Gazza

Im inclined to say its not a thrill ride in the traditional sense, its basically a wild mouse with extras, and while it is thrilling, it lacks the same intensity as a traditional "thrill ride". I think of it as a family coaster. I think if you compare things like LW and S:E and BW:SS to rides like TOT, GD and Cyclone you can see a clear link. But if you compare scooby with say cyclone or the claw then that link becomes less aparent. Also, the fact it is themed around scooby doo hurts it in terms of being comparable to the much more imposing names that the rides at DW have. Things like the claw and tower of terror have that definite feel, but "scooby doo spooky coaster" sounds a little bit kiddy and well, not scary, but spooky. If anything its comparable to Eureka at DW, and i dont consider that a true thrill ride. Basically for me, a thrill ride is a woodie, a looper, a hyper, or an intense flat ride. Most of these have full restraints too (except for hypers and woodies) which sort of makes them feel more like a thrill ride. Now i know there are exceptions to my argument, but thats how i feel. Oh wait, this thread was about a new ride at LW. Im hoping its a kung fu theme ride like what has been discussed before. That would be cool.

I sort of guessed that was going to happen, im guessing that there will be some sort of uphill slide (but they might do a pair installation because of the crowds and to push that "Biggest 'n' Best" Message) Im also predicting a bowl attraction of some sort, but maybe not a Beheomoth bowl. And maybe a park here will finally put in some of those "Turbo Tunnel" Type things.....

Well, at least it relates to the theme of SW and they havent tried to do something like an extreme sports tie in to attract that teen market. How long though until people claim the name is insensitive to victims of the Boxing Day Tsunamis? There was a park in the US that re-named their woodie from Tsunami out of respect. And SW isnt immune to doing this, they renamed their fairy penguins to "little penguins" to avoid offending people. Then again, maybe it has been long enough now that people dont mind, i mean we have rides like cyclone, and they have killed many.... Still, this sounds cool, im looking foward to seeing how it looks.

Yeah, there is something known as a "Zone Blocking System" Basically there are more sets of brakes on the track then there are trains. Each section between the brakes is known as a block. The rides monitoring system only allows one train in each block at a time (Basically to avoid one train rear ending another) If for some reason a train hasnt cleared the block ahead then the brakes will close, stopping the train behind. They wont open until the zone is clear. So for example, if one train was at the begining of the launch, it would not be able to go until the train ahead had at least cleared the unload station. This is why sometimes on Scooby Doo your car comes to an abrupt halt on sometimes, it means a car is still in the zone ahead.

Most workplaces seem to keep uniforms folded up or hanging in a cupboard, and often it is near the staff room. They would never be kept in the locations you described as it would be a downright pain to have to go right out the back or into coomera to get uniforms everytime they have an induction for new staff. They also need to be close at hand in case somebody arrives at work, but has forgotten a piece of their uniform. The amount of storage really just depends on staff turnover. It wouldnt be bigger than say a walk in robe. If you think about it a secondary school uniform shop supplies a similar amount of people, and i know the storage area for mine is little more than a wall divided up into boxes.

I guess they changed it then. Good find though.

I thought it was illegal to place fake job ads, i know in our local rag they always have a little warning saying not to place fake ads yadayadayada.

Ok, first get a cup and sit it on the edge of a table so half the bottom is off the side, but no so much that the cup falls off. Now, get a jug and tip water quickly in and see what happens, they basically work by that principle. (maybe do this experiment outside, for example on the front steps) No offence mate, but i thought it was pretty obvious how tipping buckets work, they are on a pivot and overbalance when they are too full. As for the little cone ones, its the same principle again, they just re-calculate where the pivot needs to go so the bucket will tip. To fill the pools up the filtration system has a direct mains connection, so all they do is open up a valve and water flows into the system. I know in our pool it is kept topped up by a little chamber that is beside the pool and in the ground, it is connected to the pool by a thin pipe that is at water level. When the pool gets too low there is a float in the chamber that drops a little bit, opening a valve so water can flow in, until it is high enought, so the float goes up and the valve is shut off (its exactly the same as the thing that makes the cistern fill after you flush the toilet) Oh, and i would imagine WWW would add new rides, what sort of theme park doesnt? Was that a rhetorical question?

