Jimmi Nolan In your hands, you hold your brand new ‘shiny’ C6 crane ticket. You are now qualified to head out into the wonderful world of mobile crane-age. But are you necessarily prepared for anything that gets thrown at you?
Think of it this way, you are passed out on a 25T truck mount crane in the training environment. The next week you land a job at Bill & Teds Crane Hire. “Hey you’ve got a C6 licence, jump in the 16T city crane, we’ve got a truck to unload down the road at the Claridges Builders’ site.”
Sounds crazy right? The above is a real life scenario of what you’re licensed to do post training and successfully completing a ‘C6 Slew Mobile Crane Course‘. From my own personal experience, situations such as these are surely the most daunting of anyone’s career. Gone are the days of onsite crane & rigging apprenticeships; the industry decided it was too costly and inefficient hence the one week training course was born. You can’t replace hours/days/weeks/months/years of experience in the seat, but you can be more prepared before leaving the training yard.
It’s not just about muscle. It takes teamwork, planning and strong communication to get every lift right, and there’s a real sense of pride when it all goes smoothly.
Let’s think about what a C6 crane ticket in Australia will allow you to operate. You can operate mobile slewing cranes up to 60 tonnes, which is exciting enough. But, when you look at the multitude of cranes in that class, there’s 3T spider cranes, to 60T truck mounted all terrain cranes and everything in between.
The C6 licence also covers (in line with WHS legislation encompassments), the ability for a licence holder to operate cranes in different classes:
In industry, the biggest challenge a new C6 licence holder will face is jumping from what they will learn in the standard training environment (i.e how to operate a slew crane), to getting thrown in a (non-slew) franna which is a completely different kettle of fish. Not to mention the fact there’s already enough for a fresh C6 licence holder to get their head around in the first place. Such are the different nuances between city cranes, rough terrain cranes, all terrain cranes and crawler cranes – all sitting in the mobile slew crane class.
Duffy our in-house franna expert (or as we like to call him, King Duffy), has been driving a franna most his working life and talks to our director Matt about the intricacies of operating a 14T franna. Watch below:
It’s one thing to read an operator manual or text book. Or listen to a ‘war story’ and think you have an understanding on how a crane works, all the little details and styles required to safely operate different types of cranes.
It’s another to experience them in real life from the seat, feel a crawler creep on slew as she’s on a 2 degree side slope, set up outriggers on uneven ground, swing a 40m jib around a tightly confined space and navigate a site crabbing a rough terrain crane with 5m of boom poking over the front.
We hope that giving our candidates exposure to various crane equipment, will benefit them when it comes to employment options. Not only do we train on frannas, but most C6 candidates take us up on our ‘C6 Elite’ package and leave On the Job Training (OTJT) with both a C6 and a CN licence with formal knowledge and practical training and experience in both cranes.
Employers and candidates feel confident in being let loose on a franna without going in blind. Although entirely legal to do so with a C6 licence, a franna is a completely different beast to a mobile slew crane with a different thought process and methodology required to operate one competently, safely and efficiently.
It’s another to experience them in real life from the seat, feel a crawler creep on slew as she’s on a 2 degree side slope, set up outriggers on uneven ground, swing a 40m jib around a tightly confined space and navigate a site crabbing a rough terrain crane with 5m of boom poking over the front.
By undertaking specific machine training here at OTJT, we are now not only talking hypothetically. Candidates are actually putting their hands on the cranes, and receiving training and seat time in all of the different styles of cranes they may operate in the field. Candidates leave OTJT with experience in safe operation, inspection and how to respect all of the machines.
With this in mind, at ‘On The Job Training’, we understand this and in an effort to give our students a leg up in the industry, we expose every C6 candidate to a sample of all our cranes. On site here at Helensvale, students “play” (for want of a better word) on the following cranes.
We feel that it helps in many ways to strengthen the candidates and hopefully prepare them better for industry so they hit the ground running. Check out our crane line up and what some of our students had to say about their experience with our ‘C6 Elite’ training course below:
The ‘C6 Elite’ course is all part of our objective to build a safer industry. Our vision is that it’ll be standardised across the industry as hopefully now, you’ve understood our reasoning for its importance. You’ll be hearing more from us in the coming weeks about the ‘Construction Safety Initiative’ – stay tuned!
You cannot replace years of experience in the seat of a crane with one week in a training yard – that ‘apprentice-ship’ has now sailed. Leaving the training yard with C6 crane ticket in hand, it’s up to employers to build on their learning with further in-house development. The overwhelming majority in industry also feel that before taking the seat you learn the craft and ‘do your time’ outside the cab at the hook (check out our dogging and rigging courses here). However, before you step outside the training yard, you can be better prepared for whatever ‘real life’ situation faces you next.
Our small class sizes, supportive trainers and flexible delivery options like night classes or multi-week formats are designed to work around busy lives. We’ve also got interest-free payment plans and CSQ funding available for eligible workers.
Check out our course calendar here, send us a message via the enquiry form or call us on 07 3807 6061 to book. Our training facility is at Stapylton off the M1, Yatala North exit where the Gold Coast meets Brisbane. Train and get accredited with us, On the Job Training (RTO #70023).
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