160’ away from the tree house is a walnut in the back yard.....I like to tell you I planned it this way -but the reality is that after building for a while I noticed the clear path to it and shot some elevations and a run that didn’t exceed the 1 foot drop per 25’ of run rule used by the boy scouts was possible. The only reason I used the boy scout standard is that it was the only one I could find and since I hadn’t heard of Boy Scouts dropping from trees a fairly reliable one at that!! A pulley runs on the cable and the chair is attached to that.

My initial searches on Flying foxes didn’t turn up much .......this it turned out to be was because Americans call them Zip Lines.

 

The cable is 3/8 galv aircraft cable. I used J hooks into the trees .A 12” turnbuckle and three ubolts at each end of the cable. The weakest link in the system is rated at just under 700lb....the cable is rated at over 10,000lb......it’s all pretty steady.

The most important thing about this is that the kids absolutely love it and it brings back memories of camp Iona at Herbert for me!!
 

UPDATE..

In 2005 I bought a CMI Rescue TROLLEY Pulley from ebay seller “sheenajz” and wish I had bought it the first time around...It’s smooth and quick and I couldn’t be happier with the service received......and it was the cheapest too.

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