texcoaster

The SFOT site shows that work has begun on tracking the second overbanked turn as of 11/13. One of the rails was installed by the end of the day.

The Batman clones are the most intense for me, and of those I gotta hand it to Great White at Sea World of Texas. It's just slightly taller and the footprint is a bit smaller, making the elements tighter and a bit closer together. No time to recover at all!

I was cycling through the pics on that site (and there are some great ones!) and ran up on this: http://coastercon.com/html/giant_c_11.html Probably just a bad angle, but the lift hill looks like it's about to fall over sideways.

^Part of the deal was "complete with signage", so yeah.

I think the narrow trains are to make the mouth of the octopus smaller and more terrifying. Seriously, if you make a circular mouth big enough for a 10-across train, you'll be able to see way too much in the hole. By using a narrow train, you can make that hole much smaller and darker and it will intensify the illusion. Case in point: Oblivion's dive into the misty cave was never a big deal for me, but that tiny little black dot that you pass through on Gold Reef City's Tower of Terror.... OMFG. I always thought it was too small for the car to make it.

Weekend's coming up and Texas weather right now is awesome... I think someone should head to SFOT and post more pics.

^YES, sentimental feelings for a coaster that was only there a couple of years. Perhaps folks in the west coast or in PA/OH/NJ don't get it because there are a lot of parks that can be visited within a day's drive, but for folks who have just ONE park in the area and don't have the means to travel, then YES a coaster or a park can quickly become sentimental. It is their child's first (and perhaps only) wood coaster, it was the place for first dates, where you and your school buddies hung out... places where memories are made. People who grew up in an area with just one park understand what I'm talking about. Sorry that you don't.

Sure, but for a LOT of people in that area, Mega Zeph is a sentimental favorite. The coaster was itself an homage to the old Zephyr coaster from years ago. A new coaster that pays homage to this lost coaster is fitting, IMHO.

You're in Louisiana. Terrain isn't really an option and cost will most likely keep you from the likes of a record-setter. Get Gravity Group to design you an updated version of Mega Zeph. They were there for the design of the first one (although not yet "Gravity Group", it's the same designers) and could tweak that already badass design into something even more awesome. Hell, just take the original version as it was and smack some Timberliners on it and you're done. It had a good first drop, a seriously intense second drop into a curving bunny hop, double-downs, double-ups, ejector air, trick track, and a helix. Hell yeah.

Sadly, most parks seem to agree. That's what makes IOA such a standout park. On a few of the rides, the queue experience is as good as or better than the ride at the end. Neither Hulk nor Dueling Dragons (or whatever they call it now) has much in the way of theming during the ride itself, but if you can look at either of those coasters and say they aren't themed.... well... open butt, insert head. Just sayin'

^ Also, a lot of the structure is shorter than before, which reduces the overall weight supported by the lower level supports. Gotta agree about the overbanked turns, though. Hard to believe that the final version of the support structure will look anything like it does now.

^ I don't think anyone is going to doubt that the new Giant is much better than the "old, ridiculously rough, and unpleasant Giant" ---- but what I think some of us are wondering is will it be better than the Giant of the early 90s when it was still untamed, intense, re-ridable, and at the top of nearly everyone's list? Sadly, far too much time has past between the last really good Giant rides and the opening of the new version to get a good comparison. Time also has a tendency to inflate folks' recollections of how good something used to be. I do know this, though: the Giant of 1990 would still by my #1 coaster today, even after adding more than 300 coasters to my list since then. If the new version takes my #1 slot, then that's enough of an indicator for me that it's as good or better than the old one.

