Sky Ride

Yes Sky ride has fray sensors so to speak. You'd have more chance of a car support arm "breaking" than it detaching from the cable.

Josh M., that's the same as a ski lift.

When I go skiing, I never even lower that bar and most of the time it's higher than any point is on Sky Ride. When on sky ride I'm terrified.

It makes absolutely no sense. Oh well.

What kind of ski resorts are you going to? I've never been to a resort that the lift operator didn't lower the bar.

You have to get off the bunny hill for the lift to operate at normal speed.

There's absolutely no time when the cars are moving at normal pace for the operator to pause the car, let 3 people sit down and put the bar down in front of them. He'd have to be running with the thing to be able to do that.

What the hell do you know anyhow, you live in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in a 3rd world country that has 10 more days of gun amnesty.

:)

Mad River in Bellfontaine, OH doesn't even have "lap bars" on the lifts like you've been talking about, and I'm never freaked out on those. I'm more worried about dropping my sticks than I am of falling off of the bench. of course, we're talking a small, not very hard to ski, and probably partially man-made "mountain". But still, you're a good 40+ ft. off of the ground at points, and a fall like that could seriously injure you, if not worse.

As for Sky Ride...you know, now that I think about it, when I'm not focused on other things, I think I'm more worried about something going wrong on Sky Ride than I am about most anything else. One sky ride that I really didn't like was the one they have at the Ohio State Fair. The one time I rode it, it was extremely windy out, and the thing was barely moving.

I have also thought about this and i just hope that it doesnt happen.

I am sure the cable will never snap, but what about when TTD's cable thrashed out last year? Is it the same consistency and diameter? There were several people injured just from the fragments of the cable. I can only imagine the monstrosity of falling cable cars.... (*shivers*)

If I remember correctly it happened at Six Flags Over Texas in the '70s.

I used to be afraid of the Sky Ride until I went skiing at some big resorts outside of Ohio. Mammoth Mountain in northern CA has some open are lifts that are a good 150' over runs. Big Bear has some pretty tall lifts too. The Sky Ride is tiny in height and length compaired to most ski resort lifts.

Best I can tell, it was Six Flags over Georgia in the early 80's, but I can't find anything about it online. I was unaware of any accidents.

I don't think the cable broke at SF. It was either a cable derailment that caused a cabin to fall off at the tower or a bad cable grip with the same result.

Sorry if my facts are foggy on the SF thing -

I vaugley remeber the accident at Six Flags when I was a kid - It made a big impact, and I was always afraid to ride the Frontier Lift after that, but it was always the best way to get to Frontier Town at that time, so I was forced to face my fear.

A few months ago I was looking at this very topic. There were a few cases in the late 70’s early 80’s of Von Roll type 101 gondolas coming of the cable and crashing to the ground. The most infamous was at the state fair of Texas where I believe on a blustery day, one gondola got jammed when it was rolling across the support tower and a few others ran into it. When this happened one of the gondolas grips became detached from the cable and fell to the ground. I believe it turned out the operator was running the ride in dangerously high winds, turned off the safety feature which shut down the ride in high winds, and poorly maintained the ride.

Similar incidents happened at Six Flags Mid America and Magic Mountain, though I forget their exact causes, but the detachable grip also lost contact with the cable sending the gondola falling.

Needless to say this probably the main reason is why CP shuts down sky ride even when someone sneezes. Also I would say anyone rocking the car heavily put themselves in danger due to the same idea.
*** Edited 5/23/2007 3:10:37 AM UTC by Joe E***

If you notice in the station there are some rather large weights, what are they for?

I haven't ridden a ferris wheel since I rode a double wheel at a carnival. Scary.

As for cable rides, the last time for me was on a busy day at Kennywood, coming down from the top parking lot. Again, scary. I wonder if they still have that thing. It has been a few years back.

The large weights in the station are counter weights that tension the cable.

The bullwheel (the large wheel that the cable goes around) in the station can slide backward and forward. The counter weight pulls the bullwheel back to properly tension the cable. That is why an empty cable has very little sag, but if you put all the cabins on the ride the cable has very noticeable sag.

The chairlift at Kennywood is a standard issue CTec fixed grip lift. Much simpler than the detachable gondolas at CP, the chairs don't detach from the cable at the terminal, rather they go around the bullwheel.

If you're interested in learning more about all types of cable lifts, go to skilifts.org. All kinds of technical info, plus forums.

Never rock or bounce a gondola or chairlift, you can derail the cable from the support sheaves and cause the lift to shut down. If that happens, everyone will have to be evacuated from the lift before it can be fixed. That is a fairly big deal that you don't want to go through.

*** Edited 5/23/2007 1:56:38 PM UTC by Pete***

Yep, KP Still has the Ski Lift for Level 3 parking, used to take that often when I walked to work.

Kevinj said:
...I'll ride coasters as tall and fast as they make them, but I have no interest in riding the Big Wheel...

I totally agree with you.

I still get a little freaked as the ski lift goes through the posts, but overall I'm the same way. Ski lifts hardly bother me, yet I'm terrified of that stupied ferris wheel & the sky ride. Go figure. I'm thinking I can do a James Bond (girl) kinda thing & fall off the lift, not get hurt, & immediatly just start to ski the hill. In comparison, falling off the sky ride...I'd just go splat & it wouldn't look near as cool ;)

Gee thanks for giving us that link Pete. I have wasted more time than I should have on that site.

http://skilifts.org/chairlift_facts_eskimoliftdestruction.htm is interesting