Motorised Flying

[trotboy]

Blimey! I may be behind the times here, but what about Hemp flying if Counterweight can be bad for your back? Try flying a large Panto cloth when the second Flyman hasn't turned up after the interval - feet under the cleats time!

[mumbles]

edit: Mumbles, I was writing my post as you were posting yours. Of course it won't prevent a piece from hitting a member of the cast, but it could well make the difference between an injured cast member and a dead one. The same care needs to be taken as with counterweights, its a stage management issue.

This was my point, that the safety mechanism on an automated system is no more than a counterweight system, as a counterweight system will alter the balance in such a way that the flown iten will want to rise again.

 

Now I will admit happily that I haven't been trained in counterweight flying, but without giving bad advice like to think that I have learn't enough to query what I think is wrong. If I am wrong about the way counterweight flying works, then please correct me, but as far as I can see, it will place as much of a load as the automated flying sytem will on anyone it lands on.

[dbuckley]

How does "Slack Rope/chain" detection;

B: Actually make anything safer? (As in, it'll only operate when it has already hit something.)

Unbeknownst to just about everyone, NZ is home to the Dominator garage door people, who have a global patent on the concept that when a garage door hits something the motor loading changes and thus you can use that change in load to determine that garage door has hit either the floor, the end stop, or a body (car, person etc) in the way. That method will be oddles more sensitive then waiting for ropes to get slack, by which time the flown load is being supported by something or somebody. Or indeed with a hard load the ropes may never get slack, the bar and load simply titlting around the obstruction rather than moving vertically.

 

A: Work when you're trying to deck something?

see A above :P

 

As an aside, in the houses I work in the flys are not counterbalanced, an appropriate number of strong men heave in syncronism, so I doubt I'm going to see motorized flys anytime soon...

[Seano]

Or indeed with a hard load the ropes may never get slack, the bar and load simply titlting around the obstruction rather than moving vertically.

"Slack rope" in this context doesn't necessarily mean completely slack. For the more sophisticated systems it means a reduced load, so is a lot more sensitive than you think (I think). :P

 

As an aside, in the houses I work in the flys are not counterbalanced, an appropriate number of strong men heave in syncronism, so I doubt I'm going to see motorized flys anytime soon...

For what its worth, I think a hemp house would be a much more obvious candidate for installing a few powered bars than one which already has a perfectly good counterweight system.

 

Sean

x

[paulears]

For all the venues with king sized budgets and access to grants, the introduction of powered flying is great, but

in one post above mention is made of strong men and hemp. You have to ask why at some stage nobody put in a counterweight system. These reasons probably haven't changed and going even more expensive to a totally motorised system seems unlikley unless cash appears.

 

Two years ago we put in a disabled lift, into the auditorium. I would guess it has gone up and down maybe 40 times in total, most disabled people suddenly hop out of their chairs and walk up the stairs when they see it. Anyway, it has broken yet again,and the management have now refused to have it fixed, as they see the labour cost a real killer - we're back to an r'alloy ramp and brute force.

 

Mind you, the two motorised bars we have for lx 1 and 2 are proving a god send - but what a cost!