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How ski lifts are installed: Vail's new Chair 5 (2011) [video]
- zyztem 10y agoTL;DR: with helicopter, one section at a time
- pxeboot 10y agoWatching the cable get run would be much more interesting.
- monk_e_boy 10y agoPEAK 2 PEAK Gondola - Cable Installation 2:12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHsF1kRKEV0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHsF1kRKEV0 TLDR; Spool out cable (rope), lift the end up with helicopter drape it over the sheave train (the wheels on the cross arm) pull out more rope, etc
- salimmadjd 10y agoHow do they tie the cables together? To get 9KM of cable they must use multiple spools and somehow tie them together. I'm curious how they're joined so they do not become the "weakest link in the chain" and are not too bulky for the wheels.
- teh_klev 10y agoThere's another video here that covers the splicing aspect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5itSfxJoXY4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5itSfxJoXY4
- lflux 10y agoIt's spliced like any other rope, you can see this in action here: https://youtu.be/5itSfxJoXY4?t=183 https://youtu.be/5itSfxJoXY4?t=183 The splice for the Vail lift is about 300 feet long apparently.
- techman9 10y agoOh my god, there's a guy riding on the outside at the end of the video. I've been on this lift several times and it's scary enough in the cabins, I couldn't imagine doing that in a million years.
- stinos 10y agoYou should try a different angle of imagination: the guy is tied to the cabin (or maybe even the part that is directly tied to the ropes) with a safety harness. You on the other hand, are just standing/sitting in the cabin, not tied to it. Should the doors open, should the attachment somehow fail, ... you would actually be in a less safe situation than the guy. Yeah I know the chances of any of these are minimal, but the chance of anything going very wrong with lifts is on average minimal. Trying to think in another way about it sometimes does wonders for deaing with fears, at least for me.
- tenaciousJk 10y agoI never knew I always wanted to know. Neat.
- rattray 10y agoMods: should perhaps be labeled with (2011) Fun video
- robryk 10y agoUsually tying an in-flight helicopter to the ground is a huge no-no. E.g. there's a subtle sequence of steps for airlifting a casualty from a steep hillside that prevents the helicopter from ever being connected by a rope to the ground (the reasoning, AFAIK, is that the helocpter migth need to depart or move at a very short notice and the line may hinder it and injure people if it breaks). It seems that there are reasonably long period of time here when the helicopter is still connected to a tower segment when the workers are in the process of screwing bolts in. Why isn't this problematic?
- nippoo 10y agoIn an emergency the helicopter can just drop the load: the pilot can release the hook and fly away. Unlike carrying a casualty, this is unlikely to be anywhere near as dangerous. If the tower is somewhat bolted on, it'll probably stick there long enough for the other bolts to go in. Worst case, it tips over and falls to the ground, but in any case it's unlikely for there to be any injuries.
- Zaheer 10y agoDrop the load while there are hardhats waiting on the ground below? Uh ya that's probably not happening here.
- robryk 10y agoAs far as I know, one of the reasons why dropping the load is considered dangerous is that the line that was holding the load will be suddenly released from high tension, so it will go flying at fast enough speed to injure someone.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- zymhan 10y agoDid we watch the same video? There were people below that helicopter quite often. I'm not sure how you'd go about just dropping the pole.
- tschellenbach 10y agoSki-resort tycoon, now that would be an awesome game :)
- blhack 10y agoThose bolts strapped to the grating as they were putting the top piece on... I love that stuff! What I mean is: pre-optimizations like that. My current cofounder and I build and run fire effects [flamethrowers] at music festivals, and every load-in/setup is a fun game of seeing what ways we can optimize our setup process. Stuff like figuring out the wrenches and tools we need to assemble a specific component, and then storing those tools with the component. Seeing those bolts sitting on the grate like that (I think it was 4 on each side) means that somebody had the foresight to realize that it was easier to strap the bolts to the piece like that, than to have the guys assembling it carry them with them up the ladders (imagine if they forgot one, what a pain that would be). So freaking cool.
- sandworm101 10y agoBe careful about that. In a past life I installed and ran lighting rigs at concerts. One tower contractor thought it wise to ducktape bolts to parts so, rather than pass equipment up and down, the bolts would be exactly where the climbers would need them. But they didn't use/find all the bolts. A week later the tape dried out and a 6" bolt and nut fell onto a mixing board ... which was far easier to replace than the audio tech it missed by inches. He refused to work until I, with climbing helmet, was sent into the rigging to inspect every bit of metal. The stage was closed for nearly a day.
- blhack 10y agoAh, thanks for the heads up. Luckily due to the nature of what we're doing, everything gets inspected and re-inspected a few times when we build it. Definitely something to keep in mind though.
- sandworm101 10y agoI took a very strict approach when it came to things over people's heads. I never allowed anything "extra" up there. There were no spare bulbs tucked away somewhere, no pile of twofers left on a gangway. I even pealed every tiny bit of tape off each truss. If it wasn't needed and secured it stayed on the ground. My worry was always what might happen in an earthquake. As a lighting guy I saw to much stuff fall from the sky. One concert hall I worked at used a rice-paper snow effect for a Japanese show. Four years later we still had the occasional bit of rice paper glide slowly down from 100' up. It could never hurt anyone, but film/TV clients who used the hall would be screaming mad when they saw it.
