Gazza

I think you have hit the nail on the head with that comment. Design wise, the ride has missed the mark in terms of pacing, ideally the turns should get tighter and the hills smaller so the ride keeps its excitement, in reality it's the exact opposite, meandering turns high up. Yes, they are making it like a motor racing track by having lots of turns, but unfortunatley this makes the ride utterly forceless with no airtime. It will do the job as a family ride, but to say its part of "Big 6" is just a joke.

Thanks for the vid, though for some reason on my computer the sound kept fading in and out The launch looks pretty cool...unfortunatley that and the first couple of turns seem to be the only good parts. Lets hope they crank it up a bit and that wasn't a full speed test, it looks like it was limping to the finish line, hardly the motor racing spirit you would want to capture.

^Sort of like Shamu Express? Source: http://www.rcdb.com/m/ig3340.htm?picture=3 Personally, I would rather see something a bit more, err, sophisticated. Im thinking of a water coaster with a mythological sea monster theme. I would use the Intamin Super Splash ride system (Similar to Fuga da Atlantide at Gardaland). Basically, the ride would start out with people boarding water craft at a harbour side boat rental joint. The begining of the ride would be a plodding trip out of a boat harbour with a few gentle turns as it meanders past boats and docks. When you reach "open water" a huge tentacle would rise up out of the water right by your boat, you would hear the creature roar, the track would rise up slightly to lead into a LIM launch. You would be launched forward (The creature has you in its grasp) along a straight, and at the end the track would enter a cave (the creatures lair), inside would be a few twists and turns, the track would spiral up to the highest point, and in the middle of the spiral would be some sort of anamatronic version of the sea creature. You would leave the building at the highest point, go down a drop, over a bunny hop and splash down, ending the ride.

^That is because of the way the rings of seats are weighted a bit off center. On the way up the ring freely tries to rotate itself so the weight is pointing downwards, so because it has done this on the way up it wont really turn on the way down. When it reaches the other side of the halfpipe the ring is the "wrong way around" so again the ring rotates naturally to have the weight at the bottom.

You all probably know my love of quirky little rides, But I just came across what looks to be one of the more interesting rides opening in 2008 and though it would be worth sharing, Piraten, it's basically a 30m high Intamin hyper coaster going in at a small park in Denmark. It is going to use short 4 car trains, and has a crazy airtime filled layout. Wouldn't you just love to see a ride like this down under? the fact it is going in at a small park means it is by no means unaffordable, If a park here perhaps added a couple of hills and and a taller lift at the start it would quite easily be my favourite ride. An on ride video is here, http://www.rides.nl/nieuws/bericht/djurs-s...an-in-2008/1310 Unfortunatley, the official site www.djurssommerland.dk/ isn't working for me at the moment.

Dunno about laser tag, Id rather see more rides then smaller amusements that you would have to pay extra for. I think a Wooden roller coaster is the one thing people seem to be leaning towards, and why not? The stuff they are doing with this coaster type is amazing, plus they are very cheap to build. But having a bit of street theatre is a great idea, Disney does, and that is the sort of thing that makes the place so much more than normal parks.

So with the test runs, do they rig it to do a roll back on purpose? See, the funny thing is, for coaster nuts, being onboard for a roll back is a good thing because it is such a rare occurence. I wouldn't mind it happening, it would be like a mini TOT. I did a quick search on youtube for "TTD rollbacks" and you end up getting a ton of results, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPRQ6sld77Y, by the sounds of It the people on board didn't mind. PS, why do you keep posting up random pictures of rides that have nothing to do with what you are saying, I mean Scooby Doo, WTF? We're talking about superman

^Old news, people have already even posted pictures of the finished product here: http://www.parkz.com.au/forums/in...ost&p=46161 . Plus, you don't need to say the same thing multiple times.

Just on the water restrictions thing, why do they need to turn off fountains if they use recirculated water, for example the water from the 6 big fountains at the final drop just lands back in the splash down area, the wooden water tower just has water squirting down into the channel etc, how could they say these are wasting water when it isn't going down the drain?

I think the only thing they could do would be change to the ones with the raised up sections where the neck is (Surfrider is using them) as the whole restraint has the same dimensions, no designing would be needed as the restraints are already being manufactured. Anyway, the issue isn't the strength or reliability, the problem is the fact the red part is just narrow straps that "cut" into your neck when the ride moves.

Are you from Shepp? I went last year, so I am hoping we see a repeat of last years rides, i wouldn't mind trying space roller in an outside seat as those seats have a faster circular velocity, though it is hard for me to justify spending $15 on extreme speed again, even though it was a great ride.

Are you thinking of Monash Playground near Berri? That pretty much fits the description. The only pic I could find was this one, but it gives you an idea of the sorts of stuff it had.

Yeah, there is plenty of grass, it looks on par with WWW actually. Well, if the Simpson's have taught me anything, the solution is to send 20 kids down to clear the blockage. But in seriousness, I would have just held on to the raft and fidgeted/jumped a bit to get moving again. I don't think an on foot evacuation would have really been safe (was the water completely off?) as I could imagine people just slipping over. Not strange at all, On the Proslide website they have the sales videos, they show both raft types in use. Do they make an effort to race people like on the BRO given the duelling effect?

While I think they have done a great job with the looney tunes characters on there, they should do a bit more to hide the inner workings of the carousel, at the top of course It would be nice if they had done a roof with light globes on it, and in the middle some extra panelling to hide the middle stand.

Would have you ridden it?

^Yeah, I wasn't expecting anything more given the current precedent of WWW attractions, my backyard has better theming than this, I don't really mind though.

^I dont think the carousel is done yet, have a look at the first pic, up the back (below the guy with welding goggles on) you can see a panel with an oval shaped mirror on it, very typical of what goes around the centre of a carousel. I cant imagine it looking like a washing line for much longer. Funny, I would have given it a batman theme and put it beside its big brother if it were going to be put anywhere other than WB kids zone. That said they have the right idea with what they are doing now. Edit: Random, but I just noticed you can see batwing and this in the same pic.

^Just on that, is it confirmed whether we have to pay on top of admission to ride them?

That's not a woody

When is JC gold coast going to dip in? His Superman recreation set the bar pretty high.

^Are you that dumb that you cant even spell? Arrogant prat.

You can read about them here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav It comes up on some forums how Thorpe Park seems to be overridden by people like this.

The key word is "trialling", why spend a bucket load of money changing over every seat when all you need is a pair to gauge whether it works well or not?

Just a bit of an update, Wallibi in Belgium is trialling the new seating design, looks to be much more comfortable IMO.

Hey mate, you're only new here, don't go around calling people idiots.