I Have To Wonder... in a power outage

I think you have those a little backwards.

Generator
Crank
Cherry Picker

You have to remember that a cherry picker presents the most risk to guests, so is therefore the least likely solution. I would imagine there is a generator to the ride.

Your probably right. Hey at least i thought of possibilites. I just try to think it through then after someone says something its like "how could i not think of that?" oh well.

With any wheel, it's fairly easy IF you can control the brakes.

1) Empty the cars you can reach.
2) Let out the brake and the wheel will turn to its heavy side.
3) Set the brake, unload the cars you can reach
4) Lather, rinse, repeat.

No power required. I don't know if that is the way they do it on Giant Wheel or not, but they COULD do it that way if necessary. The biggest challenge is to control the unloading so that the wheel doesn't get out of control.

Another one that would be fun to unload without power is the Monster. I presume the procedure is similar to the procedure for unloading an Octopus, which requires operators to walk up and down the sweeps to force the ride to turn in order to get everybody down.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.