the video is reversed. How well can you see forward down each side? It seems tough to gauge the distances to the cars from there.
Yes the yellow blinkers up in the control panel are turning indicators to let the tillermen know what way they are going to turn if the operator didn't hear the direction from the front cabin, the tillermen usually wear headsets so the two operators can constantly communicate with each other so the tillerman knows what they have to do minute by minute while driving.
Good thing they didn't need to respond to an emergency while you were on board, all of the sudden their lights and sirens turn on and you are speeding down the road 😂😋
Does anyone notice that this video was copied from the original. Cause last I check signs weren’t spelled backwards and cars didn’t drive on the left side of the road in America.
Yes you have power steering. If the front, the tractor it’s called is turning right the tiller man turns his wheels left to keep the trailer wheels in the center of the lane then as the end gets right to the intersection you turn hard and fast right. The tractor driver( the front) can drive like he is in a sports car and that makes the tiller man have to work that steering wheel or the tractor driver can make more L shaped turns and the tiller man doesn’t have to do much work.
Driving the back of the tiller gives the saying backseat driver a whole new meaning. Sweet video and stay safe. Do you need a CDL to drive a tiller truck?
No need. Backing up is simply logical. It's retraining your senses. A little practice. Just remember, wherever the bottom of the steering wheel goes you go.
@@aaronswanderlandadventures9561 Ok. Cheers.But I think E-One were the only manufactures who did the angled tiller cabs. They were first to introduce the concept. But others might have taken up the idea.
@@gordonkeane6298 I believe it is a CAL FIRE/Riverside County Fire Department Smeal Ladder Truck. This is one of 5 identical trucks. I believe they were built in 2008. They utilized the angled windows in the tiller cab for better visibility down the sides of the truck.
@@rickgriggs8987 Cheers for that info. I wasn't sure if others had adopted the angled design. Thus my question mark. It seems then, Smeal are the only other ones to do so.
Did anyone notice that all the traffic is driving on the left side of the road, instead of the right. When we passed a STOP sign, it was spelled backwards. Hence, the video was some how loaded reversed.
Duties include once the driver set the PTO ( power take off) to change the power from engine to ladder power the tiller person helps puts the outriggers down, assist in ladder raising, getting tools ( saws and whatever roof tools needed for firefighting) gearing up ...ventilation of roofs ( smoke , gas and heat) cutoff power and gas ect...the list goes on.
@@RandyCarpadus We see it working at the fire department in my country every day, actually, it works really well in the same way the trailers of trucks can have automatic rear-wheel steering that corresponds with what the driver of the vehicle does (and in trucks with a trailer that supports it, it usually is a set of wheels they can lower when entering a neighbourhood with smaller roads that would make taking a turn difficult, the wheels turn the "wrong" way as opposoed to the wheels of the truck).
@@RandyCarpadus The most common combination of trucks with trailer in my country (The Netherlands) are at the 61 feet mark, and some of the biggest autoladders in the biggest cities might be even slightly longer than that and they all have it and it's absolutely not a problem? (And the firefighting units I mentioned, just like the more common trucks+trailer combinations are not straight trucks, they are seperate.)
@@aaronswanderlandadventures9561 Sorry, I'm still not understanding what the mirrored means. The video is going with the traffic, but on the wrong side of the road.
I believe these are mechanics road testing a new apparatus readying it for service and why is the danger decal backwards ? Print backwards on school bus . Upload oops ..
This one's a little older than the super tiller but I have drove in the squad Zilla out of LA County that one is big so you can fit two people in the tiller!
Tiller Ladders are awesome to look at for sure, but to be honest the steering with a 2nd driver seems outdated to me; There are automatic and adaptive rear-wheel steering available for both trailers and rigid trucks; No need to have a 2nd driver at the rear then
On Tillers they have two operators for one very important reason and it is SAFETY , those rigs move a very fast speed during a response so they need a rear wheel operator in order to steer through traffic without hitting anyone or anything. Having automatic mechanical steering on the tiller would be a really bad idea and extremely dangerous.
@@josephbennett3482 how is that an actual argument? I Mean it's not like our trucks would move slow through traffic. In heavy city traffic our full-size trucks respond at an average speed of 40 mph. "Having automatic mechanical steering on the tiller would be a really bad idea and extremely dangerous." ... that's what almost any Tower Ladder and other Aerial with more than 2 axles has here, and among the modern ones also many 2 axle trucks have adaptive rear-wheel steering. If it was such a bad idea and so extremly dangerous it wouldn't work safely for years. While we don't have any Tillers, many semi trucks have automatic rear-wheel steering on their trailers and it works as well, however they of course don't respond code 3. Maybe it would be time to go away from the Tiller Ladder layout? Whatfor actually? Maneuverability is a poor argument ... of course it's more maneuverable than a rigid 100' Tower Ladder in the USA, but when we compare one of our rigid trucks with a 105' rearmount Tower Ladder, then the turning radius is the same like on an American Tiller, but the American is still less maneuverable as the long structure wouldn't be able to turn into some tight streets
@@_bobjohnson1157 it's not really about replacing a job. It has never ever been a human job here. We have some of the largest Aerials here and none of them requires a 2nd driver at the rear. With the argument "keep it like it always was, it still works, why get something new/modern" you could as well go back to horses and their pump carts
SAFETY AND REALIBILTY...Remember those 2 keywords.This is a emergency response vehicle...not some FedEx truck SAFETY AND HUMAN INTERACTION that at times requires seconds in decision making. You mean you are going to rely on a micro chip to make that decision? No back up ? I hope not.
Turn steering wheel left to go right , Turn steering wheel right to go left , it blows my mind I say if I learned to drive this thing I would most definetly say I would never drive a car again !
