A reader named Randy used to drive this very jeep. He shares his experience below. Note that the DJ-3A fuel inlet was moved to the side to accommodate the ramp.
These pictures were taken in the spring of 1970 and I am no doubt somewhere on the BOAC VC-10. Or I maybe flying the “bucket truck” in the back of the plane cleaning the lavatories
Randy writes, “After high school I got a job with a company that serviced airlines that didn’t have dedicated ground crews. These airlines had only one or two flights a day at our airport. This employer hired and trained people to service the airplanes just like a fulltime ground crew would. Every “ramp rat” was going to be something else after college except for me. I would learn to fly with the meager pay and get employed using friendships and connections made there.
“Anyway, Butler Aviation had a Jeep Baggage Loader and I would drive it on any mission that came up. Summer and winter or rain or snow, I volunteered to position the belt loader and loved each time I drove it. It wasn’t uncommon to reposition that Jeep from one side of the airport to the other. Four or five miles at a time.
“It was a 4 cylinder, 2-wheel drive, three on the tree with the giant loader and hydraulics attached above the center of gravity. The endless belt loader was fixed in the back and raised and lowered in the front. Had a huge rubber bumper on the front of the belt to prevent damage to the airplanes. It only went about 30 mph but, combined with the unstable loader, it could get scary. We use to fill it up with ramp rats and drive across the airport in the summer and get a nice breeze. But in the winter, I was all by myself.”
