lucazferrazCBMR

They did duel in the beginning. it was prettty cool.

Thank the corrupt Brazilian Workers Party and Dilma Rousseff for crashing the Brazilian economy It doesn't have anything to do with politics. Shouldn't talk about what you don't know

Trust me: this is this paint. The steel is pretty thick and can be easily repainted. The controls, motors and trains are stored in a wearhouse. The cost to rebuild the coaster including refurb, repaint and electrical is estimated in 5M USD.

The ride remains OTG for now. The park is under a major refurbishment since they signed a contract with DreamWorks. A new Madagascar area will open in october 2013, then a Shrek area will open on march 2014 and the Chiller is scheduled to open by the end of 2014.

Hey Jray, nice trip report! It is always good to have a foreign look at our parks. I really like Hopi Hari and one of the reasons is exactly the resemblance with Six Flags Parks. When they started designing the park, it was supposed to be called "Playcenter Great Adventure" (Playcenter was original owner of Hopi Hari). That was before de whole "new country" theme. The park CEO is a huge fan of Six Flags and I believe he does all he can to make the park look as much as possible to those. Although the original design was actually based on Paramount King's Island, if I'm not mistaken (Tower Eiffel, anyone?). About the comments on the brazilian coaster club (I happen to be their president, so I can't just ignore those): Some people get really upset everytime a foreign makes any criticism about Brazil. I believe we're so used to have people believing that we live in tents and ride on the back of apes to go to work that we sometimes over react well-explained comments. Also some of them might have been slightely changed on translation so lost a little of their original meaning. So please, accept my appologies. I hope that you can come back here by the end of 2013. I would love to join you to ride Hopi Hari's 10 inversion and take you to Beto Carrero World to ride also the Chiller. Also if you want to talk about brazilian parks, I will be attending to IAAPA next week and I'll definitely love to have a coffe and discuss better your opinion. All the best, sorry for the long reply, Lucas

I spent 45 days at NJ preparing the Chiller to be sent to Brazil. Hopefully we'll see it running again soon. It was a fun job!

I worked at the Chiller back in 2002 during a work experience program and I worked with company that sold the coaster to Beto Carrero World. I spent 45 days in NJ puting the pieces in containers to ship them to Brazil. Sorry to say this, but the in-line twists are gonne. I would have brouht them if I could. About the LIM motors: we did not test them yet, but most of them are supposed to be working, since they were stored in a warehouse, protected from the weather. But it is gonna take some time before you see the coaster running again. There is a looooot of work to be done on the electric panels and power station, besides, Beto Carrero World is focusing on their Madasgascar and Shrek new areas right now. I'm guessing we'll only be able to ride the Chiller again by late 2013, but still in time for the FIFA World Cup.

Yes, it is a real video, no "photoshop" except for the tilt shift and speed effect. It is a very beautiful park, which makes it easier for the camera.

Good evening, TPR! I heard you like tilt shift videos.. Well, this a tilt shift video showing one day of Beto Carrero World theme park in the south of Brazil. Hope you enjoy it.

Just that end seat had the clearance issue. Hopi Hari usually do not operate all 5 sections. Normally they keep section 1 stoped up at the top of the tower. Don't really know why...

well, that seat was not supposed to be loaded. He was supposed to keep running the ride. The only reason maintenance was on the way was to lock again the restraint. Meanwhile, if the operator had done his job of not letting anyone in that seat, the girl would be alive. I've been a ride op in a major US theme park and I've done that several times...

That seat had beeing closed for 10 years, since they found out a taller person, sitting overthere, would hit the scenery around the tower with his foot (that's what the park's attorney said, actually confirming an old urban legend). so I guess they just didn't do maintenance on it. Also accoarding to the attorney, the restraint was supposed to be locked down, so no one would sit on it. Questions that must be asked: Why did not the park seal that restraint? Why was the restraint unlocked that day? Why, even though the operator knew the seat was broken, he let her ride there? Why, even though the girl's mother warned him about the lack of the seat belt, he let the girl ride?

