Rescue of people · Recovery · Environment protection
In the year 1946 when the company LAMPE was founded, it immediately started to work in the area fire protection. We sold fire-fighting equipment, vehicles and equipment for fire brigades. Having a lot of experience in the area fire-fighting it seemed only reasonable to produce also own rescue equipments for this market. Since 1972 we therefore produce our own products. In 1973 we developed the first rectangular flat lifting-cushions in the world with 1 bar and in 1974 with 10 bar working pressure, which are used since that time world-wide for the rescue of people. With this knowledge we also wanted to produce equipment for the environment protection.
Our sewer sealing cushions with double cone are the leading ones world-wide and the new generation of the cushions with pipe-bypass represents a further good innovation. Submersible lifters for the recovery under water, gully cover plates, stationary shut-off systems in storm sewers: many inventions and many patents. Take part in our long-time experience. Good and safe products, a well trained staff (we are certified according to ISO 9000) and a proper and honest Management for more than 50 years: these are features we are proud of. Here we want to present you the various systems of our lifting-cushions out of our delivery program. As we contributed since 1972 considerably to the development of lifting-cushions we want to give you here a short introduction into the history of the development of lifting-cushions and their mode of operation, by comparing at the same time the advantages and disadvantages of the various systems.
First of all a little bit of history
Already in the Thirties of the last century there were low-pressure devices with a working pressure of mostly 0.2 bar (partially 0.5 bar). These lifting-cushions mostly were round or cylindrical or they had several chambers and were used first of all for the aircraft recovery. Then in the Sixties there were offered on the German market little round, cylindrical "lifting cushions" , inside ribboned and coming from England with a working pressure of 0.5 bar. They were sold by a German company especially to fire brigades. LAMPE uses still today the pressure of 0.5 bar for lifting-cushions in case of aircraft recovery and for this field of application it is in general the recommended air pressure.
At the same time there appeared in the beginning of the Seventies also in France a special lifting-cushion with extreme forces and a very high working pressure. However, this device was very heavy and relatively high. So in spite of its excellent quality and performance it could not win recognition on the market because of its high weight and height.
In 1973 Jürgen Haro, Senior Partner of the LAMPE GmbH, then developed the first lifting-cushions with a working pressure of 1 bar, being optimal for rescue operations and thus presented also world-wide the first rectangular, flat lifting-cushions. These new devices had a rectangular form and consisted only of reinforced bottom and top panels, this means they did not have sidewalls. Also the pressure of 1 bar was a novelty – 1 bar, because this working pressure offers many advantages especially for rescue operations. This relatively high working pressure could be realized by using a new material: Kevlar by Dupont. On the initiative of LAMPE it was Continental who first developed threads out of Kevlar fibres, then a fabric and finally a double-sided coated rubberized material. This newly developed and coated fabric allowed pressures at a high flexibility which previously had not been possible. 
Also a novelty was the rectangular form with sidewall, a so far not known form for lifting-cushions. Instead of a round column or roll we put on the market a cube-shaped lifting-cushion to be used in rescue operations by fire brigades, which lifted significantly more stable under an inclined load than round devices.In the years 1974 and 1975 the enterprise LAMPE also constructed the first rectangular flat high-pressure devices with 5 and 10 bar working pressure.
In 1974 the enterprise LAMPE produced the first high-pressure lifting-cushion which is offered today by many competitors. Today one cannot imagine technical operations world-wide without these pumps. We are happy that our system won recognition on the worldwide market, also because one German competitor still wrote in the year 1975 in an article in the magazine 'Brandschutz' that lifting-cushions which can bend upwards are not very good.
In the following year we developed our modern one-chamber devices, which should replace the so far common multichamber lifting-cushions used in the aircraft recovery. With the LAMPE-LIFTER 0,5-700 (previously 0,5-600) we can supply the largest one-chamber lifting-cushion in the world. The lifter lifts approx. 70 tons up to a height of 3.80 m. The model 0,5-1000 lifts approx. 100 tons up to a height of 310 cm. The working pressure of these devices is 0.5 bar.
Besides the already mentioned rectangular flat high-pressure lifting-cushions, which are meanwhile offered by many companies based on the LAMPE-technology, there are competitors who also offer for some time round high-pressure devices, which - as a special highlight – can be triply screwed one upon the other and which have for that a hole in the top panels for the screw joint.
Examples of application
Rescue of people
Very spectacular was the operation of a voluntary fire brigade from the Landkreis Harburg in the year 1974. At that time a little girl was rescued by the voluntary Fire Brigade Rosengarten under the cast concrete ceilings of a residential house after a gas explosion. Used were LAMPE-LIFTERs 1 bar which minimized with their large surface pressure the danger that the cast concrete panels might break. The present Professional Fire Brigade Hamburg resigned explicitly because of this breakage risk to use hydraulic lifters. Also high-pressure lifters, which at that time just came onto the market, would have been out of place in that situation.
In Göttingen a little boy had to be rescued by the Professional Fire Brigade out of a fork of a branch into which he was slipped and this as unspectacular as possible in order to reduce the stress both for the boy and the parents.
- In Duderstadt a man was rescued after a not secured and not fixed ditch had caved in.
In Bad Homburg a wheel loader (approx. 15 tons) overturned when driving out of an excavation and buried the driver under the shovel blade. In spite of the load weighing tons, the man was not hurt because the shovel had pressed him into the loam. But here he was in danger to suffocate. The fire brigade arrived after 5 minutes and could rescue the man by using two LAMPE-LIFTERs Type 1-50, each having a lifting power of 5 tons.
- Rescue of a man under a bus in Sweden. On an ice-slicked street the slipping bus caught a man and buried him below the bus in a ditch. The man could be rescued.
- Rescue in the USA, a person is rescued out of a car.
Recovery
- Lifting of a mine sweeper weighing 250 tons in Sweden with the help of 5-ton LAMPE-LIFTERs (at that time we still did not have 50 tons lifters; with them this operation would have been a "child's play").
- Recovery of a special crawler of approx. 18 tons out of the Bernauer Moor on the Chiemsee. At this spectacular recovery a construction battalion of the Bundeswehr had tried before and for one week in vain to salvage the crawler vehicle. LAMPE did this task with LAMPE-LIFTERs in 5 hours.
- Putting upright an overturned truck near Stadtoldendorf
- Putting upright a truck in Gandersheim
- Putting upright a wheel loader of approx 15 tons used for the gypsum mining in a stone pit near Stadtoldendorf.
- Putting upright an 80-ton locomotive (exercise). First there were used LAMPE-LIFTERs Type 10-400 for the first lifting, followed by a trial with a three-chamber lifter with 50-ton lifting power. The proper work finally was done by three 3 LAMPE-LIFTERs type 1-150.
- Exercise of the Voluntary Fire Brigade Stadtoldendorf with a recovery tank , used were two LIFTERs Type 1-150 and one lifter Type 1-25.
- Putting upright railway trucks weighing approx. 35 tons (exercise) in South Africa with the help of two lifters Type 1-150.
- Many exercises with aircrafts (aircraft recovery).
Assembly works with 1 bar LAMPE-LIFTER
- Assembly of an excavator underframe to the top structure. Here it was especially advantageous that the load weighing tons was easily slidable, thus a "surface-like" lifting. In order to get the drillings exactly one upon the other, the underframe had to be slided very accurately after the lifting, an operation what was easily managed.
In all cases we had to manage either works on a soft underground or we had a load which cannot take up large point powers or we were confronted with especially high lifting heights.