Ground Support Equipment for Airports

When Bliss-Fox recently sold six of its Nepean Nightowl mobile light towers to Williams Adams, the criterion was that they had to be powered by Cat® engines. So an order was placed with Energy Power Systems Australia (EPSA) last September for delivery in November.

The order came about because Ash Traeger, Asset Manager (Rental) at William Adams Pty Ltd, was looking to expand his rental fleet of 80conventional light towers by adding Nepean Nightowls.

These heavy duty mobile light towers boast a very effective balloon design that houses three 1000W HTI metal halide lamps. The balloon produces 360 degrees of diffused and glare-free light to cover an area of 6500m2. The Nepean Nightowls are exclusively manufactured and sold by Bliss-Fox (part of the Nepean Group). Launched onto the market in 2010, these mobile light towers are becoming increasingly popular with the mining and construction industries.

Ash knew that he wanted Nepean Nightowls after he ‘Googled’ balloon lights one night and then, the very next day, came across the same light tower on one of his client’s sites.

As part of Ash’s specifications, each of the six towers he ordered had to be fitted with Cat engines. Ash suggested the light tower manufacturer speak with “the Cat guys” at EPSA and Bryn Jones, General Manager at Bliss-Fox, knew exactly who to call.

In addition to supplying portable light towers to the international mining and construction markets, Bliss-Fox Ground Support Equipment Pty Ltd is a leading provider of baggage tractors, aircraft tow tractors and aircraft pushback tractors to the international viation and defence markets. In fact, it was this side of their business that first introduced them to Caterpillar.

"We built a tractor last year for a customer in NZ with a C15 Cat engine purchased from EPSA in Melbourne," Bryn said. After the sale, John Goodall from EPSA in NSW visited Bliss-Fox’s Narellan operations to introduce himself. So it was John who received the call o deliver six Cat C1.1 engines by November.

As John surmised: "The six Cat engines were supplied to Bliss-Fox or installation and commissioning before being delivered to William Adams in Tullamarine, Melbourne. Hopefully these are the first of many more Nepean Nightowls to be powered by Cat in the future."

Caterpillar is very proud of the expertise that it provides to its customers. In fact Cat® dealers right across the network are continually encouraged to enhance their product knowledge and regularly given opportunities for further education.

To this end, the Caterpillar Electric Power Asia Pacific (EPAP) division is running a product support initiative. Cat dealer personnel will be able to acquire Master Application and Installation qualifications as well as Electric Power Analyst Certification.