The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: billt on October 05, 2010, 10:24:05 AM
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My hands and feet got sweaty just watching this guy! Bill T.
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One project I used to inspect I had to ride up the outside of 18 stories on moving scaffold. Didn't mind it at all. This, on the other hand, is nuts.
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This is footage from the now infamous Senior Road TV Tower collapse near Houston, Texas back in 1982. It killed 7 people when the entire tower collapsed in just 17 seconds. They were lifting the last section into place when it became hung up. They kept trying to lift it, breaking off the welded shackles. It all begins at the 2:43 second mark in the video. On the way down the falling section took out one of the guy wires, causing the entire tower to come down. Bill T.
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That made me sick just watching them... I hate real high heights.. I clutch up so tight inside myself I can't breath and it paralyzes me.. I can't even imagine being up there let alone having my last minutes of life hurling to the ground.. Nightmare........
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That made me sick just watching them... I hate real high heights.. I clutch up so tight inside myself I can't breath and it paralyzes me.. I can't even imagine being up there let alone having my last minutes of life hurling to the ground.. Nightmare........
I'm the same way. 37,000 feet in a jet doesn't bother me in the least, but 2 stories up on a ladder and I'm scared to death. Most people die in falls less than 6 feet. World champion Formula 1 driver Michael Schumacher's mother died when she fell off a stool changing a light bulb. Her son drove over 200 MPH for over a decade, won 7 World Championships, and never got badly hurt. Falls kill more than any disease. Bill T.
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As a part of my former "Life" as an instructor and rescue specialist I dealt with what we called "High Angle Rescue." One of my favorite moves was to anchor myself high, 300 to 400 feet off the ground, hook into the figure 8 or rescue rack on the back of my harness, and walk face down on the structure surface until I reached the victim. I'm scared of heights, but the adrenaline rush of that move or going head first with the rope between my feet took all fear away!
As far as that tower climb ... I'm so fat and out of shape that I can't begin to see the fun ... However, my tummy is churning.
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That made me sick just watching them... I hate real high heights.. I clutch up so tight inside myself I can't breath and it paralyzes me.. I can't even imagine being up there let alone having my last minutes of life hurling to the ground.. Nightmare........
Sign me up!!!! Oh and can I base jump from the top? Hmm, probably get my chute caught in the guy lines huh. In August my friend and I went in to the Wind Rivers in Wyoming to climb the largest continuous rock face in the state. North Face of Mt. Hooker. We spent 3 days climbing and sleeping on the side of that thing. Nothing compares to the experience of sleeping on the side, and waking up 1600 from the ground. And the best part is the bears can't get to ya. ;)
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. And the best part is the bears can't get to ya. ;)
They CAN, they've just got more sense than to be up there. ;D
FQ13
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The back story on this... a guy posted, his buddys told him it was a bad idea. He took it down, some one else put it back up. He lost his job for failing to fallow safety guidlines.
Doing stuff like that is the one thing I miss about being a industrial painter.
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They CAN, they've just got more sense than to be up there. ;D
FQ13
My theory, if they CAN get to me there, they deserve the meal. :P
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The tower in the first video is just over 1/3 of a mile high. Think about that a moment. That's way too high for me. A one story house is about my liimit and I don't feel safe then. Especially if there's moss or leaves on the roof.
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Watching that video made my head swim. There is NO amount of money that would convince me to attempt that job. I'm not really afraid of heights, I can handle tall structures and working on roofs and such, but I am afraid of falling. Well, it's not really the falling that scares me, it's the sudden stop at the end. ;D
Swoop
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(http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm182/twyacht/codpiece_metal.png)
That was far-out, or far-up depending,.... :o
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Not afraid of falling but that sudden STOP terrifies me! LOL
Richard
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I used to work with a guy that did tower maintenance in his younger years. He said a 1,200' full climb, with bulb changes along the way, was an 8 hour, full day job, bottom to top and back. He said he got out of it before they started putting the elevators like on many of them like the one in the video.
I've never been afraid of heights myself, but the size of the platform under me has a lot to do with it too. Towers are not my game.
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The "moon towers" in Austin (think Slackers), are as close as I've come to that. Some bright soul in the 1890s decided that it would be cheaper to have centralized diffuse lighting rather than street lights. So these 12-15 story towers with a bulb changing platform were built. Of course, given the amount of drunk students in town, those platforms, well........ 8)
FQ13 Who was there for one hell of a party when they were shut down in '93. Still a cool piece of triva, and if every half drunk aspirant high school or college, (or Quaker :-[) "tower climber" gave you a buck? You could play serious poker with Donald Trump. ;D
FQ13
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Doing stuff like that is the one thing I miss about being a industrial painter.
I worked for Eddy, a Cousin of mine painting for a couple of years. We painted Water Towers, Bridges etc...
On morning a friend of Ed's walked in and asked Ed if he knew anyone who would help him for the day changing some bulbs and doing maintenence on a Radio Tower...Ed told him that I was the only one he knew crazy enough to do it. As it worked out, I happened to have a new Climbing/Rappelling harness I had just bought in my car. I spent the day atop a 330 ft tower...While not nearly the height or the same level of "Pucker Factor" as this climb....I enjoyed it.
I did have dreams of falling several nights in a row afterwards.
At the top of the 330 ft tower I worked on, there was as much as 12" of sway with a 20 mph wind...can't imagine what the movement would be like atop a 1768 ft structure.
