It is six years since James de Havilland looked at the Väderstad Rapid within profi’s used machinery section. Here he returns to the Swedish drill which, as might be expected, has continued to evolve over the intervening period. More specifically, this report charts development of 2001-and-on units, spanning the RDF, initial RDA ‘Mk I’ and current ‘long-chassis’ RDA variants
In terms of its operating principle, the Väderstad Rapid air drill has not changed. All versions come with a tool carrier – tines or, more commonly now, System Discs – up front, this followed by a crossboard levelling harrow, disc coulters with press wheels and, bringing up the rear, a set of harrows to finish off the job. A centrally mounted hopper feeds metered seed via tubes to the coulters.
As for working width availability, for the used buyer the choice extends to 3.0, 4.0, 4.5, 5.0, 6.0 and 8.0m units. In addition, the Swedish firm sells 3.0m and 4.0m gravity-fed ‘box drill’ Rapid Super RDS and RDC models, these seeders sporting the same tilling elements as the air drills and remaining sought after as second-hand buys.
But then time and new model offerings move on, so that the current RDA air drill range is now confined to just the 400S, 450S, 600S and 800S. The original 5.0m 500 machines benefited from the same hydraulic depth setting for the folding wing sections as the larger 600 and 800 models, but they were priced more closely to the smaller 4.0m drill with its profi 1/2007 32 www.profi.co.uk manually adjusted wing sections. Often operated as 4.8m drills to suit 24m wide tramlines, 500 drills were finally dropped by the manufacturer in 2003. Despite this, the 5.0m machines are still popular with used buyers in some regions.
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