Chance Rides recalls 85 Yo-Yo rides

That's funny, it sounds like everything Ed Markey says has to happen when there's a problem with a ride happened without additional oversight. Who knew?

Agreed. Given the risk to life and wanting to avoid lawsuits like the one Six Flags/Intiman is facing with the Lassiters, I think most parks/manufacturers provide all the oversight that is really needed.

I think accidents should be expected from rides manufactured by Chance.

*rimshot*

Thanks, I'll be here all week.

In fairness...

My understanding is that Chance stands by their 30-year-old design, claiming that it is service-proven and that the two rides that failed, failed because they were not properly maintained. Details of the ride re-work are available from NAARSO. It may be that pressure from the CPSC was necessary to get Chance to develop this rework kit and issue this bulletin. That said, only the more recent of the two incidents would have been subject to CPSC oversight.

That said, let's look a little more closely--
On the Yo-Yo, there is a single cylinder at the center of the ride to which all of the sweeps are attached by means of a collar with the sweep end attachments. Chance refers to this as the "Spider". in accordance with amusement industry tradition, this particular Spider does not have eight legs; actually it has 16. When the main cylinder pulls downward, the sweeps pivot up. The result is that a relatively short throw cylinder can achieve a lot of motion out at the end of the sweep. At the end of the cylinder rod, there is a bearing attached with two nuts and a lockwasher. These are chemically fastened with Loc-Tite, and besides, the nut bears against the part of the bearing that does not rotate with respect to the cylinder rod.

The change here is to put an oversize end plate over the end of the rod, which provides a simple means to identify whether there is a full 1/4" of clearance between the top of the nut and the end of the rod. A side effect is that if the nut were to come loose, the plate would prevent the bearing from sliding off the end of the cylinder. That would have prevented the incident, had it been in place...but Chance correctly notes that the rework does not change the attachment mechanism at all, and again, had the nuts been tight in accordance with the maintenance specs for the ride, the incident still wouldn't have happened.

That said, this re-work is kind of like the bracket that was added to the last axle of each Arrow looping coaster train after the Demon incident. Yes, there was a maintenance problem that caused the incident, but an engineering fix would have made the system more tolerant of that particular fault.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Funny, this comes on the heels of several of the larger carnivals putting their Yo-Yo's up for sale. I know that Belle City and Reithoffers has thiers listed on Ital Intl. Wonder if we are going to see many of these shows dump the ride vs put in the labor to correct the issue.

"Demon incident"?

I believe Dave was referring to the incident with Demon at SFGAm where the trian got stuck upside down in the loop.

Dave, it never ceases to amaze me how much you know about these things.

Vater: Yes, that was the one. It was the first day of the season. On an Arrow looping coaster train, the axle has a spindle coming out the front end that fits through a bearing on the back of the car. A castle nut holds the spindle in place, and a cotter pin keeps the castle nut from backing off. On all but the last axle, the axle is attached by means of a two-axis joint to the front end of the car, and the axle passes through a pair of "hoops" which will tend to prevent the axle from going anywhere should any of the attachments fail. Also, the cars are lashed together with a safety cable. The last axle is connected only to the back of the last car. On the Demon, apparently the cotter pin was missing, so the castle nut was able to back off, ultimately causing the axle to separate from the train. This allowed the last car to drop down between the track ties and act like a giant anti-rollback. This also caused the train to lose enough energy that it didn't make it through the vertical loops. The back end of the train, then drops through the rail and starts banging away, ultimately hanging up on a track-tie, leaving the forward cars hanging upside down in the loop. Arrow fixed this by adding a bracket that bolts to the back of the car and wraps around the 2-axis coupler.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

phoenixphan :-) said:
Funny, this comes on the heels of several of the larger carnivals putting their Yo-Yo's up for sale. I know that Belle City and Reithoffers has thiers listed on Ital Intl. Wonder if we are going to see many of these shows dump the ride vs put in the labor to correct the issue.

A lot of the larger shows have already replaced them with Wave Swingers,(either by buying one, or booking an independent in) which has essentially the same ride action with ten times the flash. These shows held onto the Yo Yo's for smaller dates, or when they split the show up to play multiple events on the same dates. With the economy the way it is now they have become surplus inventory, as most fair committees naturally prefer the flashier Wave Swinger over the more austier Yo Yo.

Which is a shame, really, because the Yo-Yo has two major benefits over the Wave Swinger--

1) the Yo-Yo has a much larger seat. :)

2) the Yo-Yo has a much more interesting, perhaps even more frightening, ride action when it is run properly (unfortunately many are not run properly anymore)

The Wave Swinger, on the other hand, is a much more attractive ride, and it carries 16 more riders per cycle. I think they both have about the same footprint, but the Wave Swinger has that 6' high platform around it which makes it impossible to overlook...

I don't think the Yo-Yo has ever been used for a best-selling album cover! :)

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Vater said:
I think accidents should be expected from rides manufactured by Chance.

*rimshot*

Thanks, I'll be here all week.

Literally, laughed out loud!

MrZero said:

Vater said:
I think accidents should be expected from rides manufactured by Chance.

*rimshot*

Thanks, I'll be here all week.

Literally, laughed out loud!

Yeah, like after thirty years in the business I haven't heard that one before..............................

My epic jest was actually directed at folks who aren't in the business. Sorry, did I forget to mention that?