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Entertainment

2005's Tallest Roller Coaster 233

Posted by michael from the no-fear dept.
MacBrave writes "MSNBC has a short story about a new roller coaster, named 'Kingda Ka' that is set to open at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey in the spring of 2005. This coaster will beat the current world record-holder, Top-thrill Dragster at Cedar Point."
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2005's Tallest Roller Coaster More

2005's Tallest Roller Coaster

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  • In case your not from jersey (Score:4, Funny)

    by digitalgimpus ( 468277 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @05:39PM (#10409568) Homepage
    we call it 'great adventure', *not* 'six flags' like the rest of the world.

    Why? Because we freaken like it like that... got it?

    • In case you are... (Score:2, Informative)

      by cbreaker ( 561297 )
      I've been to Six Flags New Jersey many, many times. Probably more then most people that live in New Jersey. And nobody called it "Great Adventure." Everyone calls it "Six Flags."

      Deal with it. You're not special.

      On the topic however, SFNJ is an awesome park. They've got a shit load of coasters - they've pretty much ditched everything else for them. And that's fine by me, coasters are the best.

      Few years ago they put up the "Nitro" which was the damned best roller coaster I've ever been on. The c
      • I grew up in New Jersey. Everyone called it "Great Adventure." No one called it "Six Flags." I think it was Great Adventure before it got bought by Six Flags.

        That would have been right around the zenith of Jungle Habitat and Fairy Tale Forest.
        • Thats what happened to Fiesta Texas in san antonio tx. Anyone that went before the sixflags hostile takeover just call it Fiesta Texas. I assume touristy types call it six flags. I don't care, its like calling freebsd a linux.. anyone that really cares knows, and anyone that makes the mistake is someone you dont care about.

      • Re:In case you are... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Achoi77 ( 669484 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @06:19PM (#10409864)
        I've been to Six Flags New Jersey many, many times. Probably more then most people that live in New Jersey. And nobody called it "Great Adventure." Everyone calls it "Six Flags."

        That's strange, because when I was at Rutgers (about an hour away from Jacksonville where the park is), everybody I know of called it nothing but Great Adventure. Plus it a number of students just called it GA (as in 'Gee Ay') for short and everybody knew what they were talking about.

        Of course, every summer a number of students would buy a season pass and go everyday untill they were bored to tears of it.

        It looks like GA is getting some new rides, which is good, especially since rides like Robin was kind of short (as in 10 seconds!! WTF). Too bad longer rides are not able to justify the price it costs to build for profit. *sigh*

        It's been a number of years since I've been to GA, but I seem to recall they had a little paintball field nearby (which a number of us geeks also used to frequent), but that's getting offtopic. :-)

        • Re:In case you are... (Score:4, Informative)

          by nuggetman ( 242645 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @08:11PM (#10410458) Homepage
          That's strange, because when I was at Rutgers (about an hour away from Jacksonville where the park is), everybody I know of called it nothing but Great Adventure.

          There's no Jacksonville in NJ. The town is just called Jackson.

          The More You Know (TM)
          • There is one in Florida. You've got the name of the nearest park a bit wrong, though.

            It's called "Six Flags Over Georgia." (GA is pronounced "Jor Jah," not 'Gee Ay").

            And it's not a paintball field nearby. It's a water park.
      • Hands down. We were just there a few weeks ago, and I have to say it's really improved since when I used to live there (about when the Great American Scream Machine opened...)

        Busch Gardens (Florida / Williamsburg) may have more charm, Disney World has more attractions, Coney Islands has the most history, but SF:GA has the best rides.

        Oh, and we used Six Flags and Great Adventure interchangably. Six Flags because at the time, there were no other Six Flags parks in the area. Great Adventure because that was
        • but SF:GA has the best rides.

          Not by a long shot. Cedar Point has the greatest concentration of incredible rides of any park on earth. Beyond that they actually inovate, the Raptor and Mantis were both firsts of their type and then copied by parks all over. Look up almost any coaster enthusiast site and Cedar Point will either be top or damn close to it. The best thing about Cedar Point though is that their "old" rides which rival most other parks centerpieces usually have fairly short lines when they have
      • From New York City here....

