willski
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Posts posted by willski
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On the other hand, it'd really be nice if Intamin could build lap restraints that worked as well as B&M's for a wide® range of body types.
At the risk of putting smaller riders in danger? No thanks. If you weigh too much, sucks for you, you can help it and lose weight to ride the ride. Now, if you're a 48" kid, you can't help the fact that you are short and probably (although in today's world, not as much) skinny as a rail. If they change the restraints to accommodate larger people, smaller/shorter people won't be able to ride. The height restrictions would raise, and you might even see minimum size limits on coasters, which is unfair to people who are not overweight ("normal" sized people, at least before the majority of our society became overweight).
Oh yeah, the European Intamins have longer belts. At least Goliath at WW did.
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^You might not be able to find one at the Publix in Savannah, just because it's so far from SFoG that not many people would buy them. But you never know.
If you can't go on a Sunday, my advice is to go as late into September as possible (in fact, if you go the first weekend in October, there will be almost no lines).
The lines shouldn't be too terribly bad on a Saturday as long as you go once Atlanta schools are in session (usually they start around August 8-10). Also, definately do not go on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend-it will be like a Saturday in July, which is miserable.
You shouldn't need a Q-bot or whatever they call them now, your longest waits will be Deja Vu and maybe S:UF at around 45 minutes to an hour. Goliath never gets more than 30-40 minutes as long as they have a decent crew running it.
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I hear Beast is nothing special.
I'll have you know that Beast is my #3 coaster. That's even ahead of Voyage.
Ahahaha, Number #3, haha.
The Beast is nothing special. It's really quite pointless now with the magnetic trims. Just a ride through the woods with brakes every 1500 feet or so. To be honest, I liked recaR and the kiddie wooden coaster more than The Beast.
And the funniest part is the sign at the entrance that claims that "enthusiasts from all over the world recognize The Beast as a top 10 wooden roller coaster." Are you kidding me? The ride is this:
-Lift
-Drop with brakes (no airtime and slow)
-Turn
-Hill
-More brakes
-Slow drop
-Turn
-Long straight with brakes at the end
-Boring turns, hills, and tunnels with no speed (caused by brake)
-Former airtime hill that now has an anti-rollback strip at the top because the speed was greatly lowered by the brakes.
-Lift
-Straightaway into double helix with brakes
-Neutered double helix
-End of ride
It's really just a scenic ride through the woods.
Anyway, back on topic, GL was really dead when I was there (June 5th, a Tuesday with cold and cloudy weather). It's almost depressing when you enter a park and there are more employees than guests. I'd give it 2 or maybe 3 more years before it fails and all the rides are shipped off to other CF parks. Maybe Carowinds will get Dominator...
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What a great trip report! I am so glad you posted this! My friends and I are planning a trip there for later this summer (August/September) and none of us has ever been. It sure looks nice! I grew up at Cedar Point, so all parks have a LOT to live up to for me.
Did you have a pass, or did you purchase tickets there? Just curious-I heard about a VIP card you can get at Georgia Welcome Centers that gets you in for $30 instead of the $45-$50 it normally is, but I haven't heard of anyone actually getting and using one.
Most excellent report!
Go to any Publix in Georgia on your way to the park. Your location says Hilton Head, so any Publix between Augusta and Atlanta on I-20 should have discounted SFoG tickets. I think they are $26.99 or $27.99. Either way, it's a pretty good deal, sine the gate price is almost double that ($49.99).
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I rode your mom in her inaugural season.
/win
2007- Maverick, Firehawk
2006- El Toro
Apart from Goliath, S:UF, and Scorcher at my home park, that's it.
I've missed a lot by one year or it was closed. TTD, Air, SheiKra, Kraken, Borg, KK etc.
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The flashpass is never accurate. I've had it give me 2 hour waits when the line was only an hour and I've had it give me five minute waits when the line was 1/2 hour. I think it depends on how many other people are using the flashpass and determines the wait from there. How else would they guage it?
The lines get longer on the FlashPass as the day goes on, no matter what happens with the actual lines.
