B&M Hyper Coaster Question

Im a big fan of the B&M Hyper Coasters. Im not very savy on the mechanics of the coasters. What safety mechanism is in place to prevent the lapbars from every releasing during the ride? These are the ONLY coasters that I wish had seat belts. Thanks in advance for any help.

Duct tape, loctite, and a twisted coat hanger. No, really.

It's a dual ratchet, as far as I know. Paging Rideman....

While we wait for Dave, I'll say that I'm with you, Steve Perry. Everytime i ride one of these I pray the thing holds til we get back. While I don't actually wish for seat belts, I too wonder how they can't accidentally release.
To think Diamondback, for instance, operates without belts while across the park Racer and The Beast, with little to no airtime, have lap bars and cumbersome belts like something's gonna happen there. What gives? Then there's your Intamin gigas with that nightmarish belt situation, when truthfully the bar by itself is trustworthy. And I know - manufacturers recommendation, trouble history, blah blah.
Those B&M chairs are basically tractor seats on a post attached to a flat bed. So, if belts were to be installed, where would they go? For around the waist, both ends would have to be retractable and attached to the seat backs some kind of way. The best way would be to go B&M inverted style and put a belt from the lap bar to the seat. But I'm having a hard time picturing how that would work. Either way would absolutely kill station efficiency. The nice thing about these rides for everyone, riders and staff, is they are pull down, check, and go.

If the reason for asking this is fear of being ejected, I think a better question is, "approximately how many rides have all B&M hyper coasters collectively given since their inception?" in conjunction with, "how many instances have there been where a lapbar failed on a B&M hyper coaster?"

The scary thing is that if it were to ever happen it`s 32 deaths... gaurenteed.

however it is not going to happen.

No, it isn't. All 32 bars don't operate as one unit.

DKNY6363 said:
The scary thing is that if it were to ever happen it`s 32 deaths... gaurenteed.

however it is not going to happen.

Theoretically, I don't think you couldn't hold on to the clamshell enough to save your life if it opened up anyway.

I'm pretty sure we could....there's hand-holds on the clamshells, and B&M coasters don't feature strong negative-g moments. Now if SkyRush or El Toro went without restraints...then I'd be very afraid.

Thank you, gator, for setting up tonight's dream. My REM sleep is forever in your debt.

I'll report back tomorrow :)

Mike, you have finally started sleeping again after my Dos Toros Locos racing double Toro idea? I'm impressed!

Yes, but now I won't. Thank you so much for bringing it up again. Much obliged, Ma'am ;)

Ya gots a good mem'ry, Ms. Bunky!

Okay, here's what we know:

The first ride to get that type of restraint was, I believe, Nitro. When the Nitro train was shown off at IAAPA that year, there was a little metal plug on the end of the lap bar, and a little metal gizmo attached to a retractable piece of wire rope that came out of the end of the armrest. That was a measuring device only, so far as I know, but it might have been secure enough to back up the latch if things really went wrong...

I don't know if those little gadgets lasted as long as Opening Day.

I don't know what the latching mechanism on those bars looks like, but we can take some hints from the inverted coasters. What we know on those is that there are multiple spring-loaded ratchet pawls (I believe there are four per seat) operated by a mechanical arm. The link is mechanically operated and also spring-biased to remain locked. The pawls are separate from each other, so that if a spring fails on one pawl, the other three should still hold the restraint.

ASTM F 2291, in its guidelines for "Class 5" restraints, calls for restraints that are either redundant or fail-safe, and calls for a secondary restraint. The secondary is not required if the primary is redundant. Four latches would be considered redundant. I am not sure if there is a secondary latching mechanism...for example, it would make sense if the link arm did not release the ratchet pawls directly, but instead released them indirectly via a secondary cam which would also have to be activated with a release mechanism. I do not know if B&M employed such a system or not.

All of the B&M hyper-type coasters since Apollo's Chariot have a system for reporting the restraint status back to the ride control system while the train is in the station. This means that in addition to the visual and mechanical checks performed by the platform attendants, an electrical or mechanical check is also performed by the control system to insure that the restraints are closed and locked before the train can be dispatched. In this way, failure of the restraint then would require a serious failure of the restraint mechanism, meaning all four of the locking pawls, which would most likely be caused by a failure of the release mechanism. The likelihood of such a failure is reduced by the spring biases on the release mechanism. But even if those biases were to fail, the design of a ratchet cam is such that even without the spring against the release, it should take a fair amount of force to lift the ratchet pawls off the locking shaft. To further protect the system, the bar seems to be weighted to tend to want to stay closed even when unlocked.

Finally, the forces on the ride are pretty well controlled. I wonder if the ride could actually throw a rider clear, especially if that rider were holding on. A rider not holding on when the restraint unlatched might find that the restraint does not open, as the forces imposed on the restraint by the rider tend to be in an *upward* rather than forward direction.

I reiterate that I have not examined the mechanism in question. I do know that on the shoulder bars, B&M can't consider the safety belt to be an integral part of the restraint locking system and still be in compliance with ASTM F 2291, so I presume that they do not. My observation of the parts I can see of the various B&M mechanisms, coupled with the complete lack of known failures of the lap bar system suggest to me that the design is designed to be sufficiently robust that the failure of any component in the locking system will not result in the lap bar opening up. I don't have any proof of this, but I think I can say it with a fair amount of confidence.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Is it a myth that on (most) roller coasters that even if the restraint came up, the force would keep you in you're seat? I've always wondered that.

RideMan said:

The first ride to get that type of restraint was, I believe, Nitro. When the Nitro train was shown off at IAAPA that year, there was a little metal plug on the end of the lap bar, and a little metal gizmo attached to a retractable piece of wire rope that came out of the end of the armrest. That was a measuring device only, so far as I know, but it might have been secure enough to back up the latch if things really went wrong...

Never thought this would happen, but I have to correct you. Both Apollo's Chariot and Raging Bull opened in 1999, 2 years before Nitro. Neither of them ever had the wire thing they tried on Nitro.

Whatever Dave said.

A. cause it is long

& B. it makes since.

Maverick, depends on the coaster...there have been fatalities from failed restraints on looping coasters. People have been ejected from heavy airtime coasters as well because of restraints not properly locked/body habitus issues that didn't allow for correct locking of the restraint. I think some of those tests were done on the face-flattening loops on Schwarzkopf coasters because I cannot see being held in my seat just fine on say Bizarro at SFGrAdv if the restraint failed.

RideMan, you are like Master Shifu of the coaster world. You know all.

Dirty little secret: I don't know all, but I can explain educated guesses in such a way that they seem plausible... 8-)
And SFGAm Shock Wave is right about vintages, which makes me wonder why Nitro (2001) got the little wire rope thingies and Apollo's Chariot and Raging Bull (1999) did not. Makes me wonder if it was a New Jersey thing (New Jersey adopted its own design standard, so things can be a little weird there).

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

^^And not just in the amusement industry. Tee-hee

RideMan said:
And SFGAm Shock Wave is right about vintages, which makes me wonder why Nitro (2001) got the little wire rope thingies and Apollo's Chariot and Raging Bull (1999) did not.

Does anyone have a picture of these things? How did they work? When did they get rid of them?

You can kinda see them here, in the retracted position:

http://www.coastergallery.com/1999/nitro6.jpg