The compressors and the helicopter supplied by Bonds Helicopters are part of a comprehensive range of equipment managed on a day to day basis by the Trinity House Operations Control Centre in Harwich to maintain the 600 navigation aids that stretch from Berwick upon Tweed on the North East coast down to the Channel, round Wales and up to the Solway Firth on the North West coast. These include storm lashed lighthouses like Bishop Rock off the Isles of Scilly to light vessels and buoys in the Channel marking some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. Trinity House also annually inspects over 9,000 aids to navigation provided by local port and harbour authorities.

The compressors are kept at the regional depot in Swansea, from where they are transported to the offshore lighthouses by land, sea and air to be used by contractors working on behalf of Trinity House.

They are used in ones or twos or all together to provide different volumes of compressed air depending on the size of the project. Applications range from powering air tools for the fitting of lightning conductors and landing works to grit blasting for remedial works to re-glazing on the lanterns and preparation for external painting on the lanterns and lighthouses.

Ingersoll-Rand has also developed special two and four branch manifolds that remove the need for an air receiver and an additional trip by the helicopter.

MJInformation No: 20832