Thus, going to the park from 2pm-8pm and getting a FlashPass is a waste of money, because the FlashPass line will be longer than the actual line (for the most part). This is how they are able to claim "FlashPass guests wait in line just as long as regular guests." The Flash virtual queues are less than 10-15 minutes for the first two hours (which is really 5-10 minutes since you can come 5 minutes early). Then, they get longer and longer, so the average time spent in a virtual line evens out with the average time in a real line.
For example, Deja Vu's queue at SFoG is usually 45 minutes to 90 minutes depending on a variety of factors. However, from about 10-12, the virtual queue will be anywhere from 6-15 minutes. Later in the day (around 5pm), the virtual line will be 2 to 2.5 hours, while the real line will be 1/2 to 1/3 of that.
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^Even though you are probably joking, "they" is the railroad company, and the kids are being killed because they are playing on the tracks and the horn is blared too late. Or, they are standing too close to the train and get hit by something sticking off of the train.
Was joking...
They're probably more likely to get killed by the "third rail" than the train if Chicago's metro is electrically based.
Anyway, clever-ish commercial. I couldn't really see what they were doing at first, but it ended up being pretty cool.
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They've killed four or five kids in the last two years for stuff like this.
Who is "they", the kid's parents? The police? Big brother?
Is playing on railroad tracks a capital offense in Chicago now?
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^Ummm....maybe you got the two mixed up.
Cyclone is the twister woodie at the front of the park that opened in 1990 and has amazing ejector air.
GASM is the out-and-back woodie towards the back of the park that opened in 1973. It has a few moments of decent to good floater air, but certainly nothing amazing.
Also, the problem with the drop tower at SFKK was simply a freak accident, not to mention the fact that the rides are entirely different, with different vehicles and lift systems.
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Assuming that the original speed was 15 mph and the new speed is 5 mph, that would mean that there's a loss of 10 mph throughout the whole ride.
Errmmmm...no. Vf2=vi2+2ad, but if the new wheels improved the train's momentum, it is possible that the ride is completing its course faster than before. Both the new "improved" wheels and that formula show that the initial speed is not as big of a factor as many of the posts in here would lead you to believe.
oh, and lol @ the teenage physicists thinking the change in final velocity is equal to the change in initial velocity. If it was that easy, maybe I would have done better in physics, and stuck with engineering.
"yay, I R FSICS"
Seriously though, if they really did manage to get wheels with bearings that are more suited to maintaining speed, the first drop may not be the exact same, but the following hills (especially on the back run and the RT hill) would be as fast or faster than before. And the twister portion might have airtime instead of dying like it did last year.
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PKI was fine with it on most every ride.
On Italian Job (separate load/unload), they made my dad wear his backpack on his chest, but it was no big deal.
The only other coaster with separate load/unload is Flight of Fear, and they have a special area to drop bags so they can be picked up from the unload station. Just ask an attendant and they'll point it out to you.
Every other ride at PKI has provisions for loose articles
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Yeah, as of a few weeks ago, they are really inconsistent, but if you are firm and persuasive they will allow cups in all lines except MF and TTD (we had ours from PKI earlier in the week-they honored these). I say TTD because it was iffy as to whether you could bring the cups in line or not. No employees seemed to be clear on what was okay as far as cups go.
We rode TTD twice, and once we had a new employee who had been given instructions a few seconds prior to us walking up to be "very strict" and the other time we had a lax employee. We got through with the cups once and were stopped once. When we got to the station, we passed them over the railing to my mom, who wasn't riding.
Maverick has two train slots, but load and unload happen simultaneously. It's a lot like SheiKra's load system.
They'll allow smaller loose articles (hats, glasses, keys, etc.) if you have a cargo pocket. That said, good luck getting a souveneir cup into a cargo pocket. I'd advise people going on the trip to buy the cups only if they're going to drink a TON, because they'll have to figure in locker fees ($1?2? don't remember how much it was) each time they ride MF or TTD, thus significantly lowering the discount gained by getting those cups.
Hope that helped...
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^^^The cable drops with the car, unless it gets stuck on something, which is another possibility.
The cable would continure to fall with the car, until the car began braking. Even then it shouldn't rip her feet off, as the cable is only going 60 mph, which is fast, but fast enough to do that.
