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comment_137629

Yea, I've been quite tempted to go myself with some friends! My work friends threw around the idea but we've not gotten around to it! It could be demolished at any time though, so it's not a permanent attraction. And of course, it's quite pricey! Looks a bit like the mall in Left 4 Dead 2 though, haha!

comment_137802

Not really sure where I should put this so I figured I couldn't go wrong by posting here :)

I went to a local travelling funfair in Ipswich yesterday (which claims to be the largest travelling fair in Europe but obviously wasn't) and rode the KMG Speed ride that they had there. I've rode a few of these so I was a bit surprised when our gondola/car didn't rotate freely on the end of the arm and refused to move. This caused us to be dangling upside-down at the top of the ride waiting for new riders to get onto the other gondola. We were there for a good 7-8 minutes before the ride started and the ride ops seemed to be rushing to get people to get onto the ride so that it could go through its program and that we could be released. I was just wondering if anyone would know what might cause this problem and why they had to load the bottom arm to get us down cos I'm pretty sure it isn't safe to keep anyone upside down for much longer than that. :)

comment_137803

Sounds like the bearing has gone, which is something of a major problem on that ride. Any problem with the bearing, being the only thing holding the gondola to the arm, should immediately cause a shut down for obvious death related reasons. Maybe there is a legitimate setting to lock the gondola in place but I've certainly not heard of it before, could be worth advising the council you suspect it is operating with a major defect.

As for being held upside down I would imagine there is a specific H+S guideline for the entertainment industry. I have no idea what that is but would imagine it would be less than 8 minutes, I'd be surprised if it was more than about 30 seconds for general comfort reasons. Although if David Blaine can manage three days upside down I guess it is not actually that dangerous for an otherwise health person.

comment_137806

There was a lot of rattling coming from our side of the arm which I haven't noticed on any other KMG Speed that I've ridden so that could be to do with the bearings. I was quite concerned about how there was no quicker way of getting us down as the ride ops seemed to be rushing about but were unable to help us until other riders were available.

Anyway, thanks for clearing that up a bit for me. :)

comment_137810

Sounds unusual for it to be stuck for the whole ride... I've ridden a fair few of these things now and have realised that if you ride as a single rider the car will not usually release until the Speed of the arm picks up. The gondola's get held in the loading position with some sort of clamping disc brake, it could just be the case that this didn't release properly, or as Pluk said there could be a problem with the bearing. And I'm guessing it was the Booster in the video below? :P Which is one of the older models currently in the UK so the creaking may just be a sign of age, I know Wilson's "Storm" Speed can have a bit of a rattle and creak to it sometimes when pulling higher G's flying through the platform, which is also one of the older models (they don't have the LED arrows stretching down the arms) Fair rides get checked yearly majorly for ADIPS and Non-Destructive tests, and then should also be checked daily by showmen too. The Speed is a brilliant ride anyway! :D

comment_137824

Yeah, that's the one :)

If you go to 0:44 of the video Luke_A posted you can see that the car isn't rotating at all whereas the other one is, this happened on and off all night. I'm not so worried about the creaking to be honest, I was just mentioning it in case it raised any other points. Just seemed a little weird to me and a tad dodgy :)

And yeah, being upside down for that long left me pretty light headed and gave my friend some lovely red spots all over her eyelids and around the top of her nose which still haven't disappeared :P

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