        Everyone I have ever heard in my life talk about this park calls it Great Adventure.

        Jersey people, Brooklyn People, Philadelphia people..... It's Great Adventure.

        wbs.
    • "we call it 'great adventure', *not* 'six flags' like the rest of the world.

      Why? Because we freaken like it like that... got it?"

      Is that the spindoctor way of making NJ sound like an exciting place that everyone just *has* to visit?

      Ohhhh MOM, Let's go to the GREAT ADVENTURE!!!

      Tricky NJ people....tricky indeed.
      • "we call it 'great adventure', *not* 'six flags' like the rest of the world.

        Why? Because we freaken like it like that... got it?"

        Is that the spindoctor way of making NJ sound like an exciting place that everyone just *has* to visit?

        No, it comes from the days from before Six Flags even owned Great Adventure. And from the days even after they bought it, before the whole issue of "branding" became such a big thing and all amusement parks around the country were still known by their individual names.

        You
        • >>New Jerseyans are probably just a little more stubborn in holding on to their old names than people are in other parts of the country. As someone who was born in NYC and has also lived in NJ, I think it's a regional thing - we don't call the amusement park on Coney Island "Astroland" either, we still just call it Coney Island.

          And I still call the PNC Bank Arts Center by it's old name "Garden State Arts Center". None of this PNC crap for me, it's still the GSA. And I like it that way.

          wbs.

    • Which only makes sense, since the only PROPER "Six Flags" is in Arlington, Texas.

      Though I guess since Astroworld was bought out by the Six Flags folks... well, hell.

      -l

  • Actually... (Score:4, Funny)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Friday October 01, 2004 @05:39PM (#10409571) Homepage Journal
    Worlds highest ride is Taipei 101 [liberaasso...lpopolo.it] (also known as Taipei Financial Center), but you only get the ride when an eartquake hits Taiwan.
    • ... and Taipei 101 is truly amazing, but look at that picture and you see just how out of place it is in the context of the whole city. Translation: there is no economic force in play here, only ego.

      Skyscrapers are tall because the land they sit on is valuable and the owners want to get the best possible financial return on the land... or because someone has a yen to own the biggest cement, steel and glass phallus.

      (Answer: it's in Toronto [emporis.com])

      Cheers,
      Richard

  • Name (Score:2, Funny)

    by MikeMacK ( 788889 )
    Kingda Ka? When did they start using pig latin to name rollercoasters?

    • Re:Name (Score:3, Funny)

      by ackthpt ( 218170 ) *
      Kingda Ka? When did they start using pig latin to name rollercoasters?

      Turned down names:

      Zippy-poo

      Baghdad Dive-bomber

      Tip Top Gun

      Indiana Jones and the Temple of Hollywood Finances Explained Ride

      The Bridge of Death (What color are we going to paint it? Blue! No! Green!-AAAAHHH!!!)

      DotCom Bubble Bust Ride of Doom

      Campaign 2004

  • Short Ride (Score:4, Interesting)

    by john82 ( 68332 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @05:43PM (#10409605)
    Take a look at the "Virtual Tour". Certainly it appears to be a high peak. The faux clouds are a nice touch. But the ride amounts to one climb, a twist as you come down and a small hill as you return to the station. Might be less than 25 seconds once you sit in the car.

    How does that compare to other high rides?
    • It doesn't, it's totally different. The ride is the launch experience, which is totally insane. It's a short ride, but I assure you, it IS intense. I've ridden Dragster many times, as well as all of the other Cedar Point coasters.
    • It's a clone of the ride at Cedar Point.
      • I hate when I accidentally hit the submit button. Here [cedarpoint.com]is a depiction of the Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point. Same except no secondary hill at Cedar Point.

        (OT, but their website doesn't seem Firefox friendly. The menus are all screwed up an unusable for me in Firefox, but work fine in IE).

    • Rollercoaster Tycoon logic.

      They only have so much space, so they add very small, very intense rides instead of grand staple rides.
      • I can just imagine it now:

        "Just looking at Kingda Ka makes me feal queazy!"

