now as i ask this keep in mind that most coasters are designed to work with only a lap bar, and the OTSR was only made to give people a sence of phsycological saftey.
B&M's hyper trians, with the clamshell harness are impossible to get out of and fit perfect on most anybody, would it be possible to take away the bulky OTSR and put in the clamshell on some loopers, and see how it works? and if it works good then would it be possible to do what premier did by retrofitting the trains with lap bars?
just a thought, respond with your opinions.
There's no reason a restraint like a B&M clamshell or Intamin hyper wouldn't be able to hold a normal proportioned person through any element with no chance of slipping out.
The strange truth is many more fatalities and injuries happen with OTSRs. Heck, just look at the last few years.
Before any says you have to have OTSR because "what if you got stuck upsidedown". A coaster has gotten stuck upsidedown with just lapbars and there were no injuries!
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- Peabody
*** This post was edited by DRAGON82487 on 5/4/2002. ***
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Women was god's second mistake.
DRAGON82487 said:
thank you peabody. now i know...(weird voice)
I think I misspelled it for about 10 years before I finally got it right myself.....now for the rest of the English language.... :)
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- Peabody
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If your really evil in this life, do you come back as toilet paper????
ladies and gentlemen, due to an increase in line jumping, people caught cutting in line will no longer be ejected from the park. u will be ejected from the ride
FOF at PKI was acctually saved by doing away with OTSR's. They went to the clamshell and the ride popularity has majorly increased. Satisfaction and multiple rides per rider have also incresed. I have been going to PKI and you notice when people are walking away after riding a ride and when they are getting back on for another ride. '99 and '00 everyone was walking away with headaches and complaints about the ride. The park filed many incident reports about it. In '01 the ride gained new popularity with the new restraints. Unfortunately the wait in line seemed longer because so many more people wanted to ride it. My opinion on the ride getting stuck upside down. It would be more comfortable with you legs holding you as a pose to your shoulders.
NO MORE OTSR'S!
DRAGON82487 said:
"now as i ask this keep in mind that most coasters are designed to work with only a lap bar, and the OTSR was only made to give people a sence of phsycological saftey."
And as for the "old" Premier restraints, if stuck upside down you'd be held in by your thighs anyway. IIRC (and I know I do), the OTSRs came down all the way to your thighs.
Furthermore, you cant just 'slap' a lapbar on an old train and say "Voila!" You have to do some pretty serious design work to make sure that the angle of the seats, the position of the feet and the locked position of the bar all conspire to keep the rider in the seat. The Schwarzkopf loopers meet this as do the new Premier Trains, but an average PTC train would not (maybe the G-trains though...).
But the real question comes down to the cost. Is it really cost effective for a company (say Arrow) to design a new chassis for their coasters? I mean, they've moved on to a completely different design for their new coasters. Do they see a profit in doing so? People still seem to ride the things so maybe they dont feel a need to do it on their own.
Now if some park *requested* this action (and coughed up the moola to do so), I *sure* that they would undertake this task! (for the right price of course ;))
later days,
jeremy
Actually IIRC the reason Arrow loopers [and Suspeneded] have OSTRs has to do with the design of the train chassis. There is nowhere to put a lap bar mechanism at rider's feet when you have a fiberglass body mounted to the wheel assembly. The only place to put any kind of restraint is in the seat behind the rider's shoulders. I'm sure Rideman will correct me if I'm wrong.
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2002 - the year of IB's LoCoSuMo!!
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