Maverick Downtime

That’s great to know! I was expecting an extended period of downtime. I’m not up there today, but I was randomly thinking how long the line was outside the queue as they run test cycles.

The line was massive by the time they updated the app with it no longer being down. Crew is hauling right now to get as many people on.

Joe E said:

Lets just hope the Intiman engineer doesn't get bored, valley's the ride on purpose, and then heads to McDonalds.

This must be a story I don't know, but would love to hear

I work at a large heavy industrial facility that has full time skilled maintenance of many trades. We also have full time engineering support including electrical, mechanical, chemical etc… Sometimes we still have to wait for the equipment manufacturer to arrive on site to fix issues that arise. It’s completely understandable situations could arise that would require manufacturer support, especially if it comes to ride control systems.

Where I work, our aftermarket support team works with small (50-200 people) manufacturers on up to huge companies where thousands are employed. And it is true that smaller manufacturers can only justify investing so much into skilled trades, and therefore they'll rely more heavily on vendor support. But on the other end of that spectrum you have Ford Dearborn, where they spend a lot of money keeping their money prin-, er, F150 production running. Simply put, F150 production does not stop.

To that end, Ford works with suppliers to ensure they always have adequate spare parts and an understanding on what to replace in every scenario. And modern vehicle manufacturing systems are very complex, utilizing thousands of sensors, actuators, vision systems, robotics, safety systems, etc.

At the end of the day, complex as they are, roller coasters are, like automated production systems, a collection of hardware components and software. And after a few hundred thousand cycles, one would think the park would have a pretty good handle on failure modes to the point that for any given failure, they would be able to identify what hardware to replace in order to get things running. Or, in the event of a software issue, which component to reboot.

That Intamin was required on site suggests that the park didn't have a critical component on hand, or didn't have the knowledge to implement a fix. Either is not a good look in my opinion. I don't expect CF to operate like FoMoCo, but I would expect them to operate on a higher level than a local machine shop.

Yes, but Intamin is known for using proprietary systems, and not letting the customer have direct access to them. That has always been the problem with them. They are always bent on re inventing the wheel. Their incarnation of Shoot the Rapids was the straw that broke the camel's back, and the severing of the long standing ties with Cedar Fair.

Pretty sure any ride that has a computer aided operating system is proprietary.

That operating system would be programmed by in house engineers.

They would have direct access to that system, the MS DOS course from Sandusky high school isn't gonna help you trouble shoot the LSM.