It could have gotten stuck on something, and the falling car vs. a stuck cable would definately have ripped her feet off.
Yeah I completely understand what you're saying.I'm just wondering how much weight (obviously 1/3) but how much actual weight each cable supports as it is being pulled up. I'm sure the cars are quite heavy to be able to attain an exciting speed during the drop.
So you've got this really heavy car suspended from three cables. Obviously the cable snapped quickly, meaning that 1/3 of the force of the weight of the car would have been in that cable when it snapped, because it snapped to quickly for the other two to take over the extra force, and therefore didn't have time to negate the force of that cable.
In other words, say the car weighs 700 pounds with four passengers. So approximately 233 pounds is being supported by whatever cable broke. If the cable snapped slowly enough, the other two cables would negate the downward acceleration this cable would receive, but it snapped quickly, meaning that it had the force of 233 pounds of tension, causing it to accelerate.
In other other words, it would have been better to just have one cable instead of three.
Yeah, that does make sense. It just depends on the other two cables ability to pick up the tension instantaneously, which I'm not sure if they would (we didn't exactly cover Intamin ride cables snapping in AP Physics).
If so, then that is a ton of force in addition to gravity, possibly enough to sever the feet.
I still think it happened on the drop, but it could've happened either way.
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Maybe I don't understand what you're saying, and maybe you don't understand what I'm saying, so I'll try to explain myself better.
I think the cable itself snapped. Not at any attachment point, but the cable itself snapped. If it had snapped at an attachment point, yes, the entire cable would have been jerked up, and the reaction of the car moving down would have obviously been negated by the other two cables and/or the locking mechanism at the top of the tower. The cable that did the damage had to be outside the tower at the time.
If the car is near the top, very little of the cable is outside of the tower. If the cable itself snapped, however, there would be downward force from the force of gravity pulling on the car, and upward force from the motor pulling the car to the top, the downward force from the car would cause the little bit of cable from whichever cable that snapped to violently snap downwards, because suddenly the entire force of gravity pulling the car down is suddenly being put into that one short cable.
I understand what you mean, and it makes sense to me now, except the last part that I highlighted. The force of gravity on the cart is negated by the normal force exerted by the lifting mechanism. The only force acting on the broken cable would be gravity, which would not accelerate it to the speed necessary to slice off a limb.
Think of it like this:
Cable 1 and 3 don't break.
Cable 2 snaps, but tension from lifting mechanism and car are equal, so cable simply breaks in the middle with no speed up or down.
Starting from rest at the break point, Cable 2 falls, accelerating to a speed that would cause a nasty friction burn or possibly slight cut, but certainly nothing that would remove a limb.
I think the cable had to be from another vehicle on the tower or the cable broke on the ascent and ripped her feet off on the way down.
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^At this point, they're beyond the realm of engineering and more in the "guess and check" area. They'll have to add some weight to the trains to complete the circuit, which defeats the purpose of the new trains and removing the loop in the first place (less wear on track). Haha, Kings Island, you make me laugh.
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So you're somewhere near the top, and the break happens. For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. The upward tension on the cable that broke would have caused a reaction of a quick downward movement, causing it to come down past the catch car, around the edge of the rider car, and in just the right place to reach the girl's legs. Now of course these cables are moving pretty fast because they are under such high tension, meaning that flesh and bone is nothing to it.
No, the cable would snap upward due to the tension, and that's what makes the least sense to me.
If they were really at the top and the cable snapped (assuming high tension), it wouldn't be able to reach the girl's leg, which would have been 10-15 feet below the attachment point. It would come to rest at or above the attachment point (especially if it had curled). I think a cable on another car snapped and wrapped around her legs, possibly mid-fall. This would also support eyewitness reports that the cable came around behind her legs (althought those are most likely inaccurate).
Either way, I hope they were able to reattach her feet and that she will have a full recovery.
And finally, a rides department supervisor who I am personally close to cleaned up the mess, including the removal of blood and limps, as disturbing as it sounds.