Im hoping that these new ticket options relax some of the requirements too, one of my biggest gripes is the way you have to visit all parks before being able to park hop. But holidays are random, and you might not feel like doing things their way. For example, when i was up early this year i had to go to SW, then MW, then WnW. But IMO it would have been more logical to do 2 days in a row at MW (With WnW each night) then SW, but the conditions didnt allow this. And what about if you had gone to SW and MW already, but the weather was bad so you wanted to go back to MW instead of WnW. Of course, you can get around this by just turning up at a park and leaving right away until you had done all 3....except that the parks need a car between them and its just a waste of time. If they just opened it up a bit and let you do things your way the pass would be better.

I was on the bus home tonight, and i noticed something very cool, they are currently setting up for the shepparton show, and to my suprise the crazy coaster is there, odd considering that Shepparton only has about 40,000 people, and in the past in terms of rides the biggest we get is Kamakaze, what is even more odd is the fact its only a 2 day show. Cliff hanger is also being set up, and i think space roller was there too (im not that well versed in what all our show rides are. I was intending to get some photos about an hour ago because there was some stuff I had to do in town, but unfortunatley i had left the camera card at home (i had used my camera at school for some stuff, uploaded it when i got home, but left it in the reader) I wasnt actually intending to go to the show but i might actuall go for a couple of hours since there seems to be some decent stuff there this year. Also, the showgrounds here have had upgrades of their own (Grandstand was moved 50m south, all new center oval, renovations, new entry, landscaping, its actually only 2/3 of what it used to be since 1/3 was sold to SPC so they could build a big new distribution centre. Im not normally interested by the show scene, but this is all sort of cool. For those of you in the industry, why is Shepp getting all of this stuff all of a sudden? Anyway, ill take plenty of photos on Friday for you all to see.

You dont think that the southern NSW one could be that Pictura place could you?

Just a little thing I'd like to add, I often find that when parks state a queue time, the actual queue is much less, maybe its because they guess incorrectly, or maybe they just didnt bother changing the signs, anyway, i dont think that it would have actually been 45 minutes, they probably overestimate to keep people happy. As for what DW rulz said, well i agree with rich that 2 trains should run if the queue was more than 30 minutes, but as others have said it was most likely an unforseen problem that caused them to only run 1 (Though i thought there were 3 trains avaliable, i guess there arent) Yelling at the queue person wont help, just write an email saying what day you went etc, and they will probably give an explaination. But just out of interest, have you ever yelled at the people at DW because Giant Drop only runs one side, now THAT causes real problems.

The only alternative ican think of is to build a big building on part of the carpark so the sound is enclosed, and then somehow have links into the park. I was sort of thinking an aqua trax could start near corkscrew with the launch section be slotted in beside the ski lake on the eastern side of the park (it could even be done in a similar way to calif screamin, with the launch water cooled using water from the lake) then have it go into a twisted section inside the building with theming etc, with some sort of lift to bring it to the top of the building. Then a big drop would come out of the building, followed by an airtime hill, before splashing down. It would share similarities to that aqua trax at lotte world. I doubt they would do anything like this though as it would cost $$$.

Gee, all this complaining about a grey tower and not a mention of the TOT This was what i was expecting, but im still wondering what sort of grey it is, im hoping its a fairly dark grey similar to LW, it will give it that industrial cast iron look perfectly. As for that giant piston thing that goes up the middle, maybe a red-orange colour (similar to what is on the signage for the ride), either that or grey again. I have no issues with the colours, it will make it look dark and imposing, the exact sort of look you want, and as Adam said, fitting with gotham city. You have to trust MWs judgement, they dont make ugly rides, unlike some other parks...... Im not expecting too much for the car sorry djrappa. MWs other thrill rides arent that heavy with vehicle theming, id expect something on the level of SEs trains. On another note, one thing they might do to the tower is put panels on it (like maliboomer at DCA), which could help with the theme. Edit: Just saw Rabids pics, that shade of grey looks cool too, reminds me of some of those European coasters.

