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Sounds like Deja Vu at Six Flags Magic Mountain.

Growing up on Long Island, I never really got that excited about Adventureland. Even as a little kid it just seemed like a mediocre carnival that was always there. Six Flags Great Adventure was always way better.

It's better than going to Six Flags. Free Admission to KATRINA Evacuees Over Labor Day Weekend http://www.sixflags.com/parks/astroworld/ParkPress /Katrina.html Hey! House under water? Everything you own destroyed? Come eat overpriced food, spend your last $80 and watch other people have fun!

There's a ride at the Great Adventure near me that has linear induction motors. It's:

http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/Rides /batmanrobin.html

It's a pretty violent ride. The acceleration is so harsh that it banged my head against the headpad and by the time it enters the first loop, the G-forces make me get lightheaded.

The acceleration is violent because electric motors make most of their torque at 0 rpm. (LM motors don't rotate but you get the point) So the holeshot is brutal.

There's also a ride here that's just about identical to the ride the article is about. It's called Kingda Ka and they have pictures of the motor on their website here:

http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/golde n_kingdom/photos.html

Here's the hydraulic motor:

http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/image s/golden_kingdom/79.jpg
http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/image s/golden_kingdom/90.jpg

The ride is pretty big:

http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/image s/golden_kingdom/108.jpg

There's a ride at the Great Adventure near me that has linear induction motors. It's:

http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/Rides /batmanrobin.html

It's a pretty violent ride. The acceleration is so harsh that it banged my head against the headpad and by the time it enters the first loop, the G-forces make me get lightheaded.

The acceleration is violent because electric motors make most of their torque at 0 rpm. (LM motors don't rotate but you get the point) So the holeshot is brutal.

There's also a ride here that's just about identical to the ride the article is about. It's called Kingda Ka and they have pictures of the motor on their website here:

http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/golde n_kingdom/photos.html

Here's the hydraulic motor:

http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/image s/golden_kingdom/79.jpg
http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/image s/golden_kingdom/90.jpg

The ride is pretty big:

http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/image s/golden_kingdom/108.jpg

There's a ride at the Great Adventure near me that has linear induction motors. It's:

http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/Rides /batmanrobin.html

It's a pretty violent ride. The acceleration is so harsh that it banged my head against the headpad and by the time it enters the first loop, the G-forces make me get lightheaded.

The acceleration is violent because electric motors make most of their torque at 0 rpm. (LM motors don't rotate but you get the point) So the holeshot is brutal.

There's also a ride here that's just about identical to the ride the article is about. It's called Kingda Ka and they have pictures of the motor on their website here:

http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/golde n_kingdom/photos.html

Here's the hydraulic motor:

http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/image s/golden_kingdom/79.jpg
http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/image s/golden_kingdom/90.jpg

The ride is pretty big:

http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/image s/golden_kingdom/108.jpg

There's a ride at the Great Adventure near me that has linear induction motors. It's:

http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/Rides /batmanrobin.html

It's a pretty violent ride. The acceleration is so harsh that it banged my head against the headpad and by the time it enters the first loop, the G-forces make me get lightheaded.

The acceleration is violent because electric motors make most of their torque at 0 rpm. (LM motors don't rotate but you get the point) So the holeshot is brutal.

There's also a ride here that's just about identical to the ride the article is about. It's called Kingda Ka and they have pictures of the motor on their website here:

http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/golde n_kingdom/photos.html

Here's the hydraulic motor:

http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/image s/golden_kingdom/79.jpg
http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/image s/golden_kingdom/90.jpg

The ride is pretty big:

http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/image s/golden_kingdom/108.jpg

There's a ride at the Great Adventure near me that has linear induction motors. It's:

http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/Rides /batmanrobin.html

It's a pretty violent ride. The acceleration is so harsh that it banged my head against the headpad and by the time it enters the first loop, the G-forces make me get lightheaded.

The acceleration is violent because electric motors make most of their torque at 0 rpm. (LM motors don't rotate but you get the point) So the holeshot is brutal.

There's also a ride here that's just about identical to the ride the article is about. It's called Kingda Ka and they have pictures of the motor on their website here:

http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/golde n_kingdom/photos.html

Here's the hydraulic motor:

http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/image s/golden_kingdom/79.jpg
http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/image s/golden_kingdom/90.jpg

The ride is pretty big:

http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/image s/golden_kingdom/108.jpg

Now it doesn't seem quite so surprising that Six Flags should be having so many problems with their me-too attempt.

-- Louis

Top Thrill Dragster isn't the tallest in the world anymore. At 456 feet, Kingda-Ka is:

http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/Rides /KingdaKa.html

At 128 mph, it is also the fastest (though it has been shut down for the last couple of weeks.)

http://www.sixflags.com/parks/magicmountain/Rides/ DejaVu.html is designed for that - half the ride goes backward. It's mean.

