Rippers are one of the most interesting pieces of heavy equipment to watch. Some are stand alone machines, some are attachments to traditional machinery like backhoes. They can dig up the rockiest terrain ready for dozers or loaders to come in and removes the material.

The large heavy duty rippers are mean machines. They use their considerable weight as leverage along with a multi segment arm to which a sharp digging tool is fitted. The heavy weight of the ripper anchors it to the ground while the power of engine drags the ripping tool through the rock and earth. The are interesting observation in physics as the number of segments and the angle of attack is used to magnify the power of then engine. By using physics, heavy equipment like a ripper can leverage their power to perform incredible feats of strength.

Even backhoes fitted with a ripper tool can use the principles of physics to dig up ground that is rock solid, and I do mean solid rock. The operation of heavy machinery like a ripper is based on similar principles to a backhoe. The point goes into the earth and is dragged toward the machine. This is similar to you sitting in a sandpit and using your hand to drag the sand towards you. It is far easier to use your own weight as a counter balance – trying to push away from you has the wrong angles and does not make use of your own weight.

Learning to operate a ripper, or backhoe is not difficult. ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools can provide all the training you need to becomes a backhoe operator. From there it is just a step up to a fully fledged ripper.

Hydraulic excavators are no to dissimilar to traditional excavators. They include the standard work unit which has a 360° swing mounted on an undercarriage used for travel. The front-end attachment can be exchanged to allow for a wide range of applications including digging and loading.

The hydraulic excavator is driven hydraulically in a manner completely different to a mechanically driven type. The engines mechanical energy is converted into hydraulic energy. The hydraulic energy is then passed along and then converted back into mechanical energy. In other words, travel, swing and dig is all done by hydraulic power.

A major feature of a hydraulic excavator is the full 360° swing along with the combined operations of digging, loading and swing ensuring high operating efficiencies and production. By exchanging the front-end attachments, a wider range of applications are available.

Whether it is a standard excavator or an hydraulic excavator, the basic operations are still the same and the same training is required. ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools can provide training to get you into a career as an excavator operator.

If you are looking for a career change but cannot make a decision, perhaps you should check out your options and perhaps try out one or two.

One of the real benefits of ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools is that you can try before you buy. They have a complete online training program that anyone can access – and it’s free. The free online training program is of course centered around heavy equipment and take you through the basics of heavy equipment operations and safety.

There are not to many careers, or in fact training providers, that will let you test your own skills, abilities and comfort levels when it comes to training for a new career. It is important. Undertaking a complete training program can be time consuming and expensive particularly when it comes to heavy equipment.

If your looking for a career change and don’t really know if heavy equipment operation is for you – check out our free online training options first.

Occupation descriptions, or job descriptions, come in many formats and some are quite deep in their requirements. Others can be brief and often make it sound like any one could apply for a vacancy.

An occupation descriptions is often broken into three or four parts. An overview, task description, required skills/training and personal attributes.

Description:

Operate mechanical boom and cable or tower and cable equipment to lift and move materials, machines, or products in many directions.

Tasks:

• Clean, lubricate, and maintain mechanisms such as cables, pulleys, and grappling devices.
• Determine load weights and check them against lifting capacities in order to prevent overload.
• Inspect equipment, structures, or materials to identify the cause of errors or other problems or defects.
• Running, maneuvering, navigating, or driving equipment.
• Using hand and arm signals for installing, handling, positioning, and moving materials, and manipulating things

.

If you don’t have those skills yet would like a career as a crane operator then perhaps you check out ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools to see when your next course begins.

The great outdoors has always been the bastion of the beer swilling loudmouthed male – even wives were frowned upon anywhere near the workplace. However, there has been one occupation where females have been accepted almost as readily males, and that has been in the trucking industry.

Times are changing. You can now see women driving bulldozers or front end loaders, however, when it comes to statistics, there 100 women truck drivers for every woman driving a earth moving equipment.

In fact, it is not just women, truck driving has been one industry where males and females, young and old and people from all walks of life have been employed and able to work together with minimal friction.

Because truck driving involves traveling, often from one side of the country to the other, it has been seen a little like driving internationally. As you cross state borders you are driving on someone elses turf – if they accept a female driver, so do you. If you accept 60 year old drivers, they will too.

It’s never too late to start a career as a truck driver. Many women, for example, start their truck driving careers once the kids have left the nest. It becomes their escape as well.

ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools doesn’t discriminate either. Whether your young, old, male, female, it doesn’t matter. If you want to be a truck driver then we will do our best to help you achieve that career goal.

