Alton Towers Discussion Thread

[SharkTums]

I think they have a better chance now than ever before. They can site how quiet the Intamin woodies are (Liseberg has similar restrictions), Tussauds has a good relationship with Intamin, and um...Balder!

[Shockwave]

^And unlike Alton Towers, the Ropers only have a few more years left to live.

 

I'd love to see an Intamin woodie there. It doesn't have to be huge either. A smaller ride with more airtime hills would be great!

[SideWindZ]

Do you think scaled down size could equal:

 

Length: 3510' 6"

Height: 118' 1"

Inversions: 0

Speed: 55.9 mph

Duration: 2:08

Max Vertical Angle: 70 Degrees

 

???????

 

That sounds about right for a woodie for me!

You really love balder dont you?

[IOA Freak]

Cool, so now ValleyFair, Alton Towers, and Cypress Gardens will have major wooden coasters by 2008. Renegade, Starliner, and now this one.

[DerekRx]

Hasn't it been rumored for the longest time that the dreaded evil Corkscrew would be leaving the park? Balder would go nicely there, right next to Rita. O course, if that happened, I'd never ride Rita again...then again, I don't plan on riding it again anyway!

[TPDave]

From their past coasters, tussauds seem to follow the pattern of submitting planning permission in september (ish), then building a year later and then opening at the start of the season (forgive the patronising tone, but elsewhere coasters seem to be "announced" and stuffs, unlike tussauds). So if we're getting a woodie, we should see planning apps pretty damn soon!

 

[ECZenith]

Nice, hopefully it's an Intamin prefab.

[verticalzero]

Alton Towers have wished for a woodie for years, I hope they get the permission to build a world class ride on the lines of "Balder" / "Megafobia" layout.

 

Plenty of hills, banked turns, maybe a tunnel or 2 and lots of trees to fly past.

 

The "Ropers" can move out the area soon, say to "Dartmoor" or "North Yorkshire Moors".

 

The only noise they will have to put up is the wind and loads of sheep.

[dr.gumbo]

Woo Hoo!

 

It may be getting built at last, a am a little disappointed they might not be using the huge vally they got but a Balder would do just fine.

 

Besides, they might be able to build a B&M hyper there instead

[Worm]

I thought alton towers wasn't supposed to build tall rides cause of the treeline and their coasters aren't supposed to make alot of noize?

[exmouse]

They can't build above the tree line and this woodie won't go above the treeline so all is good. The cross valley woodie that was planned a couple of years back looked hideously dull and unimaginative. Hopefully they will get Intamin in for this one and we'll end up with a quiet airtime machine.

 

I believe there are also plans to plant some giant red wood trees so that they can install a Millennium Force clone for 2208.

[dr.gumbo]

^^ True but if you can see on Megafobia, apart from the first drop, most of it is below tree-line so if they can use terrain they can build this coaster fine*

 

*if they can find a hill big enought that is

 

Edit:You beat me to it

[verticalzero]

AT could "pay" for all the locals to be re-housed atleast 20 miles away, that way AT can go above the Treeline and install a "Silverstar" clone.or a 200ft Hyper Woodie

[exmouse]

They already offered to do that with the Ropers but the offer was declined.

 

You don't need to build a 200 foot hyper woodie to get a decent coaster. From experience most of the taller woodies I've ridden have been rough and not fun eg. The Rattler at SF:FT or SOB or Mean Streak or The Voyage. Where as some of the smaller ones have been fantastic eg. Balder, Legend, Phoenix, Megafobia, Rutschebanan. Size doesn't always matter it's what you do with it that counts. Non of my top 10 woodies are particularly big.

[verticalzero]

I know size does not matter ( I said 200ft for a joke )

 

Another perfect example is "Falken"

 

One of the key things for a coaster is to "maintain it's speed along the track" Do that and your have a winning coaster less than 80ft high.

 

Come on AT do "England" proud and create a wonderful woodie in the woods.

 

I sent a letter to "Paulton's Park" saying they should build a clone of

"Falken" in the near future.

[RCfanatic]

I sent a letter to "Paulton's Park" saying they should build a clone of "Falken" in the near future.

 

No offence but haven't we got enough clones in this world? However good Falken is, a custom design is always more fun becouse of the different experience it provides, maybe even better than Falken. Unfortunately small parks don't care much for building custom coasters since the guests of those kind of parks are mostly local residents and not Roller Coaster enhuisiasts. So if they ever build a woodie they might just go with your idea. Yeah i'm not a big fan of clones.

 

Anyways, on topic: Yay for a possible new coaster for this great park! And maybe an Intamin Wooden Prefab! It would be so cool to have another Prefab and maybe with a cool unique lay-out becouse of Alton's height restrictions.

[cobra_roll06]

all i care about is that they are given the permission to do it. hope its the wooden equivilent of nemesis.

 

would make the park that extra bit more special

[TPDave]

"verticalzero", do you "have" some kind of "attachment" to "quotation marks" or am i "misisng" something out?

 

No matter how quiet a woodie is, it's still too loud for the Ropers! In the court order they originally restricted AT to making no more noise than "a quiet country bedroom" during normal operation. They cannot be reasoned with.

[manu4eva]

Good Or Bad what do you think?

 

In my opinion i think it has last its sparkle since tatsu and superman.

 

great coaster though

[cfc]

The only real bummer portion of Air, to me, is that section where you're lying on your back--you can really feel the train shake and it's very uncomfortable. At least it's followed by the flip and dive through the tunnel (the best part).

 

From the front or back, Air is pretty good, but from the middle not so hot--just my opinion, folks.

[SharkTums]

I believe my response would be... 'meh'.

[coaster05]

I really liked it and think it blows away any of the Superman clones.

[robbalvey]

My issue with it is that it doesn't really have any "memorable" moment. The SUF's clones (and I'm not a big fan of those either) at least have the pretzel loop which make you go "WOW!" the first time you experience it. Tatsu has that amazing height variance that so evident even from the lift hill and it has the Pretzel. Air doesn't have a single "WOW!" moment on it anywhere.

 

Air, to me, is just "blah." A series of unimpressive elements, many of which are taken on your back, and not in the flying positio, that just seems to spend most of it's time meandering back to the station once it was released from the lift.

 

It's not intense, and it's more of a "family" ride. It's one of those coasters where you go "It's too bad it has such a tall height restiction on it, because smaller kids would LOVE it."

 

--Robb "I've always called air the Flying Mine Train!" Alvey

[PKI Jizzman]

I have not been on it, but it looks like a good ride. Nothing like OMFG that kicked butt! But looks fun. The only thing I dont like about it is the low speed and then time that you are on your back. If you like the on the back part, then go for BORG or X-Flight.

 

-James

[cobra_roll06]

yeah i totally agree with Robb