The Solway Aviation Museum (SAM) has invested in a mobile elevating work platform (MEWP) to reduce the risk to the maintenance teams while working at height on the museum aircraft.
During a recent health and safety risk assessment, it was highlighted that using conventional ladders and/or self erect scaffolding was no longer acceptable and a safer way of high level servicing needed to be found.
Looking into the potential endless hire cost of cherry pickers, etc, would make the regular maintenance checks and high level painting of the aircraft extremely expensive.
The answer was simple, invest in our very own cherry picker, which we did in March of this year.
But owning and operating a cherry picker is not that easy, there was insurance for one thing which was duly obtained, next came the LOLER Testing and certification (Lift Operating & Lifting Equipment Regulations).
Our cherry picker was due for its inspection and testing in June of this year, this was provided by a local company Thermo King Northern that checked, tested and issued the six-month certificate as the hydraulics systems must be checked and serviced twice a year.
After all that you still don’t (however tempting) jump into the bucket and climb skyway’s, this is the UK after all, and we do have standards to maintain.
Next on the list was to have the crews trained and certificated in the use of this equipment. This is where IPAF comes into the frame (International Powered Access Federation). Our training supplier was Systems Training, who are also based at Carlisle Airport, our home for over 50 years.
We booked the course for four crew members and to our surprise the course was a full day starting at 08.30 and finishing at 16.30.
The morning was spent on Health & Safety and the IPAF training programme which included a pretraining test and a post training test which you must achieve the pass mark or the course ends there!
After lunch, it was out to SAM-05 (our cherry pickers call sign) as we make extensive use of two-way communications as part of our Health & Safety procedures.
Before we can get our hands on our new equipment we have to go through harness training and how to correctly wear and adjust the harness which is there to save us should any of us fall out of the bucket.
Next comes the part that we have all been waiting for, the actual test, which requires us to drive the van between cones and park.
We then have to deploy the vehicle stabilizers, which stop the vehicle from moving when the booms are deployed.
Once that is all done, we climb into the safety harness, complete with hard hats and chin straps, and take the access platform through its paces. This included a vertical lift (VAMP) of 12.5 m using both booms to their full extent.
Each crew member then had to perform a number of manoeuvre’s (twice) as instructed by the two trainers during the afternoon.
At the end of the day, we all passed and are now proud holders of the IPAF PAL Card (Power Access Licence). This qualification is recognized worldwide and last for five years.
We can now start on the high level maintenance of our aircraft, buildings and external displays from the safety of our Cherry Picker SAM-05.
If you can find us and if you can afford us, maybe you can hire the Solway Sky Team.