Turntable ladders - from 1903 to today

The world's first turntable ladder was unveiled in Paris in 1802. Edouard Regnier had designed the extendable fire ladder as part of a design competition. In 1877, the professional fire department in Leipzig was the first fire department in Germany to reach a height of 23 meters with a three-section ladder set.

In 1903, the Offenbach fire department acquired an electric automobile; until then, horses had hauled the fire-fighting equipment to the scene. As the Offenbach fire department did not have its own horses and horses had to be organized in the event of an emergency, valuable time was always lost.

On September 24, 1915, a new vehicle was received at the fire station at Herrnstraße 50. This had already been ordered two years earlier, but its commissioning was delayed by the war.

During the National Socialist era, the light turntable ladder (LDL) was introduced as part of the first standardization of municipal fire department vehicles. Manual drive was common for turntable ladders of this size at the time. The LDLs were built on a light truck chassis with a payload of 1.5 tons and had a ladder length of 17 m. In 1943, this type was named DL 17, and this designation was initially retained after the Second World War.

In 1951, Magirus-Deutz presented the world's highest turntable ladder at the IAA, which had a climbing height of 52 plus 2 meters. In 1953, Magirus-Deutz then launched the first fully hydraulically operated turntable ladder on the market.

The first post-war standard, DIN 14701 from 1957, envisaged a DL 18 as the successor to the DL 17 and a DL 12, which was also hand-operated. At this time, the DL 18 was a type that was widely used by smaller fire departments.

Since the 1960s, however, due to the increasing construction of taller buildings, larger turntable ladders with mechanical drive, such as the DL 30, have also become common there.

The standard was split up in 1971: DIN 14701 only described machine-driven types, DIN 14702 the DL 18 with manual drive; the rarely built DL 12 was dropped.

In 1985, the DL 18 was renamed DL 16/4 with manual operation. Today, DL 16/4s are only used by fire departments in areas where there are either no higher buildings or narrow streets, such as in the old town, make it impossible to use a larger turntable ladder. However, they do not comply with any current standards and are technically not aerial rescue vehicles due to their lack of hydraulic lift. They are replaced by standardized DLK 12-9s when this is required by narrow buildings.

The use of front linkages instead of hooded trucks meant that turntable ladders grew in height, and the center of gravity and clearance height changed adversely. In 1980, Magirus-Deutz delivered the first DLK 23-12 n. B. (n. B. = low design). With the help of a driver's cab in front of the engine instead of above it, an overall height of around three meters could be achieved again.