KingRCT3

The park posted a video the other day, but beware, the images of the construction site were shot last november: RCJP, in April, I fear this won't be open. The only opening date they told is "Spring 2017", which basically translates to "not for the season opening". But we'll keep an eye at the progression... Oziris soft opened on April, 4.

OH MY. I remember that one. The braking took me by surprise and killed my stomach... And then only I saw the signage and was like "ha-ha, well played... You won't fool me next ti-..." CA-TCHUCK. That piece of crap had a second harsh stop. I hate you, Pakal. Indeed.

We can't have a thread about motion simulator without mentionning Douglas Trumbull, who can be considered as the father of motion simulator rides. He also constantly tries to improve the quality of the movies, focusing on FPS (with his own Showscan process) and brightness, that is more important to his eyes than gimmicky 3D.

To answer the original post, it's up to the ride programmers to ensure the braking is smooth and comfortable (as it can be in regard to the hardware limitations).

Though it will not use the Vekoma vehicle, but smaller, trackless ones.

^ That's more than probable. It seems to me that chinese manufacturers build sections that are "loosely" fitting together (in an extent), but they do the latest adjustments on site. To be fair, western manufacturers do that as well, it's inevitable, but on a more smaller scale... Look here at the gap between two pieces (although maybe the piece is still hold by the crane) : And here, it seems that the pieces don't have any support connectors prebuild, but all the connections and adjustments are done on site:

It reopened a few weeks ago after a major refurbishment just sayinggg Yes, and the breakdowns have been countless these last weeks, plus the new explosion scene has its smoke working one time out of two, they added a trim in that last tunnel, etc. Don't get me wrong, the refurbishment was much needed and it gave a fresh new look to the mountain. But what can you expect, it's DLP : the magical land where rides don't work before a refurb, and rides don't work after a refurb neither.

Do you feel pressed against the seat on TTD/KK?

On the paper, yes. In reality, after 20 years without proper maintenance, I don't know...

Meanwhile, Big Thunder Mountain at Disneyland Paris has exactly that bang of an ending! The rush of wind that you feel in the last tunnel is amazing, and the sense of speed is increased tenfold. Then, you blast out of that shelf in a last, steep incline into the brakes. Just perfect!

Wait - Avatar had a plot?

Yes, it's on track and have both physical and screen-based sequences, on dome carrousels. However it's far from being at the same level of quality as the original one... For instance, I read that you can see the shadow of the vehicle on the screens. Erk.

I like it very much! The drop has an awesome curvature, and the ending is adding that extra kick to an already great layout. I love tunnels toward the end of a ride, it makes a great and surprising finale. (I wish Intamin Megalites had one after the third bunny hop) - At the meantime, here is a picture of a vehicle from the robocoaster dark ride at Fantawild Dreamland, Zhengzhou: (picture thanks to Trips'n'Pics) Spot the new-gen Vekoma-like restraints! Now that is the first scene of the ride (if you look up at the ride layout posted earlier, it's at the top left): (Source) And here's a peek at the sheer size of the ride's show building, on the left hand side: (picture thanks to Trips'n'Pics)

Since ALT2870 isn't responding yet, I thought I could give you some visuals in the meantime: So here is a fixed chairlift grip. They have the same basic shape as detachable grips. The actual grip is only the grey thing, as the two black blades are only here to help passing under depression towers. They lift the sheaves. The grip doesn't go all around the cable for allowing the sheaves to pass under it when it's a lift tower. But it's tightly squeezed. To open the grip, there's a screw on the far right. It allow the piece in turquoise on the drawing to slide to the left.

They confirmed it would not be only Mario.

I think Universal will more likely work with Intamin or Premier Rides rather than Vekoma. Even the newest Flight of the Hippogriff at Hollywood is a custom Mack and not the Vekoma stock version. I guess Battlestar Galactica was their first and last try working with the dutch company. There is also a third patent for a badass suspended dark-ride contraption: (It reminds me a lot of my own suspended, stand-up and interactive robocoaster idea, hehe)

Excellent post, ALT2870! Especially for the english terminology that I didn't know at all. What is the name of the lift you're working on, I might ask?