        "I want to ride on something more exciting than Kingda Ka!"

        "I'm running out of cash!"

        BTM
      • Have you seen GA from the air? It's huge, and there's all sorts of nothing around it. They can expand along the lake front to add a whole assload of themed areas.
        And the recently added _huge_ Nitro ride sort of makes that moot.

        I think it's because thats as large a ride as they could afford for that engineering firm to build for them at this time; while still getting that height/speed record.
      • They only have so much space, so they add very small, very intense rides instead of grand staple rides.

        Well, if you've ever been to GA, this doesn't really make sense. Now, I'm sure GA owns whatever land they own, and somebody else owns the land adjacent to the park, but all there is adjacent to the park is a bunch of forest for miles around. You'd think the suits at Six Flags could negotiate a fair price with some of these landowners, because it's really a little bit strange to see; at one part of the
    • I got nauseous just watching the crappy demo movie. erghh I need to lie down.
    • If it is like the Top Thrill, I think it is kind of a waste of time. Even for its intensity, I expect a few minutes worth of a ride for waiting a freaking hour in the blazing sun, not to mention the hours it takes just to get to the park.

      I guess it really doesn't matter, I won't bother with this kind of park.

      • Re:Short Ride (Score:2, Informative)

        by agallagh42 ( 301559 )
        "If it is like the Top Thrill, I think it is kind of a waste of time. Even for its intensity, I expect a few minutes worth of a ride for waiting a freaking hour in the blazing sun, not to mention the hours it takes just to get to the park."

        I don't know. I drove for 6 hours from Toronto to Sandusky on the second weekend of Top Thrill's existance. We waited in line for 5 hours, for a ride that lasted 26 seconds (I timed it). They were still working some bugs out, and it shut down several times, but we pe
    • MMS stands for Microsoft Multimedia Streamer.
      If your browser chokes on the mms mime-type just feed the address into xine or whatever you use and it should play.

    • Re:Short Ride (Score:3, Informative)

      by C_Kode ( 102755 )
      It's like Mr. Freeze at Six Flags over Texas, (and St. Louis) but Mr Freeze is better as it not only does more, after going forward it returns in reverse on the same track. It does 0-70 in 3.8 seconds via linear induction motors.

      Here is a photo (it's the light blue one, Batman is yellow one behind it)
      http://www.coastergallery.com/2001/Freeze01.jpg [coastergallery.com]

      • Re:Short Ride (Score:3, Funny)

        by Achoi77 ( 669484 )
        It does 0-70 in 3.8 seconds via linear induction motors.

        Not to be a downer on rollercoasters, but man! acceleration like that just can't be good for you.

        One of my friends got on a ride that did something similar, like 0-70 in 4 or something. The entire ride was about 10 seconds long (seriously). She doesn't remember any of it, because she BLACKED OUT due to the acceleration. Man was she pissed! Waiting in line for 3 1/2 hours just to ride something for 10 seconds AND HAVE NO MEMORY OF IT AT ALL.

        Plus ab

        • Hm. Someone physically fit shouldnt have real problems with this acceleration (2.5g or something, if 70 is miles/h). But a blackout isnt impossible. Just bad luck.
          She should rather ask herself what she really expected from that 10 seconds to make it worth waiting 3.5h...
        • What the hell are you talking about, it's pissy acceleration. A Ferrari F-40 does 0-60 in 3.4 seconds so I have no doubt that it can hit 70 in another .4 seconds, you don't see drivers passing out all the time. Hell real dragsters do 0-300+ in ~4.5 seconds. The more likely problem is the impulse G's in the first fractions of a second after the LIM's fire up, that could have negative effects on the brain and should be fairly easy to work around by using a slightly longer launch area with something other than

  • Translation of name (Score:5, Funny)

    by StefanJ ( 88986 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @05:43PM (#10409606) Homepage Journal
    Kingda Ka is Hyperborean for "Spine snapper."

    Or, if pronounced with emphasis on the "da," its Lemurean for "Flinger of Unrestrained Toddlers."