Jesus Christ! That's really scary! The thing is: The police inspected, at first, the wrong seat. That's why they didn't find any mechanical problem. Then, they realized the girl was seating in an out-of-order seat and took a new look at the ride. That restraint used to be lock all the time. For some reason, that day, it was unlocked. So the operator called his supervisor and said "the forbidden seat is unlocked" to wich, the supervisor replyied "ok, I'll the maintenance. Keep the ride running". (this is on the police information, I'm not making it up). Well, if the operator new that seat was forbidden and maintenance was on the way, why the hell, did he let the girl seat overthere? That is the question that must be answered.

The police technicians released the first update on the Hopi Hari accident. They didn't find any mechanical failure on the ride. Now they are investigating human failures. Still, they have a huge question to answer: how did the girl fall if the restraint is working properly? The final report on the investigation will be released in 30 days.

I just talked to another park that owns an Intamin Drop Tower. The seat belt is required by Intamin. The ride operator is supposed to check every restraint and seat belt, yes. But he might not have done that. even in US, I've been to several parks where operators just don't care about checking restraints.. I'm really looking forward to the results of the investigation.

Even on automatic mode, it could run with restraints open. The girls' mother said in an interview that she asked her daughter "is your restraint locked" and the girl answered yes and forced the restraint and it was locked. But still, no operator checked it. As far as I know, the seat belt is not mandatory, just recomended. Still, once the park does adopt the seat belt, I don't think they should run that seat if it doesn't have one. Even if everything runs fine, it still doesn't look good.

The ride op presses only one buttom to lock/unlock the restraints, but the system locks and unlocks each one of them individually, actually. There are, in fact, 8 lock systems for each gondola: two independent systems for each seat. Yes, the ride has lap belts between the passenger's legs conecting the OTSR to the seat.

If she was an average 14-years-old girl - She was Japanese. Japanese girls are usually skiny, I believe. Asian physical type is usually skiny, I believe. Sensors: there are none. The ride go up and down with the restraints completely open if wanted.

This is an old video. The restraints are now black and they DO have seatbelts...

Guys, I'm a mechanical engineer and I've done maintenance before in an Intamin Drop Tower in aonther park in Brazil. These restraints use gas pistons to lock. There are two independent pistons for each restraint. Once the seats reach the ground, the electrical conection touches the electrical source, powering the valves to open, releasing the gas and unlocking the restraints. That means with the gondola out from the ground, the valves cannot open (they're closed by default) and therefore the restraint cannot unlock. If both pistons fail, there a seatbelt connecting the restraint to the seat. That said, you probably figured out already that in order to the restraint to open with ride moving, it is necessary that 3 safety systems fail. I find it very unlike that all three systems have failed - even why I do know the maintenance at Hopi Hari and I do know that it is properly done in a daily basis. So I go to the human fail. I believe the girl rode the ride with the restraint loose. She wanted to go upper from the seat when dropping. The error was the operator not checking it. So, when the ride reached the breakes and slew down, she slept between the restraint and the seat (if the restraint was too high, she probably didn't buckle the seat belt either...

It's a pretty good park. Yes, it has a cable lift system that speeds the train up to about 30 miles and hour at the top.

^I hope they have at least these modifications. Otherwise, the layout would be exactly the same as Monte Makaya except that with 2 extra barrel rolls. And I don't think we should have two identical coasters in a country where we only have 50 coasters in total...

^yes. It is a new-generation 10-inversion Intamin. Cable lift. The layout hasn't been shown by the park. Altough they say it's new generation, people's been speculating it has the same layout as Colossus, at Thorpe Park and the only difference is the cable fast-speed lift. Hopefully they will show the official layout soon.

Unfortunately I don't have news from Ekatomb neither Crazy Wagon. They both remain out of service.... The good news is that the park confirmed a new Intamin roller coaster for 2012. They didn't give much details nor unveiled the layout. All we know is that the coaster in being manufactured right now and Armando (Hopi Hari CEO) and Stefan (Chief Engineering) are going to Europe next week to check on the parts painting. The first parts shipment is planned to arrive at the park on mid october. The site construction starts in a couple weeks. According to the park, this is going to be the longest and tallest roller coaster in South America (considering the coasters in operation, which means not counting Mirabilandia's GIB - still OTG - and Parque De La Ciudad's Vertigorama, which never opened to the public). The still unnamed coaster will have it's debut to the public in March 2012.

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