If properly tested and used with caution, I don't think it would be more dangerous than commercial lifts, and less dangerous than overextending on an extension ladder leaning against a tree or pole with a 12 foot pole saw in hand.
That looks incredibly handy. What safeguards dose it have against hydraulic failure?
The problem is getting the thing upright. With bad piston seals and a 42 year old pump it takes more tilt force than the bucket cylinders can provide, so i use the loader lift cylinders to push it to the ground in order to use another fulcrum to get it upright with a man, saw, fuel and bar oil in the bucket. If a hose didnt burst during those first three meters, i dont see it as a risk during vertical work either.
Now if the bucket is moved out of reach (allmost horizontally) and when the safety relief of the dump circuit opens, a hose bursts at the same time, i do have a problem.
In normal operations i dont fear hose bursts, because the most critical part of the journey is closest to the ground, when tipping it up from lying horizontally on the ground. I have to hold on anyways when its horizontally, because the manbucket tilt doesnt tilt that much.
I used to work as a design engineer for a small (now defunct) wheel loader manufacturer. We couldnt compete with the big boys on a standard machine, but when people wanted to use, e.g. a 22 meter extendible lift mast, we were the supplier of choice. By law, a load monitoring system should be installed that provides hose burst safety (electromagnetic valves mounted directly on the cylinder port) but also monitors cylinder pressure, and would switch off at 75% of nominal pressure. In reality, NONE of these clients use the full safety system (only the hose burst failure safety) because they arent competitive with 75% of outreach. Their biggest advantage is that they can drive with load, where telehandlers or telescopic cranes allways need their outriggers, which immobilise them so a big crane with far greater outreach than required is hired to get the job done in one lift. They prefer wheel loaders with parallel kinematics, and servo valves instead of electric valves, so the operator can "feel" the load from its control lever.
This business is running like this for decades with no accidents that drew attention of OSHA, or ARBO as its called in Holland, while operating on the edge virtually all the time.
