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Link Even if she gets the phone back, I imagine the bill from all that data usage aboard ship is going to be huge.

Put me down for 5 as well. Really cool park. It looks like North American Midway provides at least some of the rides. I wonder if the Crazy Mouse is the same one I rode at The Big E. Is the Ferris wheel permanently installed, or do they precariously set it up under the skylight every year? It looks similar to the traveling one NAME has at The Big E, although with more graffiti.

i noticed the same thing... stupid gp Is complaining about the lack of loops really any worse than all the stupid things people have complained about here? Frankly, I think complaining about three tiny trims which barely slow the ride is stupider than complaining that you have a personal preference for inversions.

Due to the non-linear nature of air resistance, it may take a large change in speed at the top of the lift to change the speed at the bottom by 0.3 mph. In the extreme case, such as skydiving, the speed at the top of the fall doesn't change the end speed at all because the falling object reaches terminal velocity. Drastically slowing the lift would reduce capacity of the ride.

As a mechanical engineer (but not in the roller coaster field), I'll chime in here too. No matter how much experience you have, simulations and equations are really only good to within 10% or so at best. Depending on what I'm designing, I may be required to allow for my calculations to be off by as much as 40%. This is true even with simple systems, like the cantilevered beam described above, so when you get a roller coaster that has hundreds of moving parts, viscous flow from the various lubricants, air resistance, nonlinear rolling resistance from viscoelastic wheels, vibration damping from soil with a variable water content because a creek runs under the ride, and dozens of other factors that I'm sure exist but I'm not aware of, getting within 10% would be VERY impressive. I went to a conference on simulation last year, and saw presentations by companies with a lot more money and experience than Intamin (Boeing, Lockheed, GE, etc.), and even they were bragging about techniques with 10% errors. Engineers deal with this uncertainty with what one of my professors back in school called the "M"s: mechanical models (prototypes), margin, and mitigation. This whole ride is already a prototype, so that's out. Adding larger margin to their calculations would work, but it would mean that the ride would be tamer. In the case of speed, mitigation makes a lot of sense: you can design right to the limits, and add trims if your model error is in the wrong direction. Different companies probably have different strategies (we've seen S&S make lots of prototypes, B&M probably allows bigger margins, etc.).

As with i305, they'll probably play around with different tire materials to find one that best suits the combination of forces, track geometry, duty cycle, weather, and any number of other factors that I can't think of.

Here's my entry: Mr. Ed Loves Big Mike. Of Course. Of Course.

Looking forward to it!

^Link was at the bottom of my post: http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/05/02/46145.htm I'll have to remember to add band aids to my future cruise packing list.

http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/05/02/46145.htm

Congrats Brian on the win, and congrats Big Mike on not dying!

I honestly can't believe that they described Miceage.com as a Disney watchdog group.

Actually, every one of those examples loads from two separate rows. What stage of the New Coaster Life-Cycle are we on now? Which one is it where we start repeating the same stupid conversations over and over again waiting for testing to begin? Stage 7? I was a bit unclear -- I meant that the two "separate" outside seats load from one row, and the drama over people being split up and not sitting together was minimal.

^I didn't remember that, but my memory must be a bit foggy.

Other coasters with 1-2-1 seating arrangements (Deja Vu, Behemoth, Diamondback) load from a single row, and the drama is fairly minimal. I don't think Skyrush will be significantly worse than other 4-across coasters. If it gets bad Hershey can post signs telling people to move all the way down to the end of each row, but the facts that the other rides I've mentioned haven't done that bodes well.

Yes.

Next step is a roller coaster at sea (although given the space, structural, and noise limitations on a ship we'd be much more likely to see a Dragon Wagon than, say, a Wild Mouse or a ZacSpin)

I'm a bit concerned with how crowded Project Sunshine ships will be. The PS ships are only 2% larger than the Freedom class but hold 13% more passengers. Hopefully they will make more efficient use of space.

I still don't understand how Knott's can get away with charging an upcharge for their tiny Screamin' Swing while other Cedar Fair parks with taller versions (Skyhawk and Xtreme Swing at CP and VF) include the ride with admission.

Or that the picture was taken before they put the rest of the cars on. Exactly. They already had one train put together in the transfer shed, and they were loading the second on the track in that picture. Or it's being used for a pull through:

Enough about beer, it's time for another episode of "Oh, Carnival!" The complete story is at http://www.npr.org/2012/04/19/150897139/cruise-ship-didnt-aid-drifting-boat-passengers-say The gist of it is that a group of birdwatchers with telescopes spotted the stranded ship and alerted the bridge, and a crew member used their equipment to verify the ship was there, but the captain elected to do nothing.

The pull through is also to check how the trains can articulate through all the curves in the track. I remember back when they were doing the Xcelerator pull through that a lot of attention was paid to the joints between the cars. On this ride, they might also want to check how close the outside seats get to each other while the train is articulating. Then again, on KK I don't remember them doing a pull through with real cars. We'll have to see, but that two-car train on the track looked awfully like what they might use for a pull through.

They'll probably do a pull-through of the 2-car train before real testing begins.

Holiday World annouced on Twitter that they will have new kettle corn this year: https://twitter.com/#!/HolidayWorld/status/191272663510040576