Yesterday I rode the two new direct drive lifts at Copper, the American Eagle and American Flyer. The American Eagle is the one where the gondola fell off late last year.
American Flyer just opened this month because of 'software issues' but I think it might actually have some flaws in the design itself. This lift seems to have way too much weight on the line. Apparently an issue with direct drive is that it causes
'more movement' when the lift is stopped. When the lift was stopped, near the bottom terminal chairs were rolling backwards and forwards a good 10-20 feet. At higher portions of the lift between longer tower spans, when the lift stopped the line would sag and chair would drop 10-20 feet, rebound upwards a good 10 feet and then again fall 20-30 feet, and continue to do this a few times. This happened to me twice on the chair though I was never in the middle of the towers where it was the worst. It was definitely the topic of discussion everytime I rode the chair. Someone said there was places where you could see that chairs had hit the ground, but I don't think that was true, though there was one area where the area under the chair was roped off even though we were quite a ways off the ground.
The American Eagle lift didn't seem to have this problem.