We live in an age where space is reducing and the ability to use full size equipment is becoming difficult or even impossible. We see mini excavators and bob-cats working hard all day, perhaps what you don’t see or hear very much about is the compact grader. In fact, you have probably seen them in action and not given them another thought.

Compact graders are identical to their bigger brothers. As the name suggests they are compact, or smaller in size. The compact grader, as an example, has a turning circle of less than twenty feet compared to twice that for the larger machines.

Although shorter in length, and having a significantly smaller engine, these little graders perform just as well as the larger models. They can still do an adequate job of moving dirt, snow or any loose material.

The skills required to operate a compact grader are no different to those of the larger machines. At ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools we offer training on motor graders to provide participants with the skills to operate both large and small machines. Check us out for a training program suited to your needs.

With winter approaching there are many communities organizing their heavy equipment so they are prepared to seve the community. Roads often need clearing of snow, vehicles sometimes need digging out from under snow drifts, and of course the regular spate of black-ice instigated motor vehicle accidents.

The most common equipment used a specialized machine known as a snow plow. However, graders and bulldozers have often been called in to the same job – push the snow and ice off the road and onto the verges. Because of the snow and black ice, these can be dangerous times for heavy equipment operators.

It takes good quality training backed up with plenty of experience to safely handle heavy equipment in these conditions. Blades need to be set at the right height to ensure snow and ice is removed, yet the road surface remains untouched.

It’s cold work yet by the time your finished, you can look back on black ribbon of cleared road neatly surrounded by banks of white snow – the picture postcard setting that many from tropical regions can only dream about (if they lived through for a couple of years the dream would soon vanish).

ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools can get your heavy equipment career off the ground by providing a thorough training program on a variety of machines. Who knows, one day you could be keeping our roads open during the cold winters.

A lot of people wouldn’t consider a ship building yard as a user of heavy equipment or heavy equipment operators. In fact this is far from the truth.

Whilst you wont find a ship yard full of heavy equipment operators, you will find crane operators, forklift operators and front end loader operators.

The role of a crane operator is fairly obvious. They raise and lower much of the heavy materials during the assembly processes.

Forklifts, or forktrucks, also help with lifting, however their role is often to unload trucks, move laden pallets and look after stores.

Front end loaders have a curious role when compared to their normal jobs. Front end loaders in ship yards can be called upon to lift materials to a working height. These materials are often the smaller, but heavy in number items, such as rivets, rivet guns, welding rods and related materials. They act as a bucket to hold these items and as a garbage collector for used materials.

The role of a heavy equipment operator in a ship building yard can be varied and interesting. To see a large ship coming together is amazing in itself. To actually be a part of the working crew is even better.

If you fancy yourself in a ship building yard – perhaps as a crane operator, then check out ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools for a training program that may help to kickstart your career.

There is no doubt that during a recession the construction industry starts to suffer – at least certain areas like home building suffers. In general however, as governments look to spend their way out of a recession they often turn towards infrastructure. This mean roads, rail, ports and new schools and hospitals, and of course, jobs for heavy equipment operators.

The recession actually means a boom time for certain areas of construction. History shows that more miles of road and rail are built during a recession than during the good times. More hospitals and more schools are also built during periods of recession.

If your looking to get into the construction industry as a heavy equipment operator then you will need to concentrate on where the work is. Road and rail are obvious; the mining industry will be determined by base metal prices. If they start to rise then mining will again boom. House building, until the economy starts to lift, forget about working in that sector; for now although I do have one proviso. There are many smart entrepreneurs who will buy land now, and have it developed, so that when the economy starts to grow again, they have the land ready to sell and make money.

Becoming a heavy equipment operator in today’s climate is no different to a booming economy. What changes is where you work – which sectors you work in. ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools can provide you with the skills to operate heavy equipment in most sectors of the construction industry. Get your career started now.

There is one thing in life we all have, don’t want, and get others to deal with. Our waste. We throw it into the bin which gets collected and from that point on, we don’t want to know about it.

The waste is taken to a central location where it is often used as landfill. Heavy equipment like large bulldozers push the waste around, mixing it with soil and slowly burying it. As time goes by the waste becomes compacted down.

Once the landfill area is full, fresh dirt is used to completely cover the site. Again it is the bulldozer that is called into action to bury all the waste.

It may not be everyone’s idea of the perfect job, but someone has to do it. Not only that, it actually takes a skilled operator to perform the landfill requirements properly. These operators are trained to use their equipment on a variety of surfaces and slopes. If you think about it, rubbish is soft, it cane compacted, your bulldozer is going to sink and slide around. You need good skills to handle that terrain.

ATS Heavy Equipment Training Schools can help you acquire all the skills needed to operate a bulldozer effectively. Check out our training site for more information on course start dates.