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Funtown looks nice and all, but dear god, what ever possessed you to want to go to Maine? And after living in New England for 5 years now, I really have to try and get down to Lake Compounce. Given how most CCI woodies tend to age, I'm glad to see that Boulder Dash hasn't gone Ghostrider yet.

Don't forget that Paramount Pictures (which is really Viacom) gave away Paramount Parks to CBS when they split in 2005, and then CBS sold their theme park assets to CedarFair in 2006. The Paramount Pictures that licensed their content to this Dubai park is twice removed from the now defunct chain of Paramount Parks.

Doing a Disney around the World trip has always been a dream of mine. However, doing so would require (a) a job that provides more than a week of vacation time and (b) money.

Just my perspective as an engineer: I doubt that cable tension caused the cable to become a whip and slice off her legs weedwhacker style. Don't forget that the cables are attached to the catch car, and the catch car does not drop with the ride vehicle (it is slowly lowered down afterwards). Therefore, my guess is that the cable snapped and was hanging loose from the catch car, and due to the motion imparted on it by the snap, became wrapped around the girls legs right before the ride vehicle fell. With the cable being held by the stationary catch car and the girl dropping at 9.8 m/s^2, her legs wouldnt've stood a chance (anyone who has cut a block of clay or cheese with a wire cutter will know what I'm talking about). And for all those who think her feet can be reattached, don't forget that the feet would've fallen ~150 feet onto pavement, and would've sustained massive damage (dozens of broken bones and extensive tissue damage). Don't forget these gems of grammar:

No, actually Typhoon Lagoon's wave machine tops out at 6 feet (with 3 feet being the limit during park operating hours). As DJ Snow said above, it is a hydraulic system.

So, if something were to happen that couldn't be fixed quickly (like the lift motor burning out or a power surge taking out the PLC), this is their evacuation plan? I can't imagine any other coaster that doesn't have an easy way to get people off the lift in the event of a power failure that doesn't involve the fire department. Even the old-school SLCs have their own dedicated color-coordinated cherry picker to get people down from the lift. You would think it would be pretty simple to design an emergency manual winching system to get the coaster off the lift once it goes past vertical.

Wow, in the hundreds of stories I've seen reported in the media about "People Being Stuck Upside-down on a Roller Coaster", I think this is only the second which actually did involve people being upside-down. Remember when Two-Face got stuck on the lift hill?

Probably the best example of good line jumper handling I've ever seen was in the S:RoS queue at SFNE. A group of three kids decided to cut in about half-way through the 1 hour line. The CM who was monitoring the line at the entrance to the station saw it, but didn't do anything until the group got all the way to the front of the line, where she refused to let them into the station and directed them back down the FlashPass Entrance. Not only didn't they get ti ride, but they had to wait 30 minutes in the queue too!

http://www.screamscape.com/html/orlando.htm about two-thirds of the way down the page. Here's a hint: Go to screamscape.com, hit CTRL+F, type in shuttle, and press enter.

Actually, it's only 62 degrees backwards, but that's still a heck of a lot for a simulator. Most don't go beyond 30.

I'm really supprised that the state would let them open the ride with only 3 days of testing. They must be running this thing around the clock until then to get their cycles up.

The National Weather Service is saying that the Connecticut River in Agawam should be below flood-stage by mid-day tomorrow. Which means that Superman's opening is entirely up to SFNE's pumps, grounds crew, maintenance crew, and inspectors.

They actually did make a good point there, but they didn't realize it. A major factor for people blacking out on Goliath and Tatsu is that they are dehydrated, which is caused by the fact that it can get very hot and dry at SFMM, there isn't much shade, and the drinks are incredibly expensive. I used gray out on Goliath all the time until I started making sure that I drank plenty of water whenever I was at SFMM.

