[aspenmayer]

My school had one of those too. We also had swings with 15’ or more of chain. I remember regularly getting nearly parallel to the top bar of that during recess and bailing out and even doing backflips off of it.

There was a particularly dangerous piece of playground equipment that the kids called the “witch’s hat,” which was a 15’ or so tall round central metal pipe maybe 3-4” in diameter, which had a cap on the top that could freely spin. Attached to the cap were maybe 12 10’ chains attached, which linked to a giant octagon or decagon made out of 1-2” or so straight pipe sections which were fitted together in angle brackets. It was essentially an inverted merry go round which you would need a few kids on opposing sides to operate, all running in the same direction. It would cause a kind of wave as the weight distribution shifted as kids were lifted off the round while hanging on, and then your side would come back down and you would hit the ground running while hanging on for dear life.

Some kid flew off and broke their collarbone and they ended up soft-banning it except when the teachers weren’t looking, and eventually they decommissioned it. It was a sad day on the playground when that happened.