The is one of the best ones of all time, too bad there is nothing else worthwhile in that whole park.

Here are some renderings from Great Adventure's website:
http://www.sixflags.com/parks/greatadventure/golde n_kingdom/media.html

A little bit of makeup and several months practicing and I bet you could get a normally young, healthy person to look and act very much like an elderly man.

the colossus

I was going to build a cracked speedpass from Sixflags but havent gotten to it yet.

Augh, lost my whole post! Time to try again...

Unlike one of Intamin AG's older creations, Superman: The Escape at Six Flags Magic Mountain in CA (0-100mph in 7 seconds, though it's realistically only making about 88mph with a full car these days to conserve some electricity and keep the motors cool), this one does *not* use electromagnetic LSM/LIM motors to launch. This one is basically Xcelerator at Knott's Berry Farm's (0-82mph in 2.3 seconds) big brother, both using a hydraulic launch
motor.

I remember a quote from someone at CP saying that if they were trying to use LSM's to launch a train at 0-120mph in 4 seconds, like TTD needs, they might well brown out all of Sandusky given all the power that a launch like that would consume. As is, I know that California Screamin' at Disney's California Adventure (sorta unrelated, so too lazy to link) actually has to spray water on their LSMs to avoid overheating them from all the launches.

On these, there's a cable that runs from the motor, back to the station, around a wheel, then back across the top of the box track. It connects to the back of a launch sled, then more cable runs from the front of the sled back to the motor. When the motor fires, it yanks the sled down a channel in the top of the track (you can barely see Xcelerator's in this shot, look at the center of the track immediately behind the train, you can see the sled as an object in the center of the track, then the channel running along behind it).

It does, however, use electromagnetics for the braking systems, on both the launch run and the final brake run. After launch, fins pop up into place to stop the train from rolling back if it fails to clear the tower (in the pic above, you can see that some of the fins have raised while the ones immediately behind the train have not). I would imagine that for brake fin systems that their default state, without power, is to have the fins up, and that it takes power to lower them. Not sure how that works, but generally that's the failsafe for a braking system like that. There aren't really any block brakes for the ride, other than through the entire unload -> load area, so the computer systems won't allow one train to launch until another train has completely cleared the brake run.

I'm not sure about the PLC for the ride, but I remember reading that Xcelerator's checks and adjusts the launch about 400 times in the 2.3 seconds it takes it. I would imagine they've got some relatively beefy hardware running this one as well...

As stated on their website: "Thrill Seekers Wanted". I mean, granted, they have nice attractions right now, but who wouldnt want a new facelift when going mach 8.6?

No it ain't! I was at SFMM two days ago, adult admission price is $45.99. This is, admittedly, ridiculously high, but they have season tickets for $52.99 on Six Flags' Website. Warning, lotsa flash on that page.

The season passes work at any Six Flags park as well, so that's a bonus.

I did just think that maybe you were including the $8 in parking in that total, so I guess it is over $50. Still, same with all the other parks...

You really need to see Cedar Point - and while you're here, hit King's Island and maybe even Magic Mountain. Disney's not famous for great roller coasters, and from what we understand, EuroDisney sucks.

Because I'll be booking my next vacation to Walt Disney World and not EA world.

Why Walt Disney World and not Time Warner World?

And yes, EA does have a theme park and a theme park. Who knows? Perhaps EA is planning a real (not Sim) theme park.

Actually, I don't know anyone who has ridden the Twister II at Elitch Gardens more than once...I am a roller coaster junkie but I found it extremely painful, not because of high Gs but because it is extremely bumpy and whiplash-y (yes I made up that word). Everyone I have asked about it says the same thing--I keep waiting to meet the one person who thinks it is an awesome ride. It looks really tame when you first look at it, too--I made the mistake of taking my husband (he doesn't like coasters) on it, thinking, "Oh, it's just a step above a kiddie ride"--and now I can't get him to go on another coaster. If that had been my first coaster experience in a long time, there's a good chance I would never get on another coaster, either.

The good news is, if you want to try it, there's never a line.

That is definitely some old information on the ibiblio.org page. As far as the wooden coaster information goes, I'm not sure about that, but the steel ones don't take into account at least one coaster that's a good 2 years old.

Taken from the Goliath homepage:

Height - 255 feet (higher than the top listed on those records)
Drop angle - 61 degrees (higher than #2, and X, the newest one, is something like 86 or 87 degrees)
Drop Length - at least 255 feet (it goes underground, once again, higher than top listed on those records)
Speed - 85 mph (ties record)

So those are at least a few years old, and I know that Goliath has been surpassed for those records since that time.