^Rattler still suffered from the long, slow, boring helix on the cliff (although it wasn't NEARLY as slow back then)... but the first drop was quite simply the most incredibly insane, breath-stopping moment of any wooden coaster I've ever been on. You crested the lift, and started the plunge. Right in front of you was the helix and your mind assumed that you'd be going there. The train angled itself right at the edge of the cliff and at the time you realized that you wouldn't be going into the helix, you also realized OMG! CLIFF! - and then it angled again slightly to run parallel to the cliff and got steeper, causing a second brief moment of airtime halfway down the drop... which you couldn't see the bottom of because there was a shed over it to shield it from falling stones. The on-ride camera snapped the pic right at the pullout of the drop. Very, VERY few people still had their hands up by the time they got to that point. Most were clutching the bar, head down, looking at the floor.

The more I see of this layout, the more I fear that it's going to run a couple test trains with accelerometer dummies and then be either heavily braked or have to be reprofiled extensively before opening. Can they REALLY get away with that level of extremism? If this thing opens as-is, you better believe that I will be there on opening day as close to the front of the line as possible so I can say, "YES, I got to ride it before they screwed it up and DAMN, what a ride!" (eternally grateful for doing that with Rattler)

^I'd expect no more slamming than any other steel coaster with airtime. It should be considerably less painful than coasters with OTSRs and airtime! My concern is the overbanked turn supports. There will be a lot of outward forces generated by a train going fast around those turns and (as of yet) not much lateral support at all.

^ Post more pictures if wanted? This is TPR! Of course we want more pics!

For the last two days on the SFOT cam, the cranes have been going crazy, presumably installing track. It's really hard to tell due to the low-res image and the angle of the shot from above, but it looks like the rise into the MCBR is done, the rise into the last overbank before the MCBR is done, and judging from where the crane was situated, there could've been some trackwork going in on the flying carpet. You can't really see inside the structure on that cam, though. Someone REALLY needs to get out there and post some more pictures!

Reason enough right there to discredit Robb whenever he says "our opinions are the only ones that matter"

YES, I think that's it. If you look closely, the left hand red strip is just slightly narrower than the right hand rail, so that can't be track there. Good eyes!

I just noticed on the SFOT site http://www.sixflags.com/overTexas/rides/TexasGiant.aspx In the second pic under October 2010, it looks like the rail on the loading side of the station is flush with the station platform. This would be a change from the original design, which had the rails sitting lower than the platform (like on the exit side in the same pic). Is it just an illusion of the angle of the shot, or did they lower the platform to meet the rail? If so, why? I wonder if there would be a problem with people accidentally kicking stuff up under the wheels, which would be visible and exposed if the rail were at the same height.

And that's why I hate local news... it seemed that the whole thing was just a ploy to show off their "nobody else can broadcast from here" system. The only info I really got from it was in the text at the bottom of the screen that says "Renovation expected to continue until March" The park opens March 5. Of course, this is the news media (and local yokel news at that) and accuracy isn't their strong suit. It could mean that the coaster will open in March or it could mean that the work is expected to be completed in March (followed by testing, tweaking, approval, etc) and the coaster would actually open some time later.

No Limits is a real coaster simulator. Just because they let mere mortals buy a copy doesn't make it any less real. It has been used as the basis for animations of rides by Holiday World, Indiana Beach, Cedar Point, Gravity Group, Gerstlauer, Vekoma, Six Flags, and several others I could probably think of after I've had some coffee.

Front: Coasters with lots of camelbacks and floater air Bobsleds Inverteds B&M flyers Suspendeds Back: Coasters with ejector air on steep drops Twisters Schwarzkopf shuttles (back spike!) Middle: Um... riding in the middle of a coaster is sorta like kissing your sister. It's not exactly UNpleasant, but what's the point?

The one advantage to the double helix is that it allowed enough time for them to dispatch a train (in 3-train op) so that you could get buzzed by an overhead train as you're going up the lift. Having said that, with the new trains and the lack of seatbelts, there could be enough time saved there to still get a train out in time for the fly-by.

Here are a few screenshots from the video You can see that the double helix around the lift is now just a single pass around the lift. The S-turn lead in to the flying carpet is still there What's this? The flying carpet is tunneled? Yep. Tunnel all the way around the carpet.