Over the years, it's become something of a Phoenix tradition. And, if past years are any indication, Rifley can expect to field several dozen phone calls and letters about the beloved antigravity elf during his six-week holding pattern over the midtown business plaza. Predictably, many of those communiques ask how in heck Santa gets off the ground each year. Whenever you start stringing cable across any distance at all, you're going to run into sag. Both ends of that cable would eventually be attached to shackles on two lines lowered from each tower, then cranked back up in synchronization by crew members using manual winches.
Guy wires minimize horizontal sway during winter gusts.
In fact, to the uninitiated, the scenario seems to have a lot more in common with Apollo 13 and Vertigo than a Yuletide episode of Home Improvement. Then again, most people don't make their livings stringing Santas from 17-story buildings, either. Sure, there's risk in any job. You just have to be careful about what you're doing. For as Santa was cranked into fixed orbit between the two towers, one crew member monitored the operation from the roof of a third high-rise across the street.