Ehingen/Donau (Germany), August 2016 – For exactly one year the Liebherr Plant in Ehingen has been delivering the new compact crane, Model LTC 1050-3.1. The innovative mobile crane with a lifting capacity of 50 tonnes has proven extremely popular on the market and has positioned itself superbly. Around 60 machines of this type are now operating on building sites around the world. The main new features on this compact all-terrain crane, which is designed for use in industrial buildings and constricted areas, include the VarioBase® variable supporting base developed by Liebherr. But the heavy-duty jib, hook traverse and the optional telescoping driver's cabin have also proven to be valuable features in practice.

A look at the new LTC 1050-3.1 working on a very wide range of crane jobs in the most diverse situations is revealing. An interfering pillar, a channel in the floor which might be unable to withstand the pressure of the crane's outriggers, little space to a neighbouring wall or simply heaped building materials which limit the set-up area for the crane – generally the variable crane support, which enables each outrigger to be positioned individually, provides a solution to space problems for assembling the crane.

One of the classic jobs for these compact or city cranes is installation work on large machine tools in industrial buildings or in areas with a limited set-up area. Transport and recovery contractor Herpertz, which has branches in Belgium and the Netherlands, used its new LTC 1050-3.1 to relocate a mechanical engineering company in Cologne. Machine tools with a weight of up to ten tonnes had to be hoisted off a ramp and loaded. The crane showed the value of its compact dimensions when passing through the rear yard at the customer's site through an access point just three metres in height. The crane was only able to find enough space for its subsequent assembly on the loading ramp thanks to VarioBase. It was only possible to fully extend one of the four outriggers. The other outriggers were extended between 65 and 80 per cent due to a staircase and a wall.

So Liebherr has created a compact, versatile and flexible power package in the form of its new LTC 1050-3.1. Whilst some of its dimensions are even smaller than its predecessor, its lifting capacity has been increased by up to 15 per cent. The fact that the drivers have only praise for the way in which the compact crane handles and works provides ample confirmation for the work done by the engineers in Ehingen. The drivers are also satisfied with the handling of the three-axle crane on the road.