Liebherr’s new LTR 1220 telescoping boom crawler crane.

Liebherr’s new LTR 1220 telescoping boom crawler crane, first launched at its customer days event in June last year, has performed its first major job on a construction site in Kassel in central Germany.

The 220t-capacity telescopic crawler crane showed what it could do during the construction of a building in Villingen-Schwenningen. Used for handling prefabricated concrete components, the crane proved a hit with its functionality and flexibility, including off-road mobility and accurate placement.

The LTR 1220 offers the advantage that high loads can be telescoped with the boom, which generally is impossible with a lattice boom. The crane is also able to walk with a full load.

The LTR is one of four telescoping boom crawler cranes built by Liebherr, that include 60t, 80t, and 1,200t models. Telescoping boom cranes offer an advantage over lattice boom crawlers in that they are faster to set up, though a disadvantage is the heavier boom meaning higher ground pressure.

The first machine of this crane model was delivered to the German crane and heavy transport contractor Albert Regel GmbH, and it had its show debut at Bauma 2013.