exmouse

Finally I get round to adding a few photos from the show. Not got anyhting else to add from my original post so will leave you to browse the photos. I leave you with one of my favourite photos from Isla Magica. My collegue had just tripped over it too. Some exciting contruction currently underway at Isla Magica A facilites tour of Isla Magica Having a go on the prototype of Airballs. A model of a concept design for a SplashBattle ride. A very basic model of the new ride cocnept from Funtime. (The guys behind the StarFlyer) Model of the new launched coaster layout from Gerstlauer A model of the new dark ride concept from ETF. A modern take of the Herschell Looper this time from Hege. Riders press buttons to roll the cars forwards or backwards. The entrance to Fibes and EAS in Seville

When I saw it had flat track I commented how the hell do they bend that. After getting off my mate said "They can't".

I think it's suppose to be early 2008 but the marketing team want it to open on Halloween 2007. In any case I doubt it will be till the end of the year at the earliest.

I was really impressed by the drop tower at Isla Magica. It had the most wiiii sensation I've experienced on a drop tower before. It wasn't fast, it wasn't tall, it wasn't scary but it had huge amounts of losing your stomach. I'm not quite sure how as it was a very controlled tower, perhaps the seating angle was different and caused the higher sensation. Anyway the ride op was under the impression it was built by Maure Sohne.

Cheers for the advise guys. Was planning to learn the key phrases as like to be seen to be trying. Just wondered how I'd get on with only a few key phrases.

Or as I thought more worrying how many paedophiles will walk near small children to get them in shot. The idea of it being in a water park is a bit odd to me.

How do you guys cope with language barriers in countries like Japan and China. Do they speak English? Thinking of heading to Japan and plan to learn some basic Japanese so as not to appear totally ignorant but won't be an expert by any means. Just wondered how I'll cope. Oh and are McDonalds wide spread in Japan or should I fill my case with chips.

In fact scroll down half way and you'll find the robocoaster on track concept. http://www.coastersandmore.de/rides/iaapa2004/iaapa1_e.shtml

This is even worse http://www.billfryer.com/dsc/page2.html A couple of years later someone died taking part in a similar activity http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2510573.stm

There are plans for a robo coaster coaster. ie. a Robo coaster arm travelling along coaster track. Kuka were dsipalying it at IAAPA a couple of years back. I guess you could call this a 5D coaster.

At the Euro Amusement Show there was another company offering a similar product. They have already installed the system in a Dutch waterpark and a museum. So i guess Alton will be the first theme park but it won't be the first installation of it's type. This company uses an RFID bracelet to trace your movements. You can then either buy a DVD or download the video off the net. They suggest boosting the duration of the DVD with stock footage such as helicopter aerials.

Attended the Euro Amusement Show in Seville over the past couple of days. Here's some of the more interesting bits and pieces I picked up. Photos might follow later. Dopplymayr confirmed Vertigo WILL open in June at Walibi Belgium. They are over coming the issues of the cars communicating. They have also signed the contract to build another and have a couple of parks interested. Bear Rides are building the worlds longest flume ride at an unnamed park in China. It is over 1Km long, has a backwards drop, has 20m drop and the course of the ride has a 50m elevation change. Gosetto confirmed they are building the new haunted dark ride at Power Park in Finland. It is using the normal trains not the suspended style. ABC rides were showing off plans of the Legoland Windsor rapids. They also had a press launch of the river raft ride being installed at Vienna Prater Park. It has the fairly generic layout but is heavily themed telling the story of how water comes to Vienna from the mountains. Vice Mayor of Vienna said this is the start of the City's master plan to improve Prater Park with more substantial rides. They specifically want 3 new water rides. Airballs is a new attraction that has yet to be sold. It is in essence a giant pinball table where you ride the ball. The ball is like a flaoting flying saucer. The rider has joysticks which control the flippers on the table. The prototype on display at EAS was good fun but understandably small. The full size version will be 15m by 35m. The very latest development with this ride is the ability to run 2 balls at the same time and new 4 passenger cars to increase capacity. S&S Worldwide were showing off their new water rides. Aimed primarily at water parks as oppsoed to theme parks both attraction are drop towers. In both cases a gondola is suspended between two towers and shoots up and down. In the fitrst desing the gondola drops into a pond of water and the resulting splash shoots up and over the riders. In the second the ride is consturcted at the end of a alrge swimming pool, the gondola has a wedge shaped base. The result of it dropping into the water is large waves. So in effect tehw ride is a wave machine turning the swimming pool into a wave pool. Martin and Vleminckx were on hand showing off the Gravity Group desinged Boardwalk Bullet that they are currently contructing in Texas. Watching the on-ride simulation you can see this is going to be some woodie that packs a punch. It very quickly gathers momentum and never loses it. They have just had to modify the layout slightly due to issues that have arisen whilst construction is under way. Not major changes just little tweaks to get around the close proximity of buildings. Will post a reprot of the Isla Magica behind the scenes tour later.

