17 replies to this topic

[skierdude9450]

It seems like the only lift manufacturers that produce chairs with bubbles are Doppelmayr and on occasion Leitner. I have never seen a Poma chair with bubbles, which leads me to think, "Does such a thing exist?"

[SkiBachelor]

The American Flyer at Copper had bubbles when it was first built.

There is also a short clip of the bubbles on the American Flyer in the video "Best of Copper Mountain."

[Lift Kid]

Hmm......
This brings up a very interesting question. Did POMA build bubble lifts? I think they most likely did. Like Skibachelor said, POMA has built them in the past. However, I don't believe there are any left in operation in North America. There are some in Europe though.

Does anyone know why the bubbles on Flyer were removed? Was it because they were a maintenance issue? Or something else?

Quote from POMA.net:

Quote

Panoramic thermoformed polycarbonate bubbles with automatic or manual opening can also beprovided.

This post has been edited by Lift Kid: 16 February 2007 - 07:22 PM

[SkiBachelor]

From what John (liftmech) has said in the past, the American Flyer had bubbles for every other chair, like what the Yellowstone Club has. The problem with this setup is that some people would wait for a bubble chair instead of getting on one without, which caused the lift line to get backed up.

There are probably other reasons like maintenance, but I'll let John answer those.

[aug]

(Old school bubbles)If my memory serves me correctly Riblet had some installations with bubbles. I'm thinking in Utah, that was 35 years ago when I was on a ski vacation(I was 10).

[SkiBachelor]

Was this at Park West or Brighton?

I don't know of any other ski areas in Utah that had Riblet lifts.

[aug]

That is a good question because on that particular trip our family went to both of those areas . But I am leaning to Park west

This post has been edited by aug: 16 February 2007 - 08:55 PM

[boardski]

SkiBachelor, on Feb 16 2007, 08:03 PM, said:

The American Flyer at Copper had bubbles when it was first built.

There is also a short clip of the bubbles on the American Flyer in the video "Best of Copper Mountain."

From what I remember, American Flyer was supposed to have bubbles on every chair when it was built. I still recall the headline from an issue in Summit Daily News in the spring of 1986 reading "Covered quad Coming Soon". They also had a prototype chair in the village the season before Flyer was installed. I also remember in the late 80's, they had 4 successive chairs which had bubbles as "test chairs". I don't remember every other being bubbled and I don't think the bubbled chairs were on the line for more than a season or two.
It would be interesting to find out the reasoning for not having them and the reasons why so many areas which have bubbled chairs are removing them (the bubbles) ie lift 16 at Vail, Storm Peak & Sundown at Steamboat. My guess is maybe vandalism and cost of maintaining the automatic open/close devices, replacing plexiglass, etc.

[SkiBachelor]

It appears that Vail bought quite a few new bubbles the season it removed them all.

[skierdude9450]

I did some digging on lift-world.info and found that Poma made two bubble chairs, both six-packs.

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[Lift Kid]

About Vista Bahn at Vail: When I rode that lift in the summer they removed the bubbles, most of the bubbles were in terrible shape. They were so scratched and foggy that you couldn't see through them at all. I think there were several that were decent but I can't fully remember.

[LiftTech]

It would be my guess that resorts removed them or wouldn’t want them because of the winds effect on them; they look like a big kite. my .000 cents.

[skierdude9450]

Most likely for the Vista Bahn, they took them off because they were too much of a maintenance issue, and hardly anyone ever used them. The lift is used mainly as an access lift, and after 10:00 is almost vacant. It seems like a money pit to have 216 bubble chairs that are used for 2 hours a day with maybe 10% of the bubbles ever being used. $0.02

[poloxskier]

boardski, on Feb 16 2007, 11:55 PM, said:

From what I remember, American Flyer was supposed to have bubbles on every chair when it was built. I still recall the headline from an issue in Summit Daily News in the spring of 1986 reading "Covered quad Coming Soon". They also had a prototype chair in the village the season before Flyer was installed. I also remember in the late 80's, they had 4 successive chairs which had bubbles as "test chairs". I don't remember every other being bubbled and I don't think the bubbled chairs were on the line for more than a season or two.
It would be interesting to find out the reasoning for not having them and the reasons why so many areas which have bubbled chairs are removing them (the bubbles) ie lift 16 at Vail, Storm Peak & Sundown at Steamboat. My guess is maybe vandalism and cost of maintaining the automatic open/close devices, replacing plexiglass, etc.

There were some bubbles used on the Flyer from time to time until at least the 91-92 season. There were times that they were not on the lift and later on in the season they would be back on. One reason that I have heard was given for the use of bubbles was that many people thought that the increaced speed of the chair would make riding the chairs uncomfortable, which we all know now is not the case but it could be one more reason that the earlier HSQs were bubbled in colorado.

[skierdude9450]

If anyone has pictures of Flyer with bubbles, please post. I would love to see them.

[liftmech]

So would I.

Flyer bubbles: five chairs only, caused large problems up to and including fights in the maze, caught the wind at tower 31 and swung dangerously, removed and sent to Keystone (the landfill, not the ski area).

I think bubbles can be more trouble than they're worth except in limited applications. Wizard at Blackcomb and Fitz at Whistler come to mind.

[Puma]

The first Poma with bubbles where made in Tandådalen, Sweden 1988.
They where removed only short time after cause of windproblems. They had also maintenance problems as it was some kind of a prototype installation.

[SkiBachelor]

Puma, on Mar 2 2007, 03:03 AM, said:

The first Poma with bubbles where made in Tandådalen, Sweden 1988.
They where removed only short time after cause of windproblems. They had also maintenance problems as it was some kind of a prototype installation.

Well, the American Flyer at Copper Mountain, CO had bubbles when it was installed in 1986.