Originally Posted By CuriousConstance "The river flows downhill all the way around. See <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/a...fall.JPG">http://homepage.ntlworld.com/a...fall.JPG</a>" lol
Originally Posted By CuriousConstance "I remember an old guidebook saying that the Pirates (and iasw) boats were propelled by "silent and unseen" jets of water." Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Originally Posted By CuriousConstance " If you're looking for information about how some of the older rides work, I'd definitely recommend checking out Rollercoasters, Flumes, & Flying Saucers. It's about the early days of Arrow Dynamics (later Arrow Development), the ride builders who built a lot of DL's early rides and eventually went on to create the first modern log flume and first corkscrew coaster. It's got some technical information (and patent illustrations) but is very easy to read and has a lot of interesting stories behind the stories" Thanks, Ferret
Originally Posted By monorailblue You can actually feel and hear the flume jets in Pirates if you know what you're looking for. An interesting piece of information: the flume in Pirates is never turned off, even when the ride is down. The backstage bateaux maintenance area is not used for boat storage when the ride is offline (like overnight). Boats are simply left at the bottom of the lift in a long line extending backwards. If the flume were turned off, the boats could separate from each other and would be much more difficult (and unsteady) to access by custodial. Custodial enters boats for cleaning at their convenience at an emergency exit spot, and then just goes boat to boat forward and back cleaning them all. Caveat: within the last 5 years or so, I believe I've read that dispatch equipment was added near emergency exits--so that boats can be stopped at other places along the flume (a la Splash Mountain's ability to stop logs at various places), particularly for evacuation needs. (It is easier to stop boats, unload one, let it go one empty, and then unload the next then it is to put on hip waders and drag a lie of 20 boats backwards against the current . . . .) I do not know how storage and maintenance may have been updated with those additional gates.
Originally Posted By Yookeroo "If you're looking for information about how some of the older rides work, I'd definitely recommend checking out Rollercoasters, Flumes, & Flying Saucers. It's about the early days of Arrow Dynamics (later Arrow Development), the ride builders who built a lot of DL's early rides and eventually went on to create the first modern log flume and first corkscrew coaster. It's got some technical information (and patent illustrations) but is very easy to read and has a lot of interesting stories behind the stories" And if you can track down old issues of the E-Ticket fanzine, they had lots of articles that went in depth on many of the old Disney attractions. You can get some at the Disney Family Museum site: <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://store.wdfmuseum.org/the-e-ticket">http://store.wdfmuseum.org/the-e-ticket</a>
