Have there ever been any accidents/incidents at La Ronde that pyros can learn from?

There have been several VIMEs over the years, flowerpots as well and the occasional launching of shells due to lightning during setup. So far, there have been no injuries to crew or audience, though some people may have had ash/dust in their eyes from time to time (myself included).

Paul.

I remember Panzera last year, that was really powerful. It was an 8 inch break that broke in the mortar, it might have been far from the audience, but holy-cow it was loud!.

But there have been fires! I can name a few:

-IPON 2004 (finale).....why was the finale on the right anyhow? they should have done the entire ramp 1 & 2.
-Canada 2007 (finale)....which was defenatley one HELL of a finale!
-Portugal 2008 (finale).....I even have a video of it. [url=]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysOMHnRGFeU [/url]
-France 2008.... in the middle of the display, one roman candle hit the ferris wheel and another set fire to a tree...but it wasn't that much of an accident.
-U.S.A 2008 (finale)....the finale was too quick yet too powerful. But there were small fires from the bushes behind the mortars on Ramp 1.

Overall, no people were hurt in any display, like Paul said. Hope this remains the same.


Pat

The roof of the log flume ride was set on fire in 2000 by Eric Tucker in the opening show he did in conjunction with Panzera. Many times there are small fires on ramp 3 but a couple of times they have been big enough to burn all the way through the pontoon. Of course, when firing modules get destroyed by such fires it is pretty expensive.

Of course, there were the infamous problems during the 15 minutes before display-time for the Austin show in 2002 when shells were launched during testing (people think it was the lightning that was happening at the time that was the cause, this was not the case). Incidentally, the Austin team is banned by the AHJ (i.e. the Firechief) from appearing in the competition due to the problems they had in that display.

And here's what happens when we do have a VIME (violent in-mortar explosion) - this from Weco's show in 1998:

As for the "king of salutes" in the Panzera display last year, it didn't explode in the mortar, but at about 50' high. It was a hell of a bang though!

Paul.

My mistake. Indeed you are in fact right. Because the explosion from where I was, looked like it exploded right above Ramp 4 (the structure). And it was a hell of a bang! It really hurt alot of people with good hearing. My ear rung for about ten minutes due to that explosion. But it was still a nice display.

What shell was it in that mortar in the picture above? Wasn't it a 8" farfalle shell?

Pat

J'me rappelle en 2007 lors du feux de clôture de Panzera. Une bombe italienne avait détonnée en sortant du tube. la détonnation avec été tellement puissante que tout l'audience était bouchebée.

Je croit fort que c'était le bottom shot de la bombe qui en détonnant a initier tout le contenue de la bombes du premier coup. Puissant pareil!

J'était dans l'équipe de nuit parmis l'équipe d'artificier a l'époque. J'suis aller faire une inspection pour voir ce qui c'était passée.. il avait rien dutout. Même pas une craque sur le blast-shield! Faut croire que si elle aurait miner dans l'tube le cratère que sa aurait fait! o.O

Rappellont nous l'année dernière l'accident qui c'était produit lors de la destruction des pièces défectueuse. Une étoile avait entrée en contact a tout le stock d'artifice qui était stocké dans le camion non loins du site de destruction, par chance aucun blessée!

Jérôme