Kevin Conley
Not to discount what you heard, but I'm fairly certain that they would not have left her detached feet on the ride platform. They would have been placed over ice or some other preserving substance so they could be rushed with her to the hospital to be reattached.
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^I was going to say, looks like you missed the best coaster in the park.
Top Gun really is the one redeeming reason to visit Carowinds, because Borg is the worst of the flying coasters (B&M and Vekoma).
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Honestly, what was Paramount thinking when they authorized this purchase?
$25 million dollars for a wooden roller coaster with no great features-minimal airtime, several giant, boring helixes, and a ton of uneventful track. The only slightly redeeming feature was the loop. Essentially, PKI spent $25 million on a loop.
They then removed the loop.
Now what?
Honestly, think of what $25 million buys:
3 Voyages
MF
2 El Toros
TTD
An enormous B&M anything with some cash to spare
I think it is safe to say that this was the worst investment in theme park history. Even if the ride hadn't been rough, there was really no hope, since the track design has no airtime hills (or more accurately, no hills that produce airtime).
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Timbers- 14 times
Nothing else in the park is worth staying for....
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When did you go? I went almost two weeks ago and I don't think I exaggerated at all. The trims were on bad. Didn't get to ride Apollo in the back row because we had enough with one ride, heh.
Well, there's your problem.
You really can't judge a decent/good ride based on a single ride in a single row. You really need to ride in a variety of rows to make an accurate judgement. AC is a really great ride in the back few rows, and also the front.
Honestly, I don't understand how someone can ride once in a middle row and say, "That ride sucked." They didn't even experience the ride in the best row, let alone ride it more than once or twice. Personally, I try to ride "good" rides at least 5 times in a variety of rows-more if possible.
Of course, there are the rides that are so bad they're not worth riding again (El Condor and Ninja come to mind).
Alpengeist sure is ageing, it used to be SO smooth, its starting to get rough and starting to bang you around pretty bad.But I still love that ride.
Ummmm.....Alpengeist was never all that smooth. The invert wheels/assemblies do not like those speeds and have always vibrated pretty badly. In some rows, the train shuffles through the Immelmann and generally beats you up. I only ride in the front and back, the other rows are unbearable.
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I was wondering if anyone else had experienced such large crowds at Holiday World?
-James Dillaman
Well, assuming you went this past Saturday, I went a week and six days before you on a Sunday, not knowing really what to expect.
Raven ran one train, which at first created a huge line after the opening mad dash. Later in the day, it was running 1/2 to 2/3s empty trains, and I rode it several times in a row.
Legend ran two early, then had some problems and went down to one. With two trains the line started on the stairs to the station (no switchbacks), and with one train, the line was about the same.
The Voyage started out with what I thought was a pretty big line (2/3s of the underground queue full), but even with two trains, the line moves quickly. We went to eat at Plymouth Rock, and when we came back, the shortcut had been opened up and the line was in the station, where it remained for the rest of the day, allowing me to get 30 rides on the Voyage before leaving at 6:30.
The waterpark really drained people out quickly, and for the most part, the rides section had shorter lines than any of the waterslides.
Oh, and where Plymouth Rock Cafe was a highlight of your day, it was the least favorite part of my day, because the food was really not very good at all (What is up with that gravy?...blech). Decent meal for a decent price, but certainly nothing special. Plus, riding the Voyage is much better than eating anyway (you can tell I'm not an ACEr, haha).
Overall though, Holiday World was my favorite park of my trip (HW, PKI, GL, CP, MiA), because of the Voyage and free drinks. You really don't fully appreciate the free drinks when you first hear about them, but on a hot day, they're a godsend. And then you really appreciate them the next day at PKI when you're baking on the asphalt and a Gatorade is $3.50.
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At least someone understood...
Really, you think that the rest of the ride which probably averages 2G's and 65-75mph featuring very little airtime or positive G's is that great a layout?
If I wanted to go really fast Id go ride Dragster. The only real thrill to MF is that drop and the overbank is rather nice.