Well, none of us will probably ever get to ride it, but NASA has proposed building a 350 foot tall rollercoaster as the launch tower escape system for Ares, the replacement for the space shuttle. It has a vertical 350 foot drop and a max speed of 100mph before it hits the breaks, and a total ride time of 88 seconds. Too bad it looks like they're using Vekoma/Arrow style track -- Intamin box track would look much cooler. Kinda redefines "rocket coaster", eh? http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviationspace/e78830b92f5e0110vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html

I guess my mistake was never visiting weekdays during the off season (the weekends were deserted enough). Too bad that I'm working on the other side of the country now.

BoingBoing.net had a story yesterday on Wierd Railroad Vehicles, and they talked about a series of car/train hybrids built by the Rio Grande and Southern Railroad in the 30s. One of them, Galloping Goose #3, which looks like half a schoolbus combined with a rail car, is apparently now owned by Knott's and operated on slow days instead of the locomotives. Now, I've been to Knott's dozens on times on slow days, and I've never seen something that weird out in the park. Wikipedia has a picture of the thing sitting backstage at Knott's this past November, so I know they still own it, but has anyone seen them run it or ridden on it?

I use a system similar to the "TPR Grouping Method", but I rank my top 9 individually and then rank the rest using the following more specific rankings: 10 = I would go to the park just for this ride 20 = I would definitely ride if I were in the park 30 = I would ride if the line > 30 min 40 = I would only ride if there is no line 50 = I would only ride if I absolutely had to, but I wouldn't enjoy it at all 100 = No way in hell are you getting me on that death machine again! (this last one is reserved for the couple coasters that have actually injured me -- Shockwave at PKD, Psyclone at SFMM, etc.)

I always wear my sunglasses on rides unless the ride ops specifically tell me not to (and that's usually only on launched rides). Wearing the sunglasses allows me to keep my eyes open the whole ride without worrying about having to squint into the wind or getting something in my eye. I don't have a strap, but the sunglasses fit me well. The only time they've ever come close to falling off is on the heartline roll on Stormrunner.

No, CalPoly, the public version of Caltech. Well, none of those can actually do stress calculations, but all integrate into FEA programs that can. SolidEdge uses Femap, Solidworks uses Cosmos, and Pro/Engineer uses Pro/Mechanica. Not quite true. Most larger companies tend to have dedicated CAD departments that use programs like ProE or CATIA, which are supposedly too complex for "regular" engineers to learn (despite the fact that WPI taught me exclusively on ProE, I wasn't allowed to touch a CAD program where I worked last year and instead had to farm it out to the CAD division). Smaller companies like the one I work for now, where the engineers do the modeling themselves, tend to use SolidWorks or Inventor, which were actually designed from a user interface standpoint. However, most companies I've talked to and interviewed at tend not to touch Inventor, since they see it as a toy, not a tool. If you have the opportunity to learn ProE, go for it, since anything else will be much easier by comparison, but if you are learning on your own, stick with Inventor or Solidworks.

Yeah, you must purchase online, and gift cards are mailed with the passes (according to the fine print).

Current passholders probably got the email already, but if you buy a new SF pass or renew your current pass online, and you enter the promo code "VIP", you get a free $10 Home Depot gift card with each pass purchase. This seems to work for all the parks. In other news, it seems that the parking passes are now accepted at all the parks, so the $45 is quite a good deal if you have a road trip planned. Now I just have to figure out what to buy for $10 at Home Depot. I'm thinking lots of screws.

yup

For those of you that have a Six Flags pass and aren't on their email list, I wanted to give you a heads up that now through August 30th, you can bring a friend for $14.99. Just print out the page at http://view.email.sixflagsemails.com/?ffcb10-fef81074706101-fe3217717166007b761171-fefe177475650d

Just a heads up for those that don't have Six Flags passes already: if you buy a regular ticket to any Six Flags park from http://www.sixflags.com/anniversary_pass.asp, you can get a season pass for the same price. Not such a hot deal for those of us in the north where our parks close in a month or two (it's only valid for the park you buy it at), or for those people who live around Magic Mountain where this deal is fairly common, but pretty sweet for the rest.

A bunch of pictures of the cars, track, and station have been posted at http://www.loopings.nl/actueel_vertigo.php