- pcarolan 10y agoCompare this to the cost of installing light/medium rail in your city. Why we dont install these in every city baffles me. You could run them right alongside buildings.
- ethagknight 10y agoBecause they can only haul 2,000 people per hour, with limited travel lengths and single point termini
- Fezzik 10y agoA slight modification: though slow, they can have multiple un/loading points. The main gondola at Whistler has a mid-mountain loading point along with a top and bottom un/loading point. The Peak to Peak Gondola only has a loading point at each end because it's crossing a giant chasm. Your point stands though: gondolas are probably not a great form of transport. That said, I have no idea what the speed limits would be for a gondola that was designed for speed.
- pcarolan 10y agoThey have those unloading points because they are able to take them off of the cable while loading and unloading. We don't design these for cities, but we could. This means loading/unloading could be coordinated across multiple nodes and you could even switch tracks which takes care of the fixed distance problem. Detachable chairlifts can do 12mph which is faster than many city buses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detachable_chairlift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detachable_chairlift
- pcarolan 10y agoDetachable gondolas exist which means you can travel any length you want if you switch cables and have as many terminals as you want. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detachable_chairlift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detachable_chairlift
- Retric 10y ago2000 people per hour per direction is a person every 2 seconds per direction which is not that far from a highway with single occupant cars. 1900 per lane is peak, but congestion is much slower. Speed is an issue, but larger gondolas can move more people fairly quickly.
- AlphaWeaver 10y ago[video] (2011)
- rhcom2 10y agoAnd how ski lifts are destroyed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4WPSZojtyE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4WPSZojtyE
- james_pm 10y agoFootage at 4:55 was terrifying. Incredible forces involved.
- raldi 10y agoThis could easily be its own front-page submission.
- grecy 10y agoI ran ski chairlifts for a few years when I was sick of sitting at a desk. We were shown this video during our training, and our boss said with a very straight face that if she were ever on a chair that started rolling backwards, she would jump off. The reason "rollback" can happen is because the weight of all the people is only on one side of the line, and that weight wants to come back downhill. The chair has a couple of different kinds of brakes that are supposed to prevent this, but you can see what happens when it fails / is engaged too late. Two broken legs are better than that. NOTE HOWEVER: Newer "Detachable" or "high-speed" chairs and gondolas are often designed to run in reverse, so don't immediately jump off one of those if it goes backwards.
- arethuza 10y agoAs someone who has spent a lot of time sitting in chairlifts over the years that's a pretty terrifying video - amazing that I'd never even considered what would happen if a lift ran backwards! I wonder if the "up and down" lifts that go down and up a valley (e.g. there is one at Alpe d'Huez) or over a ridge (e.g. the one at Val d'Isere) suffer from the same problem - even allowing for the fact that I'm pretty sure that they are modern detachables.
- grecy 10y ago
- jacquesm 10y agoJudging by the curve of the cable the load is suspended from they're not exactly slacking either while moving it to the drop site.
- caconym_ 10y agoCool video of a K-MAX in action. That's a really unique aircraft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaman_K-MAX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaman_K-MAX
- jonah 10y agoBe sure to check out the helicopter they're using, a Kaman M-MAX. It had dual counter-rotating rotors and not tailrotor. It's also basically designed specifically for this kind of lifting/hauling job with a very narrow cockpit allowing the pilot to easily see what he's doing below. http://www.kaman.com/aerosystems/solutions/air-vehicles-mro/k-max http://www.kaman.com/aerosystems/solutions/air-vehicles-mro/... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEx3dJTIjww https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEx3dJTIjww They've also developed an unmanned version for military resupply missions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ4X7Y2ydS0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ4X7Y2ydS0 http://jalopnik.com/this-is-the-weirdest-dang-helicopter-i-have-ever-seen-1794078945 http://jalopnik.com/this-is-the-weirdest-dang-helicopter-i-h...
- Gravityloss 10y agoThe synchropter is originally a German design. It's a fascinating way of solving the torque problem.
- mmmpop 10y agoAll that work and still 25 minute lines on a powder day...
- BenjaminDyer 10y agoThats quite fascinating to watch, however I'm not sure if I missed it but I didn't see the tower being earthed. Those installers must have some impressive protection in place. I used to be a volunteer on an emergency lifeboat crew, we would do a lot of drills with a man on a winch and the first rule is, don't touch until he's earthed. Helicopters pick up a hell of a lot of static electricity so you normally see a small earthing line hanging below the man on the end of the line. One time we were practicing fast recovery, the boat and the helicopter doing crew exchange at high speed. We screwed it up and the static charge blew a hole in the side of the boat!
- sidegrid 10y agoWhere are you from? Never heard anyone use earthed instead of grounded.
- BenjaminDyer 10y agoUK, Electronic Engineer originally. We tend to use both terms I think. TIL: Not everyone uses the term earthed!
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]