    • Or, if pronounced with emphasis on the "da," its Lemurean for "Flinger of Unrestrained Toddlers."

      On a positive note, you won't have to blow your nose for about a month, as it'll fling unrestrained boogers, too.

      Ok, let's start the pool -- How long before Cedar Point outdoes this?

      • I give a year. Lower Top Thrill Dragster's launch area, and up the speed. Put a hump in, or even run some track over to, oh, Millenium Force, and Cedar Point has it nailed. I think they can mod TTD when they're replacing the rubber bands that hold it together, and are always breaking...
    • No, it's how you describe where your teeth went when your mouth is wedged on the restraining bar.

  • You pervert! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Geburah ( 610977 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @05:46PM (#10409620)
    You get it on with your partner. There is anxious anticipation as you start. You start slowly, climbing your way to the top.

    There are smiles exchanged, and giggles, maybe even caressing or hand holding. The excitement builds and builds. It nears the top. The expressions on faces become wondrous and excited. Then as it hits the pinnacle, things move very fast. There's a quick motion, the heart races with complete excitement; faces are all in total pleasure. Arms are flailing, heads are bouncing, and there is some noticeable screaming going on.

    The rest of the ride is up and down, twisting and turning, lots of bumping, sometimes in the light, sometimes in the dark, sometimes there's a surprise, and sometimes it becomes all too familiar but always...always...at the end, there's a big smile on the face, hair is all messed up and everyone is talking about how great it is while some of them say, "I wanna go again"...

    What am I? The Kingda Ka Roller Coaster of course! Sheesh... You pervert.

  • How UNORIGINAL (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Shivetya ( 243324 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @05:47PM (#10409627) Homepage Journal
    Gee, lets see how unoriginal we can get. While I applauded Cedar Point for their interpetation of a "RollerCoaster" I don't think the term fits these beasts.

    To me a Rollercoaster involves more than going up one incline, no matter how tall. It is all about the flow of the machine. Some wild machines are just a royal pain to ride as they thrash or feel disjointed from seemingly "just thrown in" hills and curves.

    The Great American Scream machine in Six Flags over Georgia is representative of a classic rollercoaster. CedarPoint has many REAL roller coasters. These new things remind me of railed free fall machines. Boring...
    • Want a real coaster? Come to Cincinnati and ride "The Beast". It's the longest wooden coaster in the world.

      Sites:

      http://www.zuko.com/Cool_Rides/Extreme_Coasters_3 . htm [zuko.com]
      http://www.pki.com/attractions_rides_featured.jsp? id=710 [pki.com]

      Ride length: 3 minutes, 40 seconds
      Line length: 4 hourse, 39 minutes
      • The Beast Rules! It's my favorite coaster. It's a different ride at different times of day. And when it hits the bottom of the corkscrew it shakes so hard it still scares me.
      • You should try the Texas Giant at SFoT. It's been ranked #1 several times and by several different groups/magazines.

        http://www.coasterphotos.com/SFOT/texasgiant.htm [coasterphotos.com]

      • Re:How UNORIGINAL (Score:3, Interesting)

        by ShadowBlasko ( 597519 )
        I wanted to mod you up, but I can't do that and post to the thread under my account.

        I'm pretty sure I have ridden The Beast more than anyone should ever dream of. I was a "green sheet" (essentially operator qualified) on that ride for a couple years, and rode at *least* 5 times daily.

        I've ridden coasters in just about every east coast park, and I honestly have to say that The Beast is the greatest wooden coaster there ever *will* be.

        The reason for that is because, during the construction, the designers a
    • You can also ride the Great American Scream Machine at Six Flags Great Adventure after riding the ride this article describes! When it was built - it was the tallest/fastest worldwide (Cedar Point took their title back the following year)

      IMO - the change in launch allows speeds faster than those permitted by the forces of gravity required for traditional coasters. something tells me the physical space required for a tall incline and first drop are reaching their limits, thus limiting the speeds those coa
    • Top Thrill is SMOOTH. Too smooth. Mantis thrashes. Mean Streak thrashes, but it thrashes because it's wooden, and that's a good kind of thrashing.