Maybe the colours are meant to make it like you are inside a huge wave curling over you

Well, heres an alternate explaination on how magnetic brakes work... For starters, you have two paralel magnets placed a little bit apart, with the north side of one magnet facing the south side of the other. That makes a magnetic field exist between them. Now, when you move a length of conductor (Eg a wire, or in this case the copper brake fin on the freefall car) through a magnetic field a current is created in the conductor. (Generators actually work by this principle, since coils of wire spin around in a magnetic field, since the coils are rotating, they are moving, and thats why you get current from a generator) So in this case, because the copper brake fin goes in between the pair of magnets you get a current in the fin. NOTE THAT BECAUSE THE BRAKE FIN IS MADE OF COPPER IT IS NOT ATTRACTED TO THE MAGNETS (since only very few metals can be attracted to magnets, like iron for example) Since the copper fin has a current flowing through it (yes current does flow) the copper fin acts like an electromagnet. (It is like when you wind coils of wire around a nail, and then let current flow through the coils by hooking it up to a battery, you make an electromagnet) Because of the direction of the current in the fin, the electromagnetic field created actually opposes the magnetic field from the pair of magnets mentioned at the start. Because these fields are opposing each other the freefall car is forced to slow down. And for those of you that already know this stuff, im sorry that I used "Current" instead of EMF, but i wanted to keep it simple.

I think the main point of running 1 train is to save money on wages (Thats a pretty major cost), as well as artificially limiting the number of cycles (When you think about it, pushing such a heavy train around the dark ride section, before flinging to 100 in a couple of seconds is actually going to be pretty energy intensive) And really, 15 minutes queue for superman is really not a lot, compared to other parks.

But the train moves as a unit, and the launch is straight so there would be no difference. Its not quite the same as how you can get different levels of airime depending where you sit. Oh, and Mickey, if they are running 2 trains you will get lots of rides.

To tell you the truth, SM actually has better forces in the front for some reason. I think its mainly because of the wierd airtime on the top hat (it peaks twice) but for the first pop the front car is going faster. The second pop is pretty non existent.

I talk to the people Im with.

But tornado has had a very slow construction period, they could have easily fit it in. I think they didnt bother because its not really necessary and its just another expense. Going by that logic, we shouldnt bother to paint the outside of our house, tend to the garden, clean the driveway etc because we spend most of our time indoors rather than hanging around outside. IMO the entrance is important, all buildings should look good but currently what they are doing seems quite dated, but i think we all know that making things look nice isnt DWs strong point.

Actually, its on the final turn before the brake run at the lowest point. For the best picture sit in the very back car in the very back seat, as the camera will get a shot with the superman on the back of the train in view.

Someones stereotyping.... Anyway, it was an OK ride, it was my first looper. I wasnt that special, but it was still fun.

Whoops I guess i sort of forgot that you would be weightless on the upwards part.....

One thing i have been meaning to post about for a little while is that 6.5 secs of weightlessness claim about the TOT. I guess nobody has really questioned it, but i dont actually think its possibe. Firstly, after watching one of the videos and watching the time from the moment the pod starts falling back down to the moment it reaches the beginning of the launch section (in other words the bottom of the slope to vertical) since this is the time that you are in freefall and hence would be weightless. i got a time of 5 secs, which is below the 6.5 figure stated. Of course the actual time spent weightless would be less than this as on the slope to vertical you would have the G-forces pushing you down into your seat, but just to prove my point i included all of it. Now secondly, if you were to drop an object from a height of 115m (The absolute highest the ride could reach) then: x=ut+1/2at^2 where x=-115, a=-9.8 (value of g) u=0 (since it is starting from rest) and t=? then -115=0t+1/2(-9.8)t^2 -115=-4.9t^2 23.47=t^2 t=4.84 secs Now this is negating friction, but i doubt it would be much for such a heavy pod, but anyway, even if there was friction it wouldnt be able to accelerate towards the ground at g so you wouldnt get true weightlessness anyway. Thoughts?