As I was watching the video of the attempt by technicians to cap the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, I noticed some hydraulic systems in action. The robotic arm that appeared to be applying dispersant to the oil clearly had some hydraulic hose exposed in the video. This leads me to believe that the robot was hydraulic and it was being controlled from a ship some 5,000 feet above.
I heard on the radio that hydraulic shears were used to prepare the leaking pipe for the cap that would eventually control the flow of oil. There must be several other hydraulicly-actuated used to position the cap and to perform many tasks at the spill site.
Despite the horrible nature of this catastrophic event, it is awesome to witness the capacity of hydraulic machinery to operate under these conditions. More modern marvels of fluid power.