      I do agree that Top Thrill is pretty boring once you hit the hill, but the launch is awesome. Call me back when they manage to do a turn after the hill, and put it on the Millenium Force track.

  • Weightlessness (Score:3, Informative)

    by yo303 ( 558777 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @05:51PM (#10409658)
    The coaster [...] shoots over a 129-foot hill, which the company says will make riders feel weightless.
    I'm not so sure that weightlessness is something that should be mass-marketed. They don't call it the Vomit Comet for nothing.

    If you go on this thing, look around at the other people, and choose somewhere smart to sit. See video here [prnewswire.com] while it lasts.

    yo.

  • anyone else do the virtual tour on their website? even for a little video on the internet that was damn short. i can't imagin waiting in line for hours and hours for that. gimmie a beer over that anytime.

  • Wow! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 01, 2004 @05:54PM (#10409691)
    It's over in about 50 seconds. Wow! It really is just like sex!

  • i've riden rides like this (Score:5, Informative)

    by jeffy124 ( 453342 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @06:00PM (#10409734) Homepage Journal
    I've riden a ride like the one buing built. It's the kind that uses a horizontal track to send the train into the first incline. Believe me, there's nothing like it. One I rode (StormRunner (?), Hershey Park, PA) went from a near dead stop to 70+ MPH in under 3 seconds, into a 90 degree first climb 12 stories high. You move so fast your eyes water from all the wind whipping past you. So fast the forces throw your head back against the headrest. So fast, it's all done with in about 27 seconds.

    One big word of advice if you ride something like this: Before the ride starts, keep your head against the headrest. Your neck will thank you.

  • Issues resolved? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Rew190 ( 138940 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @06:15PM (#10409830)
    Top Thrill Dragster had an unfortunately large amount of down-time (mostly due to the cables and hydraulic system). Last year, when it premiered, it was down for nearly an entire month. It actually became prevalent enough that the ride's running status was put online. [cedarpoint.com] TTD is an amazing ride, though, and downtime was to be expected on a ride whose design was revolutionary.

    It'll be interesting to see if Intamin has worked the bugs out of this one; I'm sure they've learned much from Dragster.

    At any rate, it's very exciting to see the 500 mark being approached so rapidly!
    • Six Flags had the same problem with a ride out here in the Los Angeles area called "X". Amazing ride, has seats that rotate independently of the train, so it can do things like flip the seats while going through a long airtime hill. Good stuff. Unfortunately, it was down a lot. After opening late, it had a 6-month downtime, then was regularly closed, probably at least half of the days since then. When it wasn't, it had 3-4 hour waits. However, Six Flags never once bothered to put any sort of X Sta

  • Totally weak (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pr0vidence ( 562808 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @06:16PM (#10409843)
    This ride is completely weak in that it is almost an exact copy of Cedar Point's ride. only 8 mph faster (ooohh) and 30 odd feet higher (aahh). I went to Cedar Point a few weeks back and passed on the dragster. You are literally on the ride for 30 seconds, if that. And this is what you get for standing in line for an hour? two? I think not. We opted to go on Millenium Force and that was much more of a ride, it topped out at a "lousy" 390 feet, but the ride lasted for nearly 2 minutes. No thanks 6 flags, I'm gonna pass.
    • Rides like that are good to wait on until the end of the day, when hopefully the crowd has thinned out. Back when the Magnum at Cedar Point was a big deal, I was able to ride it about 5 times in 30 minutes, so despite the fact that you're on the thing for 30 seconds it's still worth it.

      Yeah, if I wait in line for an hour in the sun, I want a ride that lasts longer than it takes to get everyone into the train and strapped in.
      • No, the perfect thing to ride at the end of the day is Mantis followed by Raptor on the way out. Both rides are incredibly cool after dark, between the strobes and not being able to see the ground until you get really close it's a VERY different experience from daytime.
    • I don't think you are allowed to pass judgement on Dragster until you ride it. I too was aphrensive about waiting 2 hours to ride it but being out at Cedar Point for a two day "coaster trip" that was the point.


