I want one.
A high speed chair does NOT shorten time in the lift line on a busy day. It actually makes the time you stand at the bottom LONGER when you could be sitting on a slower moving chair. Two quad chairs side by side, one detachable and one fixed grip move the same number of skiers up at roughly the same load and unload rates.. but the detachable has fewer chairs, spaced farther apart, moving up faster, shorter ride. Fixed grip has more chairs on the cable, i.e. more people sitting down where the detachable has fewer chairs for people to sit in and more people stacked up at the bullwheel waiting for fewer, but faster moving chairs.
Now, on a not so busy day the detachable will get you a LOT more laps in a shorter amount of time. But when there is a line backed up, the only detachable that is faster are the ones with more seats on each chair.
I'd rather sit on a slow chair riding up than stand at the bottom in a packed corral waiting for a faster chair.
@Doug BriggsThat is an interesting observation. The load rate of chairs is specified by the local tramway authority. In CO, you can't load chairs any quicker than one every 6 seconds. So given the same size chair, your wait in the line won't change regardless of lift. You'll get to the top quicker, once you load, with a detach.
If (emphasis on IF) it's one chair every six seconds, the chair spacing is irrelevant to wait time.
I may be a mathematical idiot, but it's four people getting off each chair every six seconds, as well as getting on.
Obviously, if the detachable loads every eight seconds compared to every six for the fixed-grip, things change.
@crgildart, sorry but no it does not.
Four hundred people in each line, four people board every six seconds; after 10 minutes, all 400 people have boarded lift and the lines are empty; nobody waited longer in the detachable line, although the people in the fixed-grip line spent more time riding. Extrapolate out to 4,000 people, or 40,000, but the wait gets no longer for the detachable. The number of chairs on the cable isn't a factor; the load interval is.
So, there are times when I would rather be waiting in line a bit longer and then whisked up to the top of a lift at a faster rate. Wind and cold temperatures contribute to this. While the rope speed of a fixed grip chair is less than detatchable quads or 6-packs, the fixed grip is still moving at a rate of speed that increases the impact of the wind and/or snow pelting the skiers/boarders. Standing around for a few minutes longer at the bottom, often more protected from wind, is not a bad thing.