Haha, but you know, you can get airtime on ski lift in a more... safe fashion, I'd say. Two exemples: The Aiguille du Midi cable-car is pretty famous for giving weightlessness each time you pass a tower, because of the change of incline. Hear the reaction of the passengers: Even Wikipedia mention the very word airtime in its french article: But another location where you can have airtime on a chair lift is Connyland, with their unfamous Mammut Tree. It's actually a pretty fun attraction, and its uses the principle of cable oscillation by making the motor go step-by-step. You can sometimes feel that in a real ski lift when they do an emergency stop, but here it's made on purpose and it's really fun.

Oh wow, I missed all this discussion since page 2. Did you know that ski lift is what inspired B&M for their inverted coasters? Being a Swiss company, and Giovanola having a business in sky lifts may have helped! Many relations exist between ropeways and coasters. A bunch of manufacturer had both a coaster and ropeway business at some point. And more specifically, do you know what a ropeway and an Intamin accelerator have in common? A lot! First, the rails for the Intamin coasters are build by Stakotra... so are the towers for Doppelmayr! A ropeway tower surrounded by Intamin track. Second, the little wheels that guides the cables on Intamin launch coasters (and cable lifts) are made by... Garaventa, which is another ropeway manufacturer, and is part of the same group as Doppelmayr. So those wheels here are exactly the same as those at the top of the towers on a ropeway! Here on Altaïr. Finally, the planetary gearboxes used in the launch room of the Intamin coasters come from Kissling, which is well-known for making planetary gearboxes for french ropeway manufacturer Poma! Here is a Kissling planetary gearbox (the grey thing) inside a Poma gondola station. Now to answer at the very first post of this topic: Fear not, ropeways can handle heavy winds. I mean, the wind can flip over a chair/gondola, as seen here (and obviously the ropeway closes beforehand): ... but it will not neither rip off the vehicle from the cable, neither make the cable go away from the towers. Here is a chairlift grip (pince LPA from Leitner/Poma): It has a grip force of mutiple tons (sorry to be vague. I don't have the exact value and anyways tons speak more to people than Newton), so it can't be opened by wind, or if, say a bird lands on the lever. You can't open it by hand neither. And second point, the cable will not go away from the towers because it's under a massive tension (about 40 tons for a small sky lift, and way beyond for bigger ones). So basically, the cable is sticking to the wheels at all time. I don't know if you ever paid attention to that, but sometimes, the wheels are even above the cable rather than under: It wouldn't be possible if the cable was loose. But anyway, for extra safety there are various devices and metallic pieces in case of the cable goes out of its wheels.

RMC T-rex before it was cool.

They still use it on all of their launched coasters. Powder Keg, plus the three big S&S launched coasters in the Happy Valley parks, plus one more being built in China for next year. The big ones are still the fastest-accelerating coasters in the world right now. Being one of those "normal people," this is definitely unscientific, but Powder Keg's launch feels more sudden to me. The LSMs feel like the rate of acceleration increases as the launch progresses, whereas Powder Keg feels like the rate of acceleration is fastest right at the beginning, and then the acceleration slows after that. No idea if that's actually true, but hopefully that makes some sense to you. I'd love for some more coasters to be designed with compressed air launches. It's a really fun experience. Yep, that what we call the initial jerk.

Go read the story of Ring°Racer and you might have a clue or two, haha! I believe at leas two air-tanks exploded during its life-span, each time blasting windows all around the launch track. Also, I might add that calculating any coaster acceleration is too difficult for normal people, as what we get with the basic formula is only a linear acceleration, but in reality it's definitely not the case. One key componant of a forceful launch is the initial jerk, that hydraulic and compressed-air launch do well, but LSM are still a bit behind (tho it's getting better). We also have the rolling launches where the initial speed is not 0, and that makes the calculations more difficult.

Although I remember a few years ago Vekoma did proposed a solution that the seats tilt back as it approaches the incline of the lift. The "tilting seats on the lift" concept was around at least as early as 2000/01 during X-Flight's announcement at SFWoA, and it's just one of those things that never seemed to see the light of day. I think it did, but it never worked. They then asked Premier Rides (or I think it was...?) to make something reliable, so instead of having the mecanism at the back of the seats, they made something into the station:

Where does those values come from? Is it only a fan-made NoLimits track or something more reliable?

There was this layout from 2004, but it's 470m long: Coasters And More