What puzzles me is how people like Mf over a ride like Maverick. Maverick beats it in every single category other than height and speed. Airtime, amount of airtime, transitions, intensity, positive G's, lateral G's, list goes on. Mf's drop is good, but the rest of the ride is typical of a large ride - uneventful. Its not even a top tier ride in my eyes. I cant think of a single good moment coming back into the station other thant he bunny hill by the station but that lasts 1 second at most.
Plus, considering I could build probably 2 Mavericks with all the steel that MF gobbles up...
You summed my feelings up perfectly. Last time I went to CP (2003), I thought MF was the best coaster in the world, hands down. Of course, at that point my coaster count was around 50, and I hadn't ridden that many great coasters. My count is now 120, and I was seriously underwhelmed by MF. There are simply no forces after the drop and overbank. The only air hill that has any substance to it is the final one-the middle two deliver a mixture of floater and no airtime, while the helix and overbanks are boring and forceless. It's really just a "blah" ride that became popular/famous entirely because of its height and speed. In my own personal rankings, I would put Voyage, Goliath (SFoG and WW), Apollo's Chariot, and Maverick over MF in a heartbeat.
Maverick, on the other hand, does not have the gimmick of great height and speed, forcing it to be a great coaster to gain any sort of recognition. Instead of a tall, fast, and forceless ride, Maverick delivers insane airtime, great whippy transitions, a very cool LSM lift and launch, and two inversions with great hangtime. Tack some decent theming on top of that, and it is certainly the best coaster at CP.
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Basically it's a bunch of splines in a CAD program. The splines are generated by mathematical formulas by a program like Maple (actually, the program used is Maple...), which also calculates forces.
You then have a CAD drawing that you can use to generate site plans/blueprints for ride contruction/fabrication and you have a roller coaster! Of course, that's a very, very simplified version of what actaully happens.
You can see how this is useful in designing a coaster:
http://www.maplesoft.com/products/Maple11/professionals/index.aspx
and
http://www.maplesoft.com/engineering_design/index.aspx
Check out the first demo in the second link. Amazingly powerful stuff...
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My point was that a ride that only performs in it's top caliber, like you said "at night" just can't be, IMO, a #1 coaster, because it's inconsistent.
That's how it is with traditional wooden roller coasters (by that I mean not plug-n-play). They speed up as the day goes on and for a variety of other reasons. Now, you may say that you want consistency, but it is simply not possible with traditional designs. This is why I agree with Real that Plug-n-Play woodies are not so much a traditional wooden coaster, but rather a steel coaster designed in wood.
Think about it:
Prefab:
-Laser-cut, layered wood (cut by a computer/robot)
-Poly-u or related derivative running wheels
-Heartlined track
-Cannot be easily modified or retracked-requires computer-cut sections for retracking.
All of those characteristics are the same as an Intamin steel coaster, with the single exception being that the medium is wood and not steel. Due to this design, track requires minimal maintenance (no grease, no retracking), essentially providing wooden coaster looks with the ease of maintenance and smooth ride of a steel coaster.
On the other hand...
Traditional:
-Track assembled from raw lumber on support structure by specialized workers
-Track not heartlined (for the most part and certainly not as well as plug-n-play if heartlined)
-Steel running wheels on a steel track
The traditional coaster is more likely to be affected by weather, temperature, etc., because it operates with steel wheels on steel track. The coefficient of friction between the wheels and track is affected by temperature, weather, and viscosity of track lubricant (which is also affected by temp. and weather). Because of the multiple factors, large variations in ride performance will occur on a traditional wooden roller coaster, especially one on such a large scale as Voyage.
Even the slightest change in temperature of the lubricants throughout the wheel/track system could cause a significant shift in ride speed, especially considering the length of Voyage. Just from riding it 30 times a week ago, I could tell a big difference between morning and late afternoon/evening rides, as they became faster and faster.
To be honest, if you want consistency, don't ride a traditional wooden roller coaster-especially a longer/taller one with a greater room for deviations.
Photo TR: 12 parks in 11 Days Midwest Tour!!!
in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
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^My point exactly. Maybe at one time it was great, but now it's awful. My apologies for (a) not judging it on past performance or (b) going along with a bunch of fat ACErs who still claim that Beast is the best woodie and Magnum is the best steel.