Among Gosettos line up is a suspended ghost train. The transportation system is something akin to Dream Flight at Efteling. The first one they made was for a travelling showman. From the ocnept art I consruction photos I've seen it looke dpretty impressive. Perhaps the Power Park one will be suspended,. They do make standard ghost trains too.

That is the beauty of American television. Isn't it a case that the programs interupt the commercials in the States. This was an interesting documentary and no dobut another good piece of publicity for SFMM.

Too many rides on Mantis might explain why he is like he is today.

No doubt a stupid question. But why is he called Mantis Man and not Xcelerator man, or are they different people.

I think S&S towers are fun where as Intamin towers seem to be more pant staining scary. Apocaylpse stand-up at Drayton Manor is pretty scary but for me Scream at Heide PArk is the worst, I'm sure it goes through LIM boosters half way down as it seems to get an extra burst of acceleration. Perhaps there's just more grease in that area.

I expect physically it could be done although it would prove very costly as stations would need rebuilding. As has been pointed out the change in riding position will have an effect on the G Forces the body sustains. Going from Standup to sit down the head will move closer to the track by at least a foot which could cause issues. Once you get over the G Force issue you then have the problem of getting people on and off the ride. If you put a flyer train on a sit down track you now have the problem of how do people get on a ride that is now hanging below floor level, plus all the extra equipment required for putting the ride into fly position. You'd have the reverse prolbem of going from inverted to floorless, plus of course floorless needs the folding floor added. I'd say the only likely changes are from standup to sitdown, standup to floorless, sitdown to floorless, hyper to sitdown, hyper to floorless, flying to inverted and all vice versa. These options would at face value only require alterations in the form of new flooring and control gear plus modifications to rescue platform on lift hill. Realistically we're unlikely to see any changes of types of train, excluding the known Sheikra conversion.

A friend of mine bought one of these models and had it shipped to the UK without any damage at all, Royal Mail obviously didn't get their hands on it. He had a custom made glass cabinet made to house it and it's now his coffee table.

Robb why not add traffic to this video instead Much better quality as you can see the special effects more clearly.

Don't like the radio host element to the sound track. Can't really tell much from the video as to what the new effects are like but the music doesn't really suit at all. Really need to be something a bit more sci fi or dancey. It seems a poor mans retro fit rock n roller coaster. I love RnR with the Love in an Elevator train. Dropping off the mid course brakes with the line "going down" works so well.

The three juvenille rides will have hardly broken the bank. They would have paid peanuts especially as they were pruchased from a defunct park. They won't harm any chances the park has of buying a big ride in 2008. As for the dodgems that is a bit of a worry. The Southport ones were forever breaking. You'd put your foot to the floor and go nowhere until someone smashed into you and got you going. All you got was the old ride op lady shouting and screaming at you to press the pedal. Really they need a set of brand new cars. But they are hugely expensive.

I've got countless T-Shirts, pins and park maps. Blackpool Pleasure Beach Project 2000 advance ticket. (Valhalla) Grand National upstop wheel Southport Cylcone wheel Nemesis Inferno track bolt signed by John Wardley Pheonix track nail/pin S&S shot tower seat Piece of track from Scenic Railway at Margate Piece of wood from Ghsotrider Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk brass ring IOA opening day plaque The Boss opening day egg timer Superman Power Tower media day lanyard G Force media day keyring Excalibur media day lanyard Stitch Encounter opening day pin Intamin fleece Vekoma Cap/Tshirt Gravity group Tshirts Gerstlauer Cap/Laptop Bag Premiere Rides Laptop Bag

Not strictly true. There are 2 sizes of tapes. The mini DV tapes can be used to record DV and DVCAM. The large size of tape can be used to record DVCAM or DVCPRO but it depends on the manufacturing process of the tape and the camera as to which it records. You can buy expensive DVCAM mini DV size tapes that are a bit more durable to normal mini DV tapes but I've never noticed a significant improvement in quality to justify the added expense over normal mini DV tapes, these tapes also have the memory chip for storing shot details. DVCAM records at a slower tape speed than DV. This means that the 25mb/sec is recorded over a greater length of tape. So in theory is better quality. Some prosumer cameras such as the Z1, PD170, XM1, A1E use miniDV size tapes and can record in DV or DVCAM, so tape size is not a way to distinguish between the two. Other than tape speed the other difference is how much space on the tape is used for recroding the audio. I've not come across a pro camera that uses the larger size tapes that records in vanilla DV only DVCAM or on a Panasonic camera DVCPRO. DVCPRO has a few important differences to DVCAM. It records audio in analogue which has the advantage that when shuttling through your material you can actually hear the audio, with digitally recorded audio above 2X speed you usually don't. DVCPRO also uses a different chemical formulation. In terms of quality the 3 formats rank from bottom to top DV, DVCAM, DVCPRO. Other than the fact that DVCAM cameras usually have higher end chips and lenses to DV cameras you are unlikely to see much of a difference. You will notice a difference between DV and DVCPRO.

Here in the UK in the past I've bought cameras from http://www.actioncameras.co.uk/ and http://www.rfconcepts.co.uk/helmet_cameras.htm for projects with the BBC and ITV1. Generally the higher the line resolution the better the image quality.