Also worth mentioning...the American Medical Association reports that a fall from a height of a mere 30 feet is lethal 95% of the time....Anything above that height becomes just a mental game...
If you do happen to fall from a substantial height.....just remember this ....One and Half front Somersault then lay it out in the Pike position. Go for points on form and difficulty cause your only going to get one chance at this dive.
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I can't imagine how they paint the Golden Gate Bridge, or the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan. The weather is so foul in both places you would think they would never get done, and what they did wouldn't have enough time to dry with all of the rain, humidity, and fog. Bill T.
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I can't imagine how they paint the Golden Gate Bridge, or the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan. The weather is so foul in both places you would think they would never get done, and what they did wouldn't have enough time to dry with all of the rain, humidity, and fog. Bill T.
having done that, I can tell you exactly how its done. Sections are tented off, air handling/fliter units are put in place. its then sand blasted. primed and repainted. You then go to the next section. by the time you get done with that, you start over. The cables and the like are painted form a harness. never actually did that, but I've heard you get blown all over the place doing it. The worst part is tenting it off.
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I can't imagine how they paint the Golden Gate Bridge, or the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan. The weather is so foul in both places you would think they would never get done, and what they did wouldn't have enough time to dry with all of the rain, humidity, and fog. Bill T.
Don't know about the Mackinac, but the Golden Gate never gets done being painted. The paint crew works all year long and there is no end, because by the time they finish, it's time to start over, chipping and painting. It is certainly interesting to watch.
And, there is a marvelous level of job security.
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They say it takes 50,000 gallons, (Fifty Thousand Gallons), or paint to paint the Golden Gate. Bill T.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_paint_did_the_golden_gate_bridge_take_up
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I worked for Eddy, a Cousin of mine painting for a couple of years. We painted Water Towers, Bridges etc...
On morning a friend of Ed's walked in and asked Ed if he knew anyone who would help him for the day changing some bulbs and doing maintenence on a Radio Tower...Ed told him that I was the only one he knew crazy enough to do it. As it worked out, I happened to have a new Climbing/Rappelling harness I had just bought in my car. I spent the day atop a 330 ft tower...While not nearly the height or the same level of "Pucker Factor" as this climb....I enjoyed it.
I did have dreams of falling several nights in a row afterwards.
At the top of the 330 ft tower I worked on, there was as much as 12" of sway with a 20 mph wind...can't imagine what the movement would be like atop a 1768 ft structure.
Also worth mentioning...the American Medical Association reports that a fall from a height of a mere 30 feet is lethal 95% of the time....Anything above that height becomes just a mental game...
If you do happen to fall from a substantial height.....just remember this ....One and Half front Somersault then lay it out in the Pike position. Go for points on form and difficulty cause your only going to get one chance at this dive.
Good point. Climbers have 2 heights that they are very concerned with. 1st is the "death zone" which is anything above 8000 meters in altitude. The second is called the "dead zone". This is that 30' mark. As the prevailing attitude goes, anything lower than that, you'll probably come out ok with a broken ankle or something similar. Anything over 30' you're pretty much done anyway so there is no sense in worrying about it. But that 30' mark is where if you don't die, you know you're going to get severely messed up.
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I used to work with a guy that did tower maintenance in his younger years. He said a 1,200' full climb, with bulb changes along the way, was an 8 hour, full day job, bottom to top and back. He said he got out of it before they started putting the elevators like on many of them like the one in the video.
I've never been afraid of heights myself, but the size of the platform under me has a lot to do with it too. Towers are not my game.
I guess you pack your lunch.
Not likely there will be a pizza delivery and running to McDonald's for a burger and fries would be a pain.
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If you do happen to fall from a substantial height.....just remember this ....One and Half front Somersault then lay it out in the Pike position. Go for points on form and difficulty cause your only going to get one chance at this dive.
I was asked once what I would do, if while sky diving, both chutes failed to open.
I said I'd strip naked then guide for a swimming pool with a pool party going on and land into it.
You'd get a good chuckle on the way down thinking of all the confused people there would be in a few moments.
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I guess you pack your lunch.
Not likely there will be a pizza delivery and running to McDonald's for a burger and fries would be a pain.
I actually asked him about lunch on the job once. He said they had a canvas pouch hanging from the back of their belts and that they just carried their sack lunch in it. The light bulbs were in a bag also hanging off their backs so that they wouldn't bang into the tower and break. The harnesses they used allowed them to lock-in and sit stationary to work, rest, or eat.
The reason for the 8 hour time consumption, he said, was that they were also inspecting the tower joints and wiring on the way up. As a side note, the company he worked for also did the high voltage electrical tower inspections from helicopters. He said he tried his hand at that, but didn't care for it much.
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I actually asked him about lunch on the job once. He said they had a canvas pouch hanging from the back of their belts and that they just carried their sack lunch in it. The light bulbs were in a bag also hanging off their backs so that they wouldn't bang into the tower and break. The harnesses they used allowed them to lock-in and sit stationary to work, rest, or eat.
The reason for the 8 hour time consumption, he said, was that they were also inspecting the tower joints and wiring on the way up. As a side note, the company he worked for also did the high voltage electrical tower inspections from helicopters. He said he tried his hand at that, but didn't care for it much.
I think the difficulty isn't in eating luch. Its getting rid of it without getting arrested or shot by an offended passer by. ;D
FQ13