Finally got to ride and I loved it. Great addition as a ride.
However.
Everyone who hates where this thing is placed and how it's painted is 100% correct. It absolutely ruins the visual appeal of the Hamlet - especially coming over the bridge. It's super ugly and the lack of greenery or attention to details (eg, not concealing the air tank) is actually awful. Anyone who disagrees with this is wrong 😊
However.
Everyone who hates where this thing is placed and how it's painted is 100% correct. It absolutely ruins the visual appeal of the Hamlet - especially coming over the bridge. It's super ugly and the lack of greenery or attention to details (eg, not concealing the air tank) is actually awful. Anyone who disagrees with this is wrong 😊
Truth! Never forget these are the same people who approved the wedging of Tempesto in Apollo's nose and made Verbolten's event building look like a Green Costco.
As Will Smith once said "Welcome to Earf'/BGW." 😆
Looks like Finnegan's Flyer's previously-announced reopening has been pushed back later in March again.
- Feb 3, 2019
- 3,110
- 5,520
- 250
Well Finnegan's got new restraints so they have to recertify... 50 hours of runtime.
New restraints? Like are they largely the same? I feel like screaming swings are fun because of the give you have.
- Feb 3, 2019
- 3,110
- 5,520
- 250
We don't actually know much about the restraints other than that they are new. Over the last years the majority of downtime has been due to issues with the restraint sensors. So the assumption this is just the fix for that.
I hope this is the case. When I first saw the item about restraints, my initial thought was don't tell me they are adding comfort collars.
Talking of restraints, what's with the control box on the ends of the swings? It's in a completely different location to the control box on the swing I worked on, and it's got three buttons as opposed to one.
I worked on Rush, and each swing's panel is on the outer ends and only features a "Lock restraints" button
I worked on Rush, and each swing's panel is on the outer ends and only features a "Lock restraints" button
They are keyswitches, not buttons. It is a modification Busch Gardens made for operations to manually release a row of 8 seats during a normal breakdown, rather than like a power loss breakdown. All they do is apply reserve air to each side of the swing to release the lap bars, rather than having to run a hose to the swing to evacuate, which would be used during a power loss.
The hose, keyswitch, and harness assemblies are all fed from the same air. It's just simpler to turn a switch than to drag a hose out and then flip 16 individual switches at each seat. The restraint tank is independent of the drive piston for the swing. If it was leaking air, the ride wouldn't be able to lock the harnesses. If that happened mid-cycle, the ride would fault out well before it reaches a high enough pressure to be unsafe.
When anti crush is enabled, this cuts off air to the entire swing. So yes, riders are trusting a valve or a redundancy of valves to keep harnesses locked, fundamentally just like any other ride. The monitoring system for Finnegan's is also WAY more overcomplicated than it needs to be.
When anti crush is enabled, this cuts off air to the entire swing. So yes, riders are trusting a valve or a redundancy of valves to keep harnesses locked, fundamentally just like any other ride. The monitoring system for Finnegan's is also WAY more overcomplicated than it needs to be.
So what exactly do the lock bars and anticrush sequences comprise of? In regards to anticrushing, it obviously cuts off the air supply, but I assume it shuts a series of valves in each side and each bar - to prevent any backflow into the swing which could affect other bars? What about when the hosts press the lock button?
Sorry, I'm just really into the mechanics of rides, and an engineer had shown me the ratcheting system used on Rush, so that kind of kicked me into the rabbit hole!
So essentially, you are trusting 2 valves on Mach Tower, Verbolten, Pantheon, and 4 on FF. Those all have pneumatic or hydraulic restraints. Lookup a video on YT from Coaster Bot about how restraints work for more info. It shows how restraints can be locked and released. Essentially, if you watch the video, imagine another solenoid valve inline with the check valve and that will keep the harness from tightening further during the ride. Using normally closed valves means that you have to apply voltage to unlock, then using 2 systems for each harness adds redundancy. Performance Level E (PLe)/ SIL3 safety standards require dual redundant, negative feedback, on each system required to keep someone from being killed.
To be clear, I'm not freaking out that things aren't safe.... I understand redundancy, etc..... just a matter of separation being an even further safety feature and it seems like such a minor thing to deal with that occurs minimally.