A stand-up Paratrooper?

I was browsing through some old digital photos I had collected over the years and for some reason I have never noticed that this Paratrooper was actually a stand-up model. This one was located at Saltair near Salt Lake City.

Anyone ever ridden one of these? The sit down version use to be one of my favorite flat rides as a kid. I can only imagine how it would feel standing up.

http://members.aol.com/k9660r/standup_paratrooper1.jpg

I have been on a stand up parachute ride tower in Knott's Berry Farm back when it was still there about 8 years ago.

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SwampFoxer - at first glance it looks like a standard Hubretz & Co Paratrooper but upon closer examination it is neither the rim drive or hydraulic arm models they offer [as seen on www.flatrides.com].

I'll email the guy who runs that site, Ken, and Adam Sandy of flatrides.com and see if they know more.

mOOSH

*** Edited 8/29/2006 4:26:58 AM UTC by Mamoosh***

^ Sorry I thought that a parachute tower was one of those rides you where talking about.

It looks a lot like one of the kiddie rides at SFMM, the Tweete Bird cage ride and you stand up in the cages, but the one in the picture looks like it is on a larger scale.

Not all things are better while standing up, and the sooner ride manufacturers realize that, the better.

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Mamoosh said:
at first glance it looks like a standard Hubretz & Co Paratrooper but upon closer examination it is neither the rim drive or hydraulic arm models they offer [as seen on www.flatrides.com].

I'll email the guy who runs that site, Ken, and Adam Sandy of flatrides.com and see if they know more.

mOOSH

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Thanks mOOSH! Yes, I agree Rob that not everything "stand-up" is better (I am not a fan of stand-up coasters) but being that this was made back in the 1950's, it looked quite interesting and made me wonder just how prevelant these were, or was this the only one.

'Moosh, that does look like a park model Paratrooper or Spitfire frame, with the bevel-gear drive at the center. My guess is that it's a conversion of a Spitfire. Notice the similarity to the ride shown HERE, which shows the Paratrooper at Thrill-Ville USA. I have two more shots HERE which shows the bevel-gear drive mechanism, and HERE showing (with almost no detail) the non-hinged, straight vertical support tower. Those photos came from my 1999 trip to Thrill-Ville USA.

On that same trip I visited Silverwood and noticed that their Paratrooper also has the vertical tower and gear drive.

My guess is that this was someone's idea of a cool way to convert a Spitfire into something interesting. I wonder if there are any Spitfires left, and if not, why none survived? The Spitfire was apparently a bit like a Skydiver, but on an angle like a Paratrooper. My best guess as to what happened to them is that they were about as much fun to re-ride as a Fly-O-Plane, which is to say, not much.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

But Skydivers still exist... :)

Are the Thrillville and Silverwood rides converted Spitfires?

I've always been very curious about the Spitfire. It looks like a cool idea.

I suppose an old Spitfire tub will eventually find its way to Ebay one of these days!

I don't know about Silverwood, but I was told by Someone Who Might Know that the one at Thrill-Ville was, in fact, a converted Spitfire.

On another occasion, I received a telephone call from a gentleman from Spokane who was apparently a representative for the Hrubetz company. According to the few notes I took from that call, Hrubetz built 97 gear-drive units from 1958-1967, and 26 trailer mount units. Apparently all of the 2-trailer hydraulic units (the lay-down model, as seen at practically every small park in Pennsylvania and then some) were all built after 1967. Unfortunately my notes are kind of sketchy; the gear drive units I have seen all have the vertical support column, but the T/M units I've seen on carnivals are more like the hydraulic unit, in that there is a multi-stage hydraulic cylinder that raises the boom to an angle, then the two prop rods are installed to hold it in place.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Looks like an interesting concept anyway. Not sure how fun it would be. I've only been on Camden Park's standard Paratrooper. Lots o fun.

I rode the standup paratropper at Knott's back in the early 80's and really enjoyed it.

And, there are some things that ARE better standing up. Or at least...they are different.

I agree. I like stand-up coasters. Mantis rocks! Just gotta watch those nads! :)

Hey Wahoo, you and Hamsterboy have something in common. ;)

By the way, I dfound this newer variation at the Flat Joint site: http://www.flatrides.com/Ride%20Index%20Pages/startrooper.html

Yah, the Startrooper is the trailer-mount version from Dartron (while technically not affiliated at all with Hrubetz, for our purposes we can consider Dartron to be a successor company to Hrubetz) where they did something very clever (besides the back-to-back seats that double the ride capacity). By putting an extra pivot at the end of the boom with a control rod running down the length of the trailer, they actually drop the boom until it is past horizontal. This allows the ride center to come down lower than the center on a hydraulic Paratrooper, which allows the ride to load and unload from the ground...no need for all those miserable platforms that surround a hydraulic Paratrooper.

The Startrooper frame is also the center used for the Cliff Hanger.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Ah, I thought the frame looked like a Cliff Hanger.

Just curious, looks like Schwarzkoph made a version in '65. Or was there some sort of relationship with Hrubetz?

http://schwarzkopf.coaster.net/OKskiliftGF.htm

http://schwarzkopf.coaster.net/OKskilift3GF.htm

By the way, here are the paratrooper pix:

http://www.flatrides.com/Ride%20Index%20Pages/paratrooperhydro.html

http://www.flatrides.com/Ride%20Index%20Pages/paratrooperrim.html