      After riding it, I would definitely wait again 2 hours in line to ride it. It is like nothing you have ever ridden before at a park and like nothing you have ever felt before unless you fly fighter jets for the Air Force. It's an amazing ride.

    • Millennium Force is 310ft, a full 110ft smaller than Dragster. It is, however, a much better ride -- having done it twice now, the sixteen second experience that is Dragster is not something I would wait more than an hour for.

  • Cedar Point (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RoadWarriorX ( 522317 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @06:24PM (#10409893) Homepage
    It's sometimes great living in the Northern Ohio area. Cedar Point is the greatest park EVER. With great, world-record rides like the Magnum XL200 (puny by today's standards), Millenium Force, and the Top-Thrill Dragster, how can anyone really do better here in the U.S.?

    I do have a concern though. With the Dragster, the ride uses a cable driven mechanism to pull the car at 120 MPH. There was an incident this past summer where the cable shredded and shards of cable covered in hot oil injured a many of the riders. The local news coverage showed people having first-degree burns and embedded wire pieces on their face and arms (yikes!). I agree that this is an isolated incident, but this ride has been closed a lot because of the high winds from Lake Erie. Being 420-something feet, I would not like to be stuck on top of the hill for any reason. So, I hope the designers are prepared for this new ride.

    • Re:Cedar Point (Score:3, Informative)

      by pegr ( 46683 )
      I was surprised to learn that TTD actually uses cables. Here [machinedesign.com] is a good rundown of the tech of TTD.

    • Re:Cedar Point (Score:2, Interesting)

      by DigitalDemon617 ( 761895 )
      I've actually seen empty cars get stuck at the top of the hill, then go either forward or backward about 15 seconds later. I saw a full car with people on it make it almost the full way up the hill and then go back down the launch side backwards. Not to mention the cable snap problem. Those problems and the fact that it has been closed for more time than it has been running have kept me from riding it. I'm sure it's a great ride when it works, but you won't see me riding it.
      • Once an empty train got caught at the very top of the hill and stayed there. One of the maintainance guys went up the elevator and literally pushed it over.

    • I don't think it would be possible to get stuck on the top of the hill. If you stood around and watched the ride for a while, you would see that sometimes the train wouldn't make it over the hill, and come back to be launched again.

      I think it would be like trying to balance a pencil up-right. Sure, it could be done, but very, very, very rarely.

  • Good, but not as fun... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DroopyStonx ( 683090 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @06:25PM (#10409902)
    These rides are more like "quick thrills" than a traditional roller coaster.

    I had a season pass to Cedar Point last year and went quite a few times, and while the Top Thrill Dragster was fun, it doesn't compare to their other tall coasters, Millennium Force and Magnum.

    Reason being, as you ride to the top of the MF or the Magnum, you anticipate dropping straight down 300/200 feet and there's more suspense.

    With Top Thrill Dragster, the ride is seriously over before you know it. It's much harder to enjoy because it goes so fast. Don't get me wrong, it is fun, but calling these the fastest/tallest coasters is like saying the Ripcord (bungee/slingshot type ride) is the highest ride ever made. Yeah, technically it is, but it shouldn't count.

    I'd much rather ride to the top of a 400/500 foot hill while anticipating the drop back down - seems much more thrilling.

    It also sucks waiting 2/3 hours in line for a 10 second ride ;)
  • I had an opportunity to go to Cedar Point over the summer and ride TTD, and to be honest, the fact that it shuts down on occasion worked to our advantage. First, we waited in line for about an hour before it broke down. They said it would be a long wait and encouraged us to visit the rest of the park. We did, but once we saw it was back up, we came back. When we got back in line, it looked long as hell; however, since they were obviously expecting more problems, they intentionally kept the line short, b
  • Well, actually, I like modern coasters.

    Well, before I started getting headaches and neck pain after each ride.

    Anyway.

    Any of you out there living in Pittsburgh owe yourselves a trip to Kennywood, an old-fashioned amusement park on the Mongahela (sp?) SE of downtown.

    My grad program went there for a summer picnic about eight years back.

