Tractel T-500D Series Tirfor Winches: Pull Out All Threats
Being part of the armed forces involves more than just serving and protecting the country, it also involves minimising the number of fatalities to military personnel and civilians whilst on missions. This includes clearing paths and roads of any dangerous material from the ground. Insurgent forces often use IED’s (improvised explosive devices) or mines with large amounts of metal buried close to the surface to maximise damage.
The plan is always to disarm any explosive devices and remove any buried debris. Not all trucks have permanent winches and often those winches may not be in the right position for the extraction. Due to safety, visibility and enemy threats, soldiers sometimes have a limited amount of time to complete their task.
This defence force chose to keep a T-500D Series manual Tirfor® Winch from Tractel on their vehicle for several reasons. The T-500D Series are manageable, robust, powerful, lightweight, reliable and corrosion resistant. They are quick and easy to install and operate simply by a lever. The mechanical hoists/winches are suitable in numerous configurations, have no limitation on cable length and the load capacity can be increased through use of deflection sheaves, making them the ideal solution for use in any situation. The Tractel Tirfor® cable winch is a perfect back up for any electronic or petrol powered winch failure.
Tractel Tirfor® machines are portable manual hoists used to lift and pull loads, for utilisation in numerous configurations.
Most Tractel Tirfor® winches are fitted with a hook or anchor pin so that it can be secured quickly to any suitable anchor point. Each machine is supplied with a telescopic operating handle, and usually with a 20 m standard length of special Tirfor® wire rope fitted with a safety hook and wound onto a metal reel. Longer or shorter lengths of wire rope are available on request.
All Tirfor® machines incorporate a safety shear pin system. In case of overload, one or more pins (depending on the model), fitted to the forward operating lever, shear and prevent further forward or lifting operations. Reverse operation is still possible to enable the load to be lowered or the wire rope to be slackened. Models TU and T-500D are fitted with a “two-handed” rope release system which requires deliberate operation by the user to release the machine.