The largest six wheeled version weights fifty tons and features not one, but two diesel engines, producing the 1360 horsepower needed to move a monstrous aircraft like an an Airbus 380 or Boeing 747. One of the largest is the Goldhofer AST-1X, available as a four- or six-wheeled model. Some use a towbar to move the aircraft but the wide “towbarless” tugs lift the whole front wheel and landing gear off of the ground and drag the plane without any connections needing to be made (this would also be great for repossessing aircraft when, say, Yezzy Airways stops making payments). Worse than that, blasting the jets that close to the terminal can obviously cause damage to the building, not to mention that ground crew getting sucked into a jet is typically frowned upon. The idea of the aircraft tug is that maneuvering right up at the terminal using the actual jets of the plane is cumbersome and very wasteful of fuel. They resemble moon rovers from a seventies sci-fi show like Space 1999.
These cartoonish things feature huge (usually steerable) wheels that are as tall as the entire vehicle. Still, the true king-of-all-machines must be the aircraft “push back” tractors or tugs. Designed to do a specific task with no other street-legal requirements, they take on wacky shapes and proportions that seem like oversized toys. Sure, I’m a nerd but I have a lot of love for things like Bluth-style stair cars and baggage conveyors, plus those chunky luggage trains.
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