    It has a modern necksnapper or two, plus some wonderful old-fashioned wooden coasters. Some of these are good for kids. Others are kind of exotic, like one that has tracks
    • It has a modern necksnapper or two

      The Phantom's Revenge is actually one of the smoothest rides I've ever been on. The Steel Phantom, which it replaced was much more of a neck snapper.

      Others are kind of exotic, like one that has tracks running in each direction that kind of cross over.

      If you mean the Racer, yeah it's interesting. The trains run side-by-side on what is actually one long track. If you start in the train on the left, you end up on the right. I believe there is only one other coaster i
    • Then there's . . . well, I forget the name, but it's a wooden coaster that delivered the roughest, most violent ride I've experienced. Ignoring a sign at the entrance, I sat to the left of a college friend who was bigger and heavier then me. The violent right turns repeatedly slammed Tobin against me. Real rib-crushing stuff.

      That sounds like the Wild Mouse at Blackpool; a really old ride, not especially fast or high even by the standards of its time, but curled about in an intestinal sort of way. And with

  • what if 'hydraulic launch' fails to achieve ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by polished look 2 ( 662705 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @06:42PM (#10410019) Journal
    the needed velocity to put the cart over the top of the hump - say if something goes wrong during the 'launch' of the vehicle? What type of safeguards are there to prevent a catastrophe?

    Lets say the vehicle must achieve 115 mph to reach the summit but during the 'launch' the hydraulic mechanism fails and the vehicle hits only 110 mph - the vehicle will go near the top of the summit but then WILL START GOING BACKWARDS - and then what? Do they have some kind of track they can run off onto (remember that the seats are not meant for this).

    Any ideas on how best to deal with this?
    • Cedar Point's dragster was designed with this possibility in mind, and it does happen every 20 times or so (more often on windy days). There is a braking system built into the track on both sides, so if the ride gets to the top and falls backwards, it will be stopped and return to the launch platform, where they will try again. If it fails a second time, I believe they will remove a couple of people to make it lighter. So basically, if you're on a car that fails to make it over the hill, you get to experien

      • Re:what if 'hydraulic launch' fails to achieve ... (Score:5, Informative)

        by Rew190 ( 138940 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @07:00PM (#10410135)
        You're talking about "rollbacks." They happen a lot on hot days and cold days. If, for some reason, you're next in line and Dragster doesn't fire any trains off for at least ten or fifteen minutes, you are VERY likely to experience a rollback.

        If it fails a second time, I believe they will remove a couple of people to make it lighter.

        Nope, when a train launches and rolls back, TTD simply raises the juice a bit until it clears. It's not really known how fast it can really go, but the juice on it is NEVER turned up anywhere near the maximum. I've seen it go over 130.

    • Re:what if 'hydraulic launch' fails to achieve ... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Frappuccino ( 813206 ) on Friday October 01, 2004 @06:53PM (#10410090)
      At cedar point i've seen the car not make it all the way up... it just rolls back and tries again... They have a sign in the line that says that it's normal and just happens sometimes. I believe they actually changed the cars to hold 4 less people than originally because it had problems making it up the hill at first. There are no hydroulics to aid it up the hill after the launch... it goes from 0-120 mph in like 2 seconds. You sit still, the car rolls back a little, and POW!!! You're 420 feet up in the air, and it's a smooooth ride. Doesn't last long enough, but it's wild. Going that fast is actually cooler than going up in the air. Now if they just used the same technology to build a flat ride around the perimeter of the park that let you go 200 mph around cedar point in a minute and a half... now THAT would be cool. No hills or anything, just a smooth, fast ride.
  • Cedar Point's Top Thrill Dragster is only 38 feet shorter (420ft) and 8mph slower. I'm willing to live with that just to be able to go on all their other awesome rides in the same day. I went about a month ago and *LOVED* the Millennium Force, The Raptor (hanging from the tracks), their stand-up coaster, The Magnum 200 XL, The Gemini, and a bunch of others. Can't beat it for the sheer volume of coasters. I also like that they called TTD a "Dragster", which is closer to what it is than "Rollercoaster".
  • Yeah, and they are also building a clinic with a large emergency room near by.

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