The Siren Board

gman 1 wrote:I hope this is for real, I wonder... What do you think would happen if this was just a joke?

We would get over it. I mean, you have to appreciate the thunderbolt's popularity and production run; its almost unmatchable really (except for the 2001). That's why I am not really concerned with it.

If this really is a proper follow-through, I don't think it'll be much more than a few older engineers from FS getting together on their own time, obtaining a scrapped Thunderbolt, restoring whatever original bits they decide to keep, and dropping in a few major upgrades here and there for the sake of experimentation. I'd love to see a 21st-century 'Bolt myself!

Even if it doesn't get much beyond a prototype that's basically a modified Thunderbolt that was removed from service, I'd still like to see pictures of what they come up with.

Don't really see what else could be updated besides a direct drive rotator. The basic rotational setup is still used on the 508 and 130.

Contrary to popular belief, they were not maintenance "hogs". Majority of them never received any maintenance at all and kept going.

Going with what holler is stating, Thunderbolts are basically the AK series rifle of the siren world. They can take a beating and still keep going.

I love how many times this has actually been discussed and had the same outcome every single time...

I'll believe it when I see it.

Okay I was holding off posting to this but I think I should say something: The thunderbolt probably won't ever be reproduced. Nice thought but it probably won't. A: they are a pretty easy siren to work on and can easily be recycled plus they still have most of the parts for them. B: In my "cooked" opinion (Meaning after sitting on it for a while and thinking about it.) I personally think that because it is an old, classic siren and the first of it's kind (Correct me if I am wrong.) I kind of think that it should be something only from that era. It, to me, makes them a bit more valuable in that sense. Just my $0.2.

Here's what I think:

Yes, the Thunderbolts are awesome, but from what I can tell, they are very mechanically and electrically complex when compared with other sirens. The only reason for this is that when the Thunderbolt was first made, It was probably the cheapest and simplest way to build a siren of that volume. Sometime in the '80s, I think FS realized that there was a cheaper and less complicated way to build a siren equal in volume to the Thunderbolt (2001 series).

Therefore, due to financial reasons, I do not think the T-bolt will live on (at least not the T-bolt we all know). But hey, at least T-bolts aren't as complex as those Hormann HLS pneumatic sirens!

I don't see the problem as the Thunderbolt being inherently inefficient but rather the parameters set for mass notification having been a little over the top during the days of the Cold War: you can't track and predict an impending nuke attack like a developing storm, and if danger was determined to be imminent there would've been a very limited time window to take action, and the 'Bolt was about as unmistakable of a purpose-built noise maker as one could get.
Aside from its bulk, I'd consider the Thunderbolt to be a pretty versatile platform; you don't have to hunt down a matching stator if by chance a spare rotor happens to be a different tone combo from what you expect, and save for a few other examples, you generally couldn't rig a siren up for hi-lo without sabotaging something. Of course there's obvious alternatives out there now, but look at how far composite and fiberglass had to have come first to cheaply render a siren with no blower more effective than an old supercharged monster with twice the total horsepower, hence the Hurricane's relatively sluggish sales as compared to the Thunderbolt. FS followed the most economical path to success rather than tinkering too much with techniques that were hit & miss or just too costly back then, and they still provided a package that for the most part was universal throughout the offered range. Can you swap a 2001 rotor with that of a 508 and expect it to run smoothly? Nope.
PS: I want a Hemi option on the new blower.

Well the thing is, if you put more air through it with a more powerful blower you will get a louder sound, thus makes a more powerful siren, but the only catch with that is requiring more power.

the big picture is that the possibilities are endless.