Finally cleared my 5 ton load without a spotter yesterday in Houston

Been running a Liebherr LTM 1050 for about 8 months now and I always had someone guiding me on the blind side. Yesterday I got a tight pad with a sewer line in the way and managed to swing it clean over without a peep from anyone. How do you guys practice blind lifts without getting nervous?

2 comments

2 Comments

janaw1117h ago

The first time I had to do a blind lift I was running a Grove RT530 on a refinery job in Baton Rouge. I set up a few orange cones at the far end of the swing path, just as reference points so I could judge distance without looking straight back. That trick took the edge off because I had a visual cue that told me where the boom tip was in relation to the ground. After a few reps with the cones I started to trust the swing feel more. Also I made sure my outriggers were dead level and walked the load path mentally before I ever pulled the levers. It gets easier with practice but I still hold my breath a little on the real tight ones.

michael_jones16h ago

Re: "walked the load path mentally before I ever pulled the levers" - that's one I wish I learned sooner. I do it now every time before the first pick, even on jobs I've run before. That mental walkthrough catches a lot of issues before you're hanging steel. @janaw11, your cone trick sounds solid, I'm gonna try that next time I'm doing a blind swing on a tight jobsite.