August 22, 201411 yr comment_189461 It's always had to close half way through the day for checks and so on. Nope.
August 22, 201411 yr comment_189462 The way they're operating sounds more like a park that has suffered a serious accident on the ride, rather than one that's turned into s bodge job of parts and repairs... Exactly. But if a park were operating like that you'd hope it was as a display of reassurance for the benefit of riders, not because it was required for actual safety - the underlying hardware should be safe without the bravado. Almost seems they are a bit scared of it being open, even with whatever it is they've put in place to stop it doing its extreme indefinite hangtime trick occasionally.
August 23, 201411 yr comment_189492 It opening later is just because it's not top priority probably. It's always had to close half way through the day for checks and so on. The long gaps between cycles is just exceedingly slow staff! Engineering tested it three cycles in a row a few weeks ago with less than a minute between each cycle and then they opened the ride so it obviously can be done. This. The checks halfway through the day are to check the boom for cracks (which is obviously a danger with the forces exerted on it during operation, as has been seen in previous years) and the slow cycles are just slow staff members. To be fair to the staff, each staff member is doing the job of 2 or 3 people on any other ride: batching, loading, checking bars, checking exit gates, sending the ride. However, there are quite a few staff members who are just not very good at batching or ensuring that people are wearing shoes/put bags in the box etc before locking the bars. Some staff members just stand to one side and let guests batch themselves which of course leads to too many people in a row/people sitting in seats that have Do Not Use straps on, unbalanced sides etc. There are several times I found while working on it that I was ready to check the bars while the other attendant was still batching people into the gates. I do think this has happened because of the huge amount of downtime the ride has had in previous years, there are very few of us who were experienced and knew the quickest ways to do things. I imagine throughputs will increase before the end of season (if the ride survives that long)
August 23, 201411 yr comment_189509 I did mean to mention here, that during a ride cycle my friends shoulder harness went up a whole click. Not sure if this is a regular occurrence, but he spent the rest of the ride clinging on for dear life!
August 23, 201411 yr comment_189511 I did mean to mention here, that during a ride cycle my friends shoulder harness went up a whole click. Not sure if this is a regular occurrence, but he spent the rest of the ride clinging on for dear life! I do know what you mean about the park being scared about it being open, the ride ops always look worried and are talking on the phone/through the PA all the time. I have also seen it stuck during testing at a funny angle, but I'm not sure if this is just a part of the test or not.
August 26, 201411 yr comment_189723 By the sounds of it slammer wont be around for many more years the way its going :/ hopefully thorpe could try contacting a company like kmg or mondial and they could help out and either make parts for the ride or help make a new version but that could be very expensive
August 26, 201411 yr comment_189755 Why wouldnt they just contact S&S who orginally made the thing. Atleast they may still have the molds for the parts rather than starting from scratch. However becuase of this slammers life is limited and for it to last another 10 years would be an amazing achivement.
August 26, 201411 yr comment_189759 S&S went bankrupt recently I think? This is probably the reason why it's been extremely difficult to bring back Slammer previously...
August 26, 201411 yr comment_189761 I did mean to mention here, that during a ride cycle my friends shoulder harness went up a whole click. Not sure if this is a regular occurrence, but he spent the rest of the ride clinging on for dear life! This happened to Jack with his lap bar last month actually. However he decided to tell me mid-cycle, so I was screaming like nobody's business- I'm funny with restraints as it is and the fact that this seems to be a bit of a regular occurence could prevent me from going on the ride altogether and I love Slammer but I'd sooner feel safe and reassured than spending the entire cycle trying to attatch myself to the seat.
August 26, 201411 yr comment_189762 I thought s&s were fine as are they not making the polercoasters? I may be mistaken. The restraints moving up a notch is something to do with the system S&S use. I'm not entirely sure how theres works but I imagine it is caused by the system thinking it has locked when really its stuck between positions. Could be completely wrong though.
August 26, 201411 yr comment_189764 S&S still exist and trade, they just completely gave up on producing parts for the Sky Swat because it was a burden on their resources...
August 26, 201411 yr comment_189765 Well now we know something S&S and Merlin have in common... ...LAZINESS.
August 26, 201411 yr comment_189766 Wouldn't say it's lazy, as the product certainly wasn't selling (as evidenced by the two that were built worldwide) and both of them were extremely unreliable... S&S's decision to essentially cancel any further work with the Sky Swat project makes a lot of sense from the business perspective...
August 26, 201411 yr comment_189767 It isn't financially viable to produce spare parts for 1 customer. S&S have done the correct thing to stop making a ride which wasn't selling. The only thing keeping slammer alive is thorpes decision to keep spending on it, which I'm sure will soon end.
August 27, 201411 yr comment_189899 Slammer has just broken down today at about 3pm. It has not reopened and Thorpe have no news regarding it yet. I will be visiting tomorrow and if it does not open,(which I'm sure many of us are hoping it will) I will be paying my respects to slammer(as sad as that sounds ) and hope that the engineers fix it in the near future. At this point it is unpredictable whether slammer's final hour has occurred but if it has I'm sure many of us will be very sad to see it go.
August 27, 201411 yr comment_189906 Oh god don't tell me it failed a 3 o'clock inspection. Well at least it was open for as long as it was. Its probably something minor.
August 27, 201411 yr comment_189936 I'm suprised they didn't do a Merlin and give up on it! For all the stick you give them Merlin have maintained slammer for years to keep it operational..
August 27, 201411 yr comment_189939 I love slammer! Went on it yesterday and was running fine Do you guys think there'll sort the loose restraints out (If it stays open)?
August 27, 201411 yr comment_189941 The restraints are designed to move slightly - it's nothing to worry about
August 28, 201411 yr comment_189968 Slammer went down for quite some time yesterday, with people seemingly stuck at the top for about an hour...
August 28, 201411 yr comment_189969 Something tells me it won't be long til we hear that announcement one last time: "Your fray with Slammer has come to an end!" ...PERMANENTLY
August 28, 201411 yr comment_189986 Merlin'll keep it open for a 'world's only' gimmick No they won't. Whats with this Merlin will do this, Merlin will do that rubbish people keep spouting. It didn't save the worlds first blackwards roller coaster being turned to face forwards, what makes you think Slammer will stay if it becomes to expensive to keep.
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