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Goodbye Grumman LLV!

svetz

Works in theory! Practice? That's something else
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At an average age of 25 years old, most of our LLV delivery fleet is near or beyond its designed useful life. (ref)

From: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a35604138/usps-oshkosh-defense-new-mail-trucks/

The elderly Grumman LLVs, in service since at least 1994, will be replaced by trucks with airbags and A/C. The design is yet to be finalized, but some will be electric....They are expected to be delivering mail by 2023.

I was watching a Grumman LLV delivering mail today and thinking go/stop, go/stop... man, an electric vehicle would be so much better for a non-rural route. Not sure how many times they return to refill the truck or how much recharging they could get as they reload the truck (I believe level two charges can be up to 80 amps though).
usps2-1614115516.jpg

Turns out EVs aren't just for Norway: https://www.npr.org/2021/03/17/976152350/from-amazon-to-fedex-the-delivery-truck-is-going-electric
 
Both are vehicles from a military-vehicle company... surprised more don't have them like your you-tuber.
 
Both are vehicles from a military-vehicle company... surprised more don't have them like your you-tuber.
From an article I read on a car-mag site, not only are they just bad driving vehicles when they are newish, the USPS has long had a shortage of vehicles and they drive them well past the condition of safe operation. Theyre destroyed and rarely allowed to get in the hands of the public. I believe it was also mentioned these were never crash tested to federal standards, they are RHD and have no air conditioning. And are quite top heavy. Some 23,000 were built.
 
Both are vehicles from a military-vehicle company... surprised more don't have them like your you-tuber.
My experience operating purpose built vehicles in the military (mostly shore based navy ground support equipment at NAS Miramar in the early 80s when I was an avionics tech in an F-4 phantom fighter squadron) leads me to conclude the only benefit military vehicles might have could be reliability, and even that is going to be negated when you consider the years they are in the loving care of guys just out of high school, with time on their hands between grueling deployment schedules. And utter disrespect for the equipment owned by the people paying you $550 a month to work 12-16 hr days 7 days a week for often months at a time
The most expensive thing I operated was a huffer, or RCTP-105 (IIRC) Its a gas turbine power plant thats towed, to start planes. It generates from 150-300 psi scalding hot air through a six inch diameter 25 ft long hose. Think they were a million dollars even in 1980 bucks.
We didnt play around with those too many ways to die.
The chrysler 318 powered tow tractors and diesel NC8 electric carts were another story, when all the officers go home for the day and in the wee hours of the night we raced em, first thing is disabling the speed governors.
An NC8 just fits under the wing of an F4, the operators upper body does not.
One of the guys in another squadron wasnt wearing his prescription glasses one night and went full speed right under a wing, that cart has to be 3 tons or more and the plane is 50,000 lbs.
Cut him in half, he was engaged to be married. They did a safety stand down cuz his chief naturally made it out to be a normal operational incident.
Just another day of kids handling million dollar deadly toys.
I can only imagine the mayhem if any of that stuff had munitions.
 

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