It had a 5yd. bucket and parallelogram front end that crowded the bucket at any angle without the machine moving. It had a fast swing and long boom that greatly reduced dig and load cycles compared to conventional machines. It wasn't put into production because of cost factors. A few years ago someone on the forum who's dad or something who worked at BE said it was faster than a 10yd conventional loader. Just too expensive to build.
Cool
If a rock comes over the bucket your dead. Rubber tire loader much better here. Good thing it never went into production.
cool that they built the prototype on a tank chassis. They would not hold up on the rock, but it made for a quick prototype.
It has a long reach and stays stationary when loading. It might have been too costly or complex compared to a standard loading shovel. When it was designed and built BE was at the top of their game. They designed a 250yd. stripping shovel that had 4 crawlers on each corner but there were no takers. One of the reasons there weren't more giant machines like Big Muskie is because everything is so big. Every part needs a crane just to pick it up. It made routine maintenance a much bigger job than on machines half the size. There were dozens of draglines and shovels in the 100yd class.