KSC Firetruck with Operational Aerial Ladder

[Geschosskopf]

I'm a fireman in real life so I wanted to make a firetruck, specifically one with an aerial ladder. After some tinkering, I came up with this beast:

The aerial ladder is Damned Robotics stuff: a Rototron on the bottom to rotate, a hinge just above that to elevate, and a stack of 3 hydraulic cylinders to extend. The cylinders are separated with a short box girder to each of which are attached 2 long extending ladders, 1 pointing in each direction, with one of the short, fixed ladder segments between to bridge the gap. At the bottom, there's a short, yellow, extension ladder to get from the turntable up over the hinge. Then there are some B9 Aerospace lights and ladders, TT's truck cab, and it's all powered by 2 of the big fuselage batteries from Firespitter under the cab. There's also a KAS winch on the back with a grappling hook.

It's got pretty good sideways reach...

And can get Kerbals on the roof of the SPH...

But it's not tall enough to change the flag and Jeb was very disappointed that he wasn't quite able to paint "Class of 2013" on the side of the water tower.

And, of course, there's the whole issue of it not being able to pump any water at all, so no elevated master stream. But the only times anything burns in KSP is when rocket engines are working properly and during re-entry. Otherwise, things just explode and it's all over, so I guess Kerbal firemen really don't need to pump water. And Kerbals seem quite able to fall unhurt from disabled rockets on the pad so really don't need a ladder truck to rescue them, either. But something in the KOSHA regulations says you have to have a firetruck standing by during launches so I built one .

Adding 1 more cylinder to the aerial would solve it's vertical reach problems but the thing's pretty unwieldy already. Ever see the last scene of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" ? I'm afraid that's what'll happen if I make it any longer, but no way to know without trying. Of course, I'll then have to make the vehicle bigger because the bounce in the ladder already tends to toss it around some. Probably make it a 6-wheeler with better overall balance and more outriggers, too.

Thanks for looking.

[Varyon]

That's quite the feat of engineering. I really need my Damned Robotics back... This might be the impetus I need, because I REALLY want one of these to play around with. It'd make a great tool to get Kerbals into tall rockets...

[Geschosskopf]

That's quite the feat of engineering. I really need my Damned Robotics back... This might be the impetus I need, because I REALLY want one of these to play around with. It'd make a great tool to get Kerbals into tall rockets...

Thanks .

The Damned Robotics are via the unofficial tweak some kind soul did to make it work with 0.20, pending release of the official update. I got it here:

https://github.com/chrisphillips/DRobotics-for-Kerbal-0.20.2#readme

If it's not there when you look, it means the official version is out.

[sytaline]

One word. Take a guess. Fine I will tell you. It is... EEEEPPPIICC!!