By Bill Adams

I brought more tradeshow photos to morning coffee to show the Raisin Squad. The jacks on a new Pierce aerial device caught their attention prompting these comments: The rubber cup’s busted. Its some kinda sales gimmick. Ain’t seen nuthin like that in 40 years. Another Squad member asked a Pierce representative at the show to explain it. I was there but can’t remember what the rep said. The other Raisin wasn’t too sure either, so I contacted Pierce. Its just not right saying someone’s rig looks like it’s busted without given them a chance to explain. 

Lisa Barwick, Pierce’s director of business development, answered my question. “The Ascendant 100-foot Aerial Tower has integrated ground pads that streamline the setup time for firefighters by eliminating the need to manually throw ground pads at the fire scene. The integrated aluminum ground pads are permanently attached to the stabilizers using a unique positioning cam design. This cam allows the ground pad to be rotated and repositioned if necessary, avoiding obstacles such as curbs or manhole covers, prior to the stabilizer contacting the ground. When work at the fire scene is complete and the stabilizers are being stowed, these cams will automatically rotate the ground pad back to its proper orientation so that it properly stows underneath the vehicle.” 

The few sane and rational Squad members understood the Pierce concept. It is a pretty good innovation. Raisins incapable of reality continued with a tirade about city service ladder trucks not needing jacks, the benefit of no cab roofs on aerial ladders, and secret fetishes for wooden ground ladders—especially bangors and crotch poles (https://www.fireapparatusmagazine.com/articles/2014/05/cantankerous-wisdom-glove-boxes-and-crotch-poles.html).

Another morning, one Raisin looking at a fire journal advertisement asked how come there are so many different models of custom cabs and chassis. That started a week-long opinionated discourse pitting the old against the very old. I mentioned there are not too many apparatus chassis makers left. Mack, Maxim, Crown, Hahn, Ward La France, American La France (again), Pemfab, Pirsch, the original FWD, Grumman, the original Hendrickson, and Duplex are no longer. He replied “You old fool—that’s not the question. How come each manufacturer has so many models?” I said Mack only had one model of cab-forward rig—the C-Model, which was replaced later by the CF. An American La France (ALF) aficionado said ALF also had just one style until it added the Pioneer—not a popular design. Seagrave followed its single popular cab with the equally unpopular Invader series. Both the Pioneer and Invader looked like military crash trucks. My nemesis said, “We ain’t livin in the past; we’re talkin about today’s rigs.” Depending on how you count them, there are seven to nine domestic manufacturers of custom cabs and chassis: Pierce; Rosenbauer; Spartan; Sutphen; Seagrave; HME Ahrens-Fox; and the REV group, which currently consists of E-ONE, Ferrara, and KME.

One computer literate member came in the next morning with all sorts of data found on individual manufacturers’ Web sites. There’s no way of knowing if his information is correct or up to date or if h