Just as a side note, the newest coaster at Magic Mountain out in Valencia, CA (mentioned earlier as being the home of Goliath), called X, is probably the easiest one on the human body that I've seen there. They've got some videos here, in Real Player and Windows Media. They're all computer generated simulations, but you still get a good idea.

The ride looks horribly disorienting, but oddly enough, it's not at all. Maybe being flung around at those G forces makes your body's orientation matter less, but I got off that ride feeling fine.

I can, however, attest to that slightly disoriented feeling getting off Goliath, but that's half the fun of the ride...you feel a little goofed up after flying around at that ridiculous speed. The drop on it is so fast, they had to put a braking strip in the middle of the ride so you'll slow down enough for the end of the trip. I think the initial drop puts you at about 85mph on a 61 degree drop...good times!

I'm also in the "that's ridiculous" boat. Every roller coaster I've ever seen is *well* within the limits of safety, generally with huge margins for error when they run. The physics principles behind each and every roller coaster are sound, the trick is to make what is essentially very safe seem dangerous as hell. At Magic Mountain out here in Cali., I believe they've had one death, and that was a woman with a pre-existing condition that she was unaware of that caused an aneurysm or something similar. Either way, doctors later said that it was one of those things that was set off by the roller coaster, but a close call in the car, or a number of other situations could have just as easily caused it to happen, so ultimately it wasn't from the coaster.

Ultimately, even on probably the highest G-Force part of the park, (Goliath, nearing the end, on the corkscrew down to the ground), it's still not so strong that I can't lift my head against it. Can't same the same for the vomitron 5000 at the local county fair...

I recently rode Goliath a couple times. Its a great ride. That long corkscrew got me too (though I remember it being a descending corkscrew). The first time was really bad for me. Tunnel vision all the way. I almost blacked out. It was great. The second time it wasn't so bad, only fuzzy vision around the edges. I guess thats what its like to have the blood pulled out of your head and shoved into your legs. For me this kicked is just at the end of the corkscrew, so it wasn't a continuous sensation. This is exactly why I ride roller coasters. I wish I had an accelerometer to know how many positive Gs were in that turn.

Any way here is a URL to the coaster: Goliath.

Have fun!
The JungleBoy

If the gondola had to make an emergency descent, the envelope would be cut away and the platform would freefall at supersonic speed. The stability of the gondola at high speed is therefore critical. Emergency parachutes will be fitted to control the speed of the descent.

I'm also a software developer born-and-raised and currently living in Louisville, KY. Businesses and people across the USA need to stop thinking of Louisville as a "hick town"--I wildly assure you that IT IS NOT. As a former resident of upstate NY, Charlotte, NC and the SF bay area, I attest that Louisville is a modern city with very upstanding people and lots of things to do for a city its size (and it isn't so small -- 1 million in the metro area!).

Louisville has vibrant arts, sports, architecture, politics, business, attractions and nightspots and a very fun two-week festival in April/May surrounding the Kentucky Derby (including "Thunder Over Louisville", the nation's largest air power and fireworks show). And if that isn't enough, the University of Louisville includes a very good school of engineering.

Of course, the most important aspect of Louisville is her people, among the friendliest you'll ever run into.

I've got one of those Intellimouse Explorers (the huge silver ones with the superfluous tail light and like three extra buttons; well, what the hell, here's a http://www.microsoft.com/Mouse/explorer.htm link) and sites that won't let you back out are an incredible annoyance. See, two of the buttons on there serve as Forward/Back (respectively) while browsing the web, and after about 20 minutes of using them, I was hooked. You wouldn't believe how simple (and remarkably intuitive) to navigate with your thumb. Now if I could just find a good use for those buttons in Half-Life... I mean, sure, it's easy enough to hold down the back button and select the page before the offending site, but that would require moving my cursor over six or so linear inches of desktop space. Isn't that just a little bit unreasonable? No? Ah well.

The intallation of the thing was excellant, Linux needs more programs that have an installation like that. The player itself isn't bad, it looks better than the old Real Player. The quality is the same for me, as I had no complaints about the last version. The only thing that really bugs me is I can't seem to view real audio streams taht come up in a pop-up window. For example, The Golith video, or any of the vidoes' on Cnn. Just the stupid "Netscape Plugins" window pops up, telling me to download real player, which I already have installed! It's very annoying, and I'd love it if Real would add that support for the Unix's.

Woah, woah, I think we are talking about a different ride here. I am talking about "Superman - Ride of Steel" at Six Flags Darien Lake NY.

As for the not being a roller coaster, it has a track, long train of 15+ cars, many hills, and lots of ups and downs. There are at least 5+ hills. What does the ride do that you are thinking of? You _have_ to be thinking of a different ride because this is a 100% roller coaster.

Check out the site and click on the Superman ride

--
Scott Miga