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PKIJake
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The ring of seats would not be moved down electronicallythrough the brakes if it was stuck there. The reason is that the magnetic brakes can`t completely stop the ring of seats. Magnetic brakes can`t stop a car completely. Instead, it slows the car down to a crawl. The car is then stopped by a couple of shock absorbers. (at lest thats the way I understand magnetic brakes).

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All I got to say is they better drop the ring of seats or they will have to take my seat with me. Thats just WAY too high to be doing stuff like that. Bring me some food and water and Im sure they will get it to fall in a day or 2.

They can get the harness on while you are still in the ride. It slides up over your legs, and then around your waist. they barely have to move the restraint at all to get the harness on you. then they hook you into the haul system and release the OTSR. if you look at ityou most likely wouldn't be hanging for very long, as there are ladders and steps and crap on the catch ring and the top of the tower.

i also wonder if they could actually get to the top of the tower and manually release the ring. How would they do it, since I believe that the catch ring keeps the lower ring attached by either hydraulic or pneumatic cyclinders, and someone would have to get to the top of the ride, and manually blled those off, all simultaneously to get an even drop out of the ring. If one side shifted, and the other two didn't let go, the situation could be worse than just leaving the ring at the top.

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I dont know how DZ actualy works, but if there is a manual hydrolic(sp?) release it would release all of the arms at once. My guess is that there is a master cylinder for all of the hydrolics so that not just one arm can be released. That would be bad if one arm released and the others stayed locked. Anyway thats just my 2 cents.

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They can get the harness on while you are still in the ride. It slides  up over your legs, and then around your waist. they barely have to move the restraint at all to get the harness on you. then they hook you into the haul system and release the OTSR. if you look at ityou most likely wouldn't be hanging for very long, as there are ladders and steps and crap on the catch ring and the top of the tower.

Yeah lets take the nogo strap off now. Once again You better be able to torch cut my seat out because I would be too scared to move.

Edited by sobrider
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Funny story since we are talking about Drop Zone being stuck in an emergency...

One day this summer when it actually did break down for a while with the ring stuck at the top... a woman on the ride was terrified. She was screaming to get off the ride. Sad thing was.. I was no where near Action Zone at the time and I could hear her. Obviously we could see the ride stuck at the top, but just hear in the background this woman yelling at the top of her lungs to get down and the occasional "Oh god" followed by some really loud sobbing. The best part was that after about 10 minutes when they finally started to bring the ring down she screamed even louder. I pointed it out to the people I was with, we all about peed our pants listening to this woman.

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Well everyone just know this, if and I do mean "if" the ride were to ever get stuck, most likely there would not have to be any major evac situation, the ride would be lowered slowly or you will be dropped from whichever point your at, then you would be released from your seats at the bottom. The only thing you would have to do is sit back and enjoy the view...... biggrin.gif

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Yeah lets take the nogo strap off now. Once again You better be able to torch cut my seat out because I would be too scared to move.

If it really came down to that, it is always a possibility. The USAR truck has exothermic torches, concrete saws, and reciprocating saws on it, that can cut through just about any material around. Anymore, we use reciprocating saws a lot for auto extrication.

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Yeah lets take the nogo strap off now. Once again You better be able to torch cut my seat out because I would be too scared to move.

If it really came down to that, it is always a possibility. The USAR truck has exothermic torches, concrete saws, and reciprocating saws on it, that can cut through just about any material around. Anymore, we use reciprocating saws a lot for auto extrication.

True, but talk about big time last resort. If you use a resipricating saw, it throws out sparks like crazy. We only use it on auto extracations in situations where the cutters won't work for some reason. I think a cutter would snap right through that OTSR, and would probably be a lot less stressful than having a saw with sparks flying everywhere right next to your body.

I actually read a story on the internet of a guy who was stuck on DZ during an approaching storm. I believe he was stuck up there for upwards of an hour or so, but they managed to drop the ring. I tried looking for it again, but couldn't find it. Apparently, they poor, soaken few that were stuck on the ring were treated to a free dinner as well as complementary "I Survived Drop Zone" shirts.

I think that no matter what, there will probably be a way to drop the ring. The reason behind that is, if they had to remove some old lady from the ride by cutting her restraint, and she went into shock, Intamin would be liable for any lawsuits resulting from it. PKI would just have to prove that their people did their jobs correctly, which wouldn't be too hard. So Intamin more than likely made for darn sure that the ring will drop 99.999% of the time perfectly, and the other small percentage it will drop eventually.

As far as the rescue team goes, I'm willing to say that using them is more of a "what if" situation. Like someone said, there's probably a manual release for the ring. I'm sure they have accounted for every imaginable situation for tragedies on DZ. It's not like if the power went out that they wouldn't know what to do. Have faith in your PKI team, they know their stuff.

p.s. where is this elevator that you guys are talking about? Is it within the tube?

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True, but talk about big time last resort.  If you use a resipricating saw, it throws out sparks like crazy.  We only use it on auto extracations in situations where the cutters won't work for some reason.  I think a cutter would snap right through that OTSR, and would probably be a lot less stressful than having a saw with sparks flying everywhere right next to your body.

Actually, a recip saw throws out no sparks, if you are experienced in Auto Extrication and using such a device. Its easy, keep a 1 gallon sprayer on your truck, filled with water and soap. pump it up and have one guy spray it while you cut. The water A.) will cool the balde keeping the teeth intact and in better shape allowing you to cut more metal before changing blades and B.) will help as a lubricant during the cutting process.

