How do we do flying actors???

[john haines]

those guys come outta the trees in the total darkness and swoop down on the hayride. incredible !!!!! find out what those guys use.

[imagineer]

These pictures are from Bob Shaw or Ravenwood haunt. I can't get in touch with him, I think he might not be doing Ravenwood any longer. He built this version of the wall walker based on my barndoor track. And like most everyone on here changed the harness too. We emailed back and forth a while with ideas and pics. The following pictures are the final results.
FYI, the rope was for testing only, and notice the rig could either be used for flying or walking on the wall. None of the pictures are photoshopped.

harness1-sm.jpg


I-beam-sm.jpg


trolly-2-sm.jpg


Trolly-I-Beam-sm.jpg


Test With Rope2.jpg

[freak 'n' stein]

These pictures are from Bob Shaw or Ravenwood haunt. I can't get in touch with him, I think he might not be doing Ravenwood any longer. He built this version of the wall walker based on my barndoor track. And like most everyone on here changed the harness too. We emailed back and forth a while with ideas and pics. The following pictures are the final results.
FYI, the rope was for testing only, and notice the rig could either be used for flying or walking on the wall. None of the pictures are photoshopped.

harness1-sm.jpg


I-beam-sm.jpg


trolly-2-sm.jpg


Trolly-I-Beam-sm.jpg


Test With Rope2.jpg

That's ridiculous!! How cool would this be after walking through a vortex tunnel and everything is nailed to the walls? Trippy.

[Gore Galore]

I need to check with our supplier but we carry a heavy duty certified and licensed superman harness (Belly down harness) for flying overhead prone. and no where near $5000.
And we also sell the barn door tracks in 8' lengths so we can ship them UPS.
We setup a flying rig for House of Horrors. We also did 2 for "Scarywood" in Athol Idaho and we added Screamcubes to the harnesses. Both said the effect scared the crap out of customers.
We can provide custom lengths of cable.
The most important thing about a system like this is redundant safeties so even if the system fails the actor can't fall.
We have also seen problems with the tracks opening up but we discovered that the tracks were not being installed correctly.
SO, if you do something like this be sure and do it right.

[wipp]

jim when u were young, flying actors were shot out of circus cannons

[Farmer]

Hey guys, thought I'd chime in again here. Couple of VERY general rules about ANYTHING flying - at least in the theatre biz. If it falls and won't kill you, use a safety factor of 5x. If it falls and it can kill you, use a safety factor of 10x. In other words, a 30# curtain should be hung by something with a working load limit of at least 150#, and a piece of scenery, or a person should be rigged with something 10x. Like a 200# piece of scenery should be rigged with something with a working load limit of 2000#. You cannot be too safe when you are flying someone or something. And, every rigger I know will only use equipment marked and made in the USA. Some of the stuff from China is much less expensive, but they don't trust the real WLL's of it, since there is less oversight in the manufacturing and testing processes. I don't mean to be a pest, but in my business, this is one of the most dangerous aspects of what we do, so I thought I'd share some of what I know.

BTW - that barn door rig looks super cool!

Randy

DITTO.
I have theatre rigging experience too. Always consult pros before doing any rigging. There are several companies that host rigging and fall protection training classes from time to time, such as Tomcat. I'd recommend checking one out.
http://www.tomcatglobal.com/training.html
There are other companies that offer training, but the theme park I used to work for would send its theatre guys to tomcat.