We adopted the Heli-Saddle™ as the standard support for picking up on the helicopter cross tube. These supports are by far the best and safest on the market. Their thick polyurethane covering protects the helicopter’s cross tubes from common damage caused by other industry saddles. They are deeper and support more of the cross tube so there isn’t the tendency of the helicopter to jump out of the saddle as is well documented with other style saddles.
We designed the Tiger Tug to be versatile in its ability to handle different helicopters. Positioning of our saddles is very flexible. To fit your helicopter safely you can position the saddles anywhere lengthwise along the tug. You also have the ability to set the saddles inboard or outboard of the tug frame to best position them along your cross tube. The saddles also have the capability of raising and lowering so you can set the height that is comfortable for you. Other manufacturers weld in their saddle locations so you don’t have any flexibility to make adjustments. Our system also makes it easy if you have several different models of helicopters that need to be handled.
Our lifting mechanism is a true scissor lift. When the top frame of our tug rises it goes straight up! We have heard many horror stories about how with using our competitor’s tugs that holes have ended up being created in the belly skin where none were meant to be! This can be an expensive repair. With a Heliporter® or Tug a Lug system when the frame rises it also moves horizontally due to the nature of the lift system, so the saddles do not stay in position with the cross tubes. And since their switch to raise the frame is at the end of the tug you don’t have a clear sight of the saddles moving into position. When you drive our tug under the vehicle and line up the saddles they stay that way as they move vertically to nest gently against your cross tubes. You are also standing next to the saddles and watching carefully since you are commanding this operation with a wireless controller!!
With our wireless remote control you can safely move your helicopter without needing another person watching for hangar incursions. You are free to walk around all positions of your helicopter while moving in or out of your hangar. You are not tied to a tether or handle bar which can restrict what you can see.
Smoothness is very important when it comes to safely handling a multimillion dollar helicopter. We designed the Tiger Tug with all electric drive motors for a reason. Electric motors are very smooth. They accelerate, decelerate, and turn with utmost smoothness and positive control. Our tugs can run across the ramp at over 3 mph or can creep into position a millimeter at a time. The other tugs out there use hydraulic orbital motors for driving. These motors by nature are not very smooth and require large hydraulic pumps to run them. Besides lacking smoothness these pumps are not very energy efficient so you do not have the range as you do with our pure electric motors.
Reliability is an important ingredient for any product. We take great pride to build quality into our tugs. Many of our customers are in the air ambulance market where launching a helicopter on time is critical. If the tug doesn’t work at 3 AM when a call comes in they don’t have time to trouble shoot it. Nowadays if something does go wrong in a vehicle it is most likely electrical in nature. Well we designed the Tiger Tug with all the electronics in one removable Ebox. Customers can purchase a spare Ebox to keep on their shelf for emergency situations. If needed the Ebox can be removed and the other one inserted in its place and you are up and running again in just a few minutes. Then when time allows the removed box can be diagnosed and repaired. With this removable Ebox concept it is also possible for us to upgrade the electronics with new features or different components very easily in the future.