HIAB and the Space Program

In a previous post I mentioned that I would be highlighting some of HIAB’s colourful history in this blog, sourced from our collection of HIAB Method magazines from decades past

Looking through edition 1-65, from 1965, one picture really caught my eye. You can see it too on page 11 of the attached PDF. In addition to working on jobs (now considered standard practise for HIAB’s)—like laying gas pipeline in Germany or moving girders with Austrian Army engineers—there is a picture of a HIAB crane on a small US Army boat.

The crane was then known as the “Speedloader”. The Speedloader was a HIAB knuckleboom crane that could be mounted on a truck or in a stationary application. But as the picture on page 11 shows, the Speedloader could also be mounted on a Zodiac and used for a very important job with the U.S. space program—actually retrieving the space capsule containing astronauts returning to Earth. The capsules landed in the Atlantic and it was up to the HIAB Speedloader crane to pull them from the waves and place them on the waiting boat.

The work with the U.S. space program is just one example of the many ways HIAB technology can be used. We at Atlas Polar have been selling HIAB truck cranes since before the first moon landing, and we are very proud of our shared history with HIAB.

For more information on our wide selection of HIAB truck mounted cranes, visit our Truck Mounted Cranes page.