Road Grader

[Chuck Smith]

I know we have talked about this before, but I saw a grader the other day, and it kinda freaked me out. I was heading into work, and it had snowed about 8" there. I had my blade on (not plowing), and was in 4wd going up a hill and around a turn. It was snowing heavy. It was 7 AM on a saturday. No one on the roads, no one really working at the arsenal on saturday. I come up the hill, and around the turn, and here comes the OD green road grader, plowing. He had the blade on the front, I guess a 10' blade, not sure of the brand. The part that freaked me out, is that he was doing about 30 MPH clearing one side of the road, all the way over the double yellow line. The way he was doing this, was by "crab walking". He was using the 4 wheel steering, and had it maxed, so this thing was coming down the road diagonally, but going straight! We passed to fast for me to fully realize what he was doing. Later on, he passed the building I work in, and I got a view from the third floor. He was plowing diagonally again, but I saw why. He had the blade down on the front, and he also had the belly blade down. The front blade was angled full left, and the belly full right. He was clearing about a 14' wide swath in one pass.
Pretty slick, never saw that before. I saw the grader on the site before, but not plowing, and from a distance, it's hard to see what's what with it being camoflaged and OD green. The belly blade was flat black too.
When I came around that turn, I had no idea what way he was going, it looked like he was coming straight at me!


~Chuck

 

[guido]

HAHAHA

The military is big on maxing out the use of their equipment year round. We use graders alot when we can to clear the roads and parking lots. We try to keep it off of the airfield, because if you put it in the hands of the wrong operator he can really take up some asphalt with too much down pressure on that underbelly blade. I usually get a laugh when I'm plowing roads and someone tries to go around me until the get on the side of me and realize that I'm articulated almost all the way accross. The other reason we like the grader is because of the speed, they really truck, and they do it with power!! There always is a big safety issue with all of our equipment being camoflauged, but when we work on the base streets or the airfield, etc, its lit up like a x-mas tree!! You can't miss us coming!! The only time I think I've scared people more than I had with the grader on the road was coming down a taxiway at 45 MPH in a Liquid deicer truck with 30' wings on both sides. The have strobes on the end, but when your coming at it in the dark it looks like 3 seperate vehicles and it looks like you can make it through between the strobe and the truck itself. Well a guy didn't think much of it in his little cop car as I came speeding down the taxiway. I'm always very aware of my surroundings though, especially when driving something 60' + wide. He froze up once he realized I was coming straight at him with a wing, hoping he would move instead of me spreading clearway all over his patrol car, but of course it was a typical MP and gave the deer in the headlights look as I swerved to the left and put a healthy coating of liquid de-icer on his patrol car!! I bet he wished he had some toilet paper in the car with him!! He must have spread the word because now, they clear the whole field when my crew goes out to perform snow rmoval on the airfield!!

Anyways, don't worry about that guy in the grader......usually its only experienced operators that can articulate, use the blade and a front blade, and at the speed he was going, do it right. Usually half-Arse operators are scared themselves of the cars when they're articulated so they're not comfortable doing it.

 

[John Allin]

Any REAL plower would LOVE to see that... 60 feet wide swath.... yup... love to see that one.

 

[thelawnguy]

"There always is a big safety issue with all of our equipment being camoflauged"

yeah, I can see how you can miss a big green tan and brown grader against a backdrop of white...

Reminds me of a skit I saw many years ago, the militarys new "urban camouflage", one soldier had part of a fender and hubcap hanging off him, another part of a billboard painted on him, etc.

 

[guido]

Bill

When its dark its dark! I'm sure you'd be able to see a flourescent yellow or orange piece of equipment than one painted dark green, right??

 

[Mark Oomkes]

Some guys have all the best equipment.

 

[plowjockey]

60' wide!!! I'm salivating just thinking about it. Great stories all.

Bruce
Happy plowing

 

[snow]

guido said><b> The only time I think I've scared people more than I had with the grader on the road was coming down a taxiway at 45 MPH in a Liquid deicer truck with 30' wings on both sides. I'm always very aware of my surroundings though, especially when driving something 60' + wide. </b>

He said that he said 2 30ft wings on a de-icer truck.

Bryan

 

[guido]

You wanna slow down?

Originally posted by John Allin
Any REAL plower would LOVE to see that... 60 feet wide swath.... yup... love to see that one.

John, read the post again if you misunderstood. No 60' plow. Its a liquid deicer truck for the airfield. It has a 30' wing on both sides that come out on hydro cylinders. I'll post a pic when I get a chance.