tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4912713243046142041.post6545585719352025509..comments2024-03-27T18:20:38.176-05:00Comments on TYWKIWDBI ("Tai-Wiki-Widbee"): A device for escaping from burning skyscrapersMinnesotastanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01382888179579245181noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4912713243046142041.post-42424671010564913192009-05-26T21:52:58.567-05:002009-05-26T21:52:58.567-05:00So easy even Grandpa can do it!So easy even Grandpa can do it!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4912713243046142041.post-71915014944187526912009-05-26T17:12:47.098-05:002009-05-26T17:12:47.098-05:00In an earlier incarnation, I was a wind-turbine en...In an earlier incarnation, I was a wind-turbine engineer. If something really bad happens in a wind-turbine, which is, at the top, an environment packed with high torque spinning steel, high voltages, hot gear oil, extremely high pressure hydraulic oils etc, all at the top of a steel tower, with high voltage electrical cabinets in the base, if something really bad happens, a slow climb down several stages of internal ladder may not be fast enough, or that route may be too hazardous to enter.<br />So in our machines, there were several hatches, one at the rear, normally used for uphaul of parts, oil drums, and tools. Above it, a steel gantry with a heavy duty ring-bolt. Beside the hatch, on the wall, was a rack with an escape device. You hook the escape reel onto the ringbolt, with a fast locking carabiner, drop the coil of rope out of the hatch, strap the belt around you, or clip it onto your safety harness, sit on the hatch edge... And jump into the void.<br />As you fall, a brake in the reel controls your speed, and the previously dropped rope coil spools upward, on its end, another belt. So, as you make your touchdown, the belt arrives ready for the next guy.<br />Which the skyscraper device doesn't seem to do.<br /><br />Picture the scene in a burning skyscraper. Mild mannered Mr Cautious, as pictured in your post, always something of a butt of office jokes, is not running about screaming like his colleagues, the elevator has gone, the stairs are crowded and full of smoke, the fit and angry are pushing their way through, trampling on the weaker folk. tempers are flaring. Mr Cautious uses his chair to smash out a window, hauls a bag out of his desk drawer, wraps a strop around a concrete pillar, starts to put his harness.......<br />What happens next? Do his colleagues take a break from screaming, and wish him well? Or does the big young guy from sales club him senseless and spool out of the window, laughing?<br />The device sounds quite good, but I'd feel a little better about it if it could be re-used. Or if everybody had one.<br />It seems we accept that our high rise buildings need no safe escape procedure, we see no parallel to the Titanic, a ship that was never going to sink, therefore it did not need a full complement of lifeboats.<br /><br />At $1500 per high-rise occupant, there are $billions to be made.<br />Despite WTC, the safety of skyscrapers is pretty good. <br /><br />Myself? No. I would not choose to work in a vertical ant-farm anyway.soubriquethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01151288534629885195noreply@blogger.com