ZeroGravity55

It's the aerodynamics/weight and probably a combination of a million other things engineers will only understand. One thing I look at it is the fact that coasters with the the seating situated on the outside of the track (X2, Furius Baco, maybe Intamin ZacSpin's? Just to name a few) that have a lot of forces have been noted to be rough. I think B&M is probably still searching to find that perfect balance between comfort and intensity without making the ride too rough on these wing riders.

^ I'm pretty sure the elevation drop in that opening plays a big factor in how tall the loop is. I know it's an animation, but B&M's animations seem to be pretty spot on in capturing the pacing of their rides, and TB really doesn't look like it goes slow enough to get good hang time, but I'll wait until I ride it to pass any judgement on the matter. Edit: Just noticed this on the construction cam, but one of the buldings for TB plaza has had some framework put in place.

The Station building hasn't went vertical yet as well. Keeping count, they have 24/77 pieces put in place so far. They're averaging four pieces a week so far. I think at this pace, the track work will be complete sometime in January. Maybe earlier in the month if they get good whether, later if they have bad whether. If there wasn't holidays, I'd say they be done by the end of the year. They've certainly put themselves in a position where they don't have to work in nasty weather conditions whenever that happens. If anybody remembers Goliath's construction last year, the nasty weather conditions is really what screwed them over, which that was all Six Flags fault for starting construction so late. As far as testing is concerned, I'd say part of the reason the ride is being built so fast is that B&M wants to have plenty of testing before they hand the keys to the ride over to the park with this being their first LSM launch and all. New Hard Hat Chronicles video. Love the shot coming down Highway 162!

See I thought the same thing when I saw videos of it when the ride opened up, but I recently saw some videos from earlier in the summer and it appears the ride has broken in quite a bit. Wouldn't say it's moving fast through the inversions, but it seems to be moving at a much quicker pace than when it opened up.

^ Yeah, but I think all the vertical loops on non-inverted B&M's look very large. I guess that is why I'm not that impressed by the height. Not a whole lot going on with Thunderbird today. I think they planned on putting up another piece of track, but the rain ruined any plans of that happening.

I'm not gonna rate any of them since I haven't ridden any of them, but I do have a question. Has anybody on here with a high coaster count actually ridden Medusa? From the POV, this ride really just grabs me, and I'm curious to read some reviews on it and how it stacks up to other rides someone has ridden. If there is nobody, that's alright, I can wait until a TPR Mexico trip. I'm glad you said this. Don't get me wrong, when I saw the POV of Helix, I was sure it was a good ride, but I felt like it was doing the same thing over and over again. Hopefully as Mack designs more roller coasters, they're able to get better at coming up with better designs and become more innovative.

^ New for 2016, Batman Backwards! And that's it.. Bet Six Flags would find a way to market it as a new ride. Would love to see the billboards for it going through St. Louis...

I would hope so, but they really did leave the area around the spaghetti bowl on Voyage decently bare, so we'll see. Maybe Paula can shed some light on this, but I vaguely remember hearing/reading that the park tries to replace as many trees as they remove or is it just save as many trees as they can? Didn't the park sort of start this tradition of saving trees because Will Koch hated removing trees? I think I may have read that in a Holiblog from quite a few years back. That would sound more impressive if there was more than one wing coaster with a vertical loop right now. The exit piece of the loop was put in place today. They have a piece on a flat bed, presumably to be put in place tomorrow. At this rate, they'll probably have the loop completed by this time next week, maybe earlier!

^I think it's sort of that close, but I think it also has a lot to do with the camera angle as well.

Surprised nobody had posted these here yet. From RMC's Facebook page:

While I've never ridden Outlaw Run, from just understanding the ride technology, I find it absolutely mind boggling that somebody would consider the ride rough. Now I might understand if somebody had ridden Goliath, or one of the Intamin woodies and then rode Outlaw Run. Goliath and the Intamin woodies use polyurethane wheels and deliver a much more controlled ride feeling, while Outlaw Run uses steel wheels and gives a much more out of control feeling. Even then, if you told me you you thought the ride was rough, I'd probably think you're smoking crack. Just looking at the track technology, I can't even logically make an argument for why the ride might become rough overtime, unless something catastrophic happens.

For some reason I decided to look at the webcam at midnight and you can see the full moon's reflection on the Immlemann. Anyways, I saw where they had the next track piece lined up for tomorrow. I'm curious to see how they build this loop. I wonder if they will piece it together in order or build the entrance and the exit of the loop first, then go vertical from there? Should be fun to watch! Edit: They must have put the piece of track I was referring to up late yesterday and it appears that the loop has went vertical!

Make sure you have your volume turned up!

Wow. This Immlemann is huge! I still can't believe I'm watching B&M track being raised at Holiday World. 2015 can't get here fast enough!

They just lifted a piece of track off the flat bed with the big crane. They're not wasting any time.

Seems like a such huge moment for you guys, but it's only a small step when you think about how much more the park can grow. I'm assuming that you guys plan on having some sort of news media at the park tomorrow?

There were no changes to the layout. Dan got somebody that used to be on Holiday World's maintenance team to re-track the ride. All they really did is just replace the top two layers, which sorta has me worried since the ride has been sitting for so long. You'd think a complete re-track would have been ideal, given how long the ride has been out of operation. I guess we'll find out how well the ride holds up!

Paula just tweeted that Thunderbird will be topped off tomorrow at 10 a.m. (central) weather permitting.

Part of the support is up! Two more pieces (maybe one?) and this thing will be topped off!

Alright, thanks. I figured it was raining, it's raining here. But I didn't know they didn't work in the rain. They need to have to keep the crane level. If the ground is wet enough, they won't be able to do that.

I think the problem here is that you're only looking at the insane elements of the ride. You chose TC as your example, well lets just use RMC has an even bigger example. Every one of their rides has these insane looking elements. Some even make you say, "WTF, how did they do that"? If you read Robb's media day report from Outlaw Run, he said that the inversions on the ride felt natural and they didn't feel forced into the design of the ride (ex. Son of Beast). So yes, while they're oh sh** moments, they fit into each design naturally. Leaving those elements out of the rides, RMC would still have great rides. They're not afraid to design ejector airtime into their rides and the pacing of every single on of their rides looks incredible. So the oh sh** moments just don't make the RMC rides great and you could make the same argument for Intamin rides, and maybe The Gravity Group rides as well. They're only designers who are pushing the envelope right now and that is why their rides fill the top 10 of the Mitch Hawker steel and wood polls.

Agree. Love everything about American Thunder.

^I'd say! It appears the webcam has had over a 1000 views since I left for school around 8 this morning.

^ Read it for yourself. Posted yesterday: http://www.holidayworld.com/holiblog/2014/10/01/orange-glad-take-lots-photos/

Paula said on the Holiblog that they hope to top off the Immelmann next week! Grabbed this shot from the new webcam set up this morning right as the cam switched from night view to day view.