The crane truck of the company C.D.E. sas from Langres Cedex (F) already stood on my to-do list for a longer time, that I caught it was a coincidence. After a tourist day in Dijon we suddenly saw it in front of us. So after overtaking it, I could make some pictures in the next village that is passed.

It's a Volvo FH540 8x4 tractor that pulls a 3-axled Doll semi-lowloader. This carries a large vessel, they are produced by C.D.E. and also transported on their own trucks to the costumer.

The tractor is interesting because of the heavy crane it carries, a Heila HLR 140.000 5RS. It's a crane with nearly 140 T/m capacity. With 24 ton at 5,64 meters it has got 135,4 t/m capacity, which is an impressive value that for example can keep up with the current Effer 1855 or Fassi 1950.

The crane can not be folded completely because the boom segments are not mounted beside eachother. The crane boom is therefore parked between the front- and rear axles during drive. Interesting is also the mufler, that has been rotated 90° to make room for the outrigger.

The advantage of this boom construction is that you don't have any torsion sideways. The disadvantage is that the boom segments usually are a bit shorter, giving you less outreach. This unit can reach up to 11,3 meters where it will still lift 10 tonnes! With the manuel part it reaches up to 13,15 meters where it will lift 8,1 tonnes. Maximum load is 30 tonnes at 4,24 meters.

As it mainly transports these heavy vessels, the shorter outreach doesn't give any problems. It is more important to have a lot of capacity with such big objects.

Before this new Volvo FH, the crane was already installed on a previous FH model. So it has been transfered to a new truck at least 1x. This kind of cranes usually have a long life and can outlive several trucks.

From this side we can really see the dimensions of this crane! The outriggers is not tiltable, but is installed on a sliding plate. Before it is put down, the cylinder is shifted underneath the main outrigger.

The height of the support frame is impressive, although a certain amount is definitely neccesary with a unit like this.