We have 2 of the Hopper Walkers. If it's the 1st load of the day or you've been gone a while & have shut the tractor down, Hopper Walker swings irregardless of tractor. As a matter of fact, we move our augers often (lots of bin sites) & have to move swing arounds from one side to another (right to left, etc). You then unhook the tractor, drive it 50' away, & let the Hopper Walker pull itself around to the other side of the auger. Ours are 110V AC, which we prefer over the 12V. We have AC power at all bin sites. Hydraulics would require tractor to sit there w/"hot" hydraulics 16 hrs/day. I guess that would work OK.

Also, our traps on our hopper bottoms (Wilson & Merritt) require that we move our swing around back & forth when emptying the truck to avoid running corn/beans on the ground, while still attempting to hit the center of the hopper during max-flow ops. I'm not sure how you'd do that if the hopper was buried in the ground, unless the pit was about 1' wider than the hopper. Maybe it is & the photo just doesn't show that.

If we didn't have our Walkers, I'd buy them again immediately. Nice to finish dumping & just jump in vehicle, hit remote control & swing auger & leave. Same w/pulling up to dump. You hit the auto-swing button when pulling up, jump out & run for the pto lever. Truck/wagon is already positioned. If another site requires slightly different approach angle (trucks & wagons here), then you merely move the magnet mounted (our modification, not HopperWalker!!!) auto-swing stops. That's here anyway. I also realize that most any style of unload method has it's good & bad features. Ultimate would be a long 1100+ bus pit, with no water in or around it & 2 guys to run the cranks for you. We don't have that 98% of the time, but it's sure nice when we do.