As far as the elevator is concerned, yes it is inside the tube, and all you have to do is open one of the hatches under the ring on the tube base to get to it.

Edited by fyrfyter
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^ Not a bad idea with the lubricant and the saw. We just so rarely use it. We have brand new cutters that work really well. I can only think of once that we've used a saw, and that was during a training excercise.

Where is the entrance to the elevator? Is it underground, or somewhere at the base?

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I actually read a story on the internet of a guy who was stuck on DZ during an approaching storm. I believe he was stuck up there for upwards of an hour or so, but they managed to drop the ring. I tried looking for it again, but couldn't find it. Apparently, they poor, soaken few that were stuck on the ring were treated to a free dinner as well as complementary "I Survived Drop Zone" shirts.

I remember that day, I was working Drop Zone that day. A lot of freaked out people and a lot of upset people. It was probably one of the worst experiences Ive had working there because they werent stuck up there with an upcoming storm approaching, they were up there throughout the whole thing, lightning and all.

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Wow. Please excuse my language, however that just simply sucks. I'm willing to bet a few hundred dollars on the fact that Intamin installed some sort of manual release mechanism on that thing. I wouldn't be surprised it it was one of those one-time-use emergency release things that has to be replaced after its purpose has been served. I kinda doubt the second one, but it could be true. I'll still stick to my guns and say that the harness-emergency-retrevial-system is the very last resort.

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Where is the entrance to the elevator? Is it underground, or somewhere at the base?

Actually, when the ring goes up, around the base there are closed metal porthole style doors. This is where the elevator is, and it just runs the height of the center column.

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I'm no mechanic but I'd be willing to bet those bolts are inspected every couple months. It's really quite simple how they are inspected. The mechanics just get on top of the "claw", not the ring of seats, and ride it up and down the tower at a much slower speed than normal.

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Back when I worked SOB (Ride ops, sounds like the beginning of a PaPaw story, doesnt it?) I would watch them check the guide track. A lot of times they were done by the time we got there to clock in, so we only got a couple of glimpses of this. I want that job, just to ride on the claw to inspect it.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Actually, when the ring goes up, around the base there are closed metal porthole style doors. This is where the elevator is, and it just runs the height of the center column.

Just to add to all the ramble here on the boards...the thing of course has a manual drop of some sort, beucase they sure havent used the 'repel like a jackass' method yet, so logical thinking would generally say that theres another way.

And mr. fire fighter dude, you obviously know way more about me than fire fighting and all that stuff, and you got mad in an earlier post for someone saying something about fire fighting or that ussr truck or whatever its called. Well take your advice yo, we know more about pki, so dont go assuming about elevators and what not. The elevator does not run the hieght of the tower. Once you go in that hatch, there is a spiral staircase that goes up a little bit, i think to maybe about the top of the black section. Thats where the elevator is. And this runs nearly to the top, where i believe there is another staitcase.

But i have never heard that about the evacuation you speak of, that is decently interesting, the only rumor ive ever heard was that they could repel down from a helicopter and do pretty much the same thing. the only reason i kind of believed this was becuase the helicpotor tour ride thing was added the same year as DZ, at least this is what i'm told. If you are indeed correct, then that does tell for a good story chap.

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Well take your advice yo, we know more about pki, so dont go assuming about elevators and what not.  The elevator does not run the hieght of the tower.  Once you go in that hatch, there is a spiral staircase that goes up a little bit, i think to maybe about the top of the black section.  Thats where the elevator is.  And this runs nearly to the top, where i believe there is another staitcase. 

But i have never heard that about the evacuation you speak of, that is decently interesting, the only rumor ive ever heard was that they could repel down from a helicopter and do pretty much the same thing.  the only reason i kind of believed this was becuase the helicpotor tour ride thing was added the same year as DZ, at least this is what i'm told.  If you are indeed correct, then that does tell for a good story chap.

There are other things that happen in the park in the off season with the USAR team that you don't even know take place. The info I get is from other USAR team members. They don't mentione very exact details on how to do something, because most of us will ahve an idea what is going to happen in a rescue situation, but it was something they trained on, when DZ was first put in.

As far as the helicopter thing is concerned, that bird by FoF is way to small to be useful for anything other than tours. IF they needed a bird, they would get help from AirCare, or more likely, our friends up the road at Wright-Patt AFB. They can be at Kings Island in about 15 minutes, and Blackhawk birds are meant for chores like that, involving rescue and heavy lifting. Not to mention, they are always available and unlike AirCare will fly in any type of weather. The other nice part is that Wright-Patt happens to be the home for OH-TF-1 (Ohio Task Force 1) which is the FEMA USAR Team, that goes on major deplyments, like 9-11, and the staging earlier this year for hurricane damage. With those resources available, any rescue can happen at any time, and Wright-Patt is always willing to help.

Edited by fyrfyter
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Unless all fourteen magnetic fins on each of the two sides of the tower that the brakes are mounted on fall off, I don`t think Drop Zone`s brakes can fail. Also, if for some reason they don`t work, which is next to impossible, I do believe that they have a pair of shock absorbers at the bottom of the tower to prevent the ring of seats from hitting concrete at 67+ mph.

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