How ski lifts are installed: Vail's new Chair 5 (2011) [video]

Re:How ski lifts are installed: Vail's new Chair 5 (2011) [v... by ChuckMcM on Sunday April 09, 2017 @07:43PM (#14074952)

That is a really good question. Its possible that the helicopter has a quick disconnect on top which simply drops the pole segment although that would seem to endanger the people on the ground.

The use of guide cables/pins was really neat. Assuming the camera is 'real' time (it wasn't sped up for the video) it looks like about 15 seconds between starting to pull the guide cables through to the point where they have two bolts installed. So a pretty narrow window for problems, of course you wouldn't do it when it was windy out either.

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Re:How ski lifts are installed: Vail's new Chair 5 (2011) [v... by robryk on Sunday April 09, 2017 @09:18PM (#14075332)

Such a mechanism might also endanger the helicopter: releasing a line under high tension will cause both ends of the release mechanism to rapidly accelerate away from the connection point.

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Re:How ski lifts are installed: Vail's new Chair 5 (2011) [v... by dsfyu404ed on Monday April 10, 2017 @02:51AM (#14076570)

And if the connection point being released is on the helicopter... Think about it.

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