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J6 at June is an interesting lift. It makes me wonder about us believing that 1988 was really the first year a Lift Engineering express quad was built. I have several reasons for believing this 7,700 foot long lift is really the first. #1 this lift was not the traditional "yancake" we are used to seeing:
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Now you might think that this is the bottom station and yes the top most likely was flat but the drive is not the same as other 'cakes built soon after. The drive is a square and isn’t even sloped at all like the drives seen on the ones at Sierra, Whistler and other places. You can also see that the operator boxes are the older style simple ones, not the more modern ones seen their other lifts, even J7 an 88 Yan quad.
-The top terminal:
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-J7's operator boxes:


The next odd thing on this lift is the carriers. These are oddly shaped even for yan teardrop style chairs. Today I looked at some pictures of other Yan hsq's at Sun Valley and even mammoth. They all have chairs that are more rounded and not at all similar to J6's.
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The last odd part about this lift is the towers. These Yan towers are thicker than any others I have seen, including 5 other Yan express lifts (2 being the towers on Grandview and West Bowl at Sierra which re-used the towers when they replaced their yan express quads). They also have interesting lifting frames, again thicker and stronger looking than the "Y" looking ones on J7 and others. J7 does have two towers with these frames but they are only the breakovers at the top of the lift.
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-Tower construction different as well, not bolted on but actually welded together:
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I will try to email June/Mammoth and find out what I can unless someone on this forum has more info. It would not surprise me at all if this were the first because June was also the testing ground for the QMC so this could be another instance of testing a new potential product. I know Mammoth and Lift Engineering were very close from Yan's start to the mid 90's and June would be a good place to prototype something like this since it sees less people than Mammoth.

Very good work Zack. I should order the SAM issues from 1987 1988 soon so we can see if there is any more info about this.

I was thinking Ryan B. may know some more on it all since he knew a lot about the QMC and stuff, but yea SAM probably would have some info. Mammoth bought in in 86 so that would be the earliest but chances are it was built in 87.

I thought the Yan HSQ at LL in Alberta, Canada wasthe first

No, Friendly Giant and Top of the World were both built in 1989. 5 were built in 1988 with 3 at Sun Valley (Challenger, Greyhawk and Frenchmen's), 1 at Mammoth (#1 Broadway) and 1 at June (J7).

Well, I thought you might all like to read the article about LE's first HSQ at June.

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Pretty crazy. Look at how simple the whole think is. I doubth that lift had to be retrofitted because of its flat profile but better safe than sorry. That was the first detachable for L.A. and the eastern sierra and all of california besides the 2 poma's at squaw.

It's really easy to see how the lift moves up and down. That's a good article. When they said about them only operating it at 850 fpm, was that just to see more how it worked?

They still run it at about that speed, maybe 900 fpm or so. I think its mainly to save money because not many people go to june and it doesnt really need to run 1000 fpm

Fantastic article. Thanks for sharing it, Cameron!

I'm still curious about the makeup of the grip. I can't imagine how gravity comes into play on that.

-Iain

Great stuff

Here is J6 now.
This post has been edited by Zage: 03 March 2005 - 04:05 PM

There's a whole topic on it if you guys want:
http://www.skilifts....?showtopic=1803

I wonder why it was changed to look like an American cheque scanner at K-Mart?

-Iain

Did the early yan HSQs use a contour chain? Also did they switch to tire banks later?

I don't think so because in that Yan article I posted yesterday, it talked about how there wern't that many mechanical things. I think it used a tire system.

Oh sorry I was Thinking that THe Friendly Giant was the Last Remaining True YAN HsQ in the world...(with grip Modifications)

Nope, Mammoth has 2 and June has 2. Sun Valley has like 5 but all 9 have been modified. There are also a few back east.

If the topic seems a bit disjointed I merged Cameron H's topic with Zacks. No sense having two topics on the same lift.

Duck, on Mar 3 2005, 04:11 PM, said:

You're a mechanically inclined guy, right? Think of it this way: Friction works in many ways. Your car does not slide back down a steep hill because of the friction between the tyres and the road surface. Yan used that principle in his grips, so that in the final equation for grip force 400 or so pounds was actually the weight of the carrier resting on the haul rope. Now, when a chair bounces (as they will on a sudden stop) the carrier weight is removed from the equation when it reaches the top of the oscillation. Make sense?

Yeah BAD sense..Sorry