Banchee?

What makes it not a rollercoaster?

I mean, honestly. It's got a lift, drop, brakes and track. It also completes a circuit.

http://cgi.ebay.com/BANSHEE-PIN-Cedar-Points-original-name-for-the-Mantis_W0QQitemZ270012351849QQihZ017QQcategoryZ13878QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I thought banshee would've been an awesome name. Much better than "Mantis" ooh, I'm scared ;)

Thanks, Jason! See, "burned or destroyed." :)

You know, Jason, you were my hero after the WiFi post from Donut Time... but now you lost cool points for stretching my tables with that link! :(

e x i t english said:
What makes it not a rollercoaster?

I mean, honestly. It's got a lift, drop, brakes and track. It also completes a circuit.

Yeah. It's still not a coaster.

Ensign Smith said:
Yeah. It's still not a coaster.

Great use of evidence to show me otherwise.

I don't see how we can count something like Wicked Twister as a coaster, but not Demon Drop.

Okay. *rolls up sleeves*

1. It ascends vertically, but like an elevator, not a launch coaster.

2. The cars are elevator cars - modified with wheels on the back, true, but elevator cars neverthelss - not coaster trains.

3. It has one single gravity powered descent.

4. There are no hills.

5. There are no curves.

6. You land on your back.

None of these things by themselves would disqualify it as a coaster, but together they eliminate it from the pantheon. It doesn't look like a duck, sound like a duck, or smell like a duck. Hence, not a duck.

If there were roller coasters around in ancient Greek times, Plato would expound about the 'ideal' roller coaster we could all immediately and instinctively recognize. This ain't that.

Is that enough evidence for you? :)

And as far as WT goes, it has a train of coaster cars. Put it on any other piece of track in any other park, and we would immediately recognize it as an inverted. Plus, shuttle coasters have been recognized since the mid-seventies, at least.

I do get what you're saying. I just disagree.

Wilcat doesn't have trains. Is that not a coaster? :)

Fair enough, time to answer back. :)

Ensign Smith said:
Okay. *rolls up sleeves*

1. It ascends vertically, but like an elevator, not a launch coaster.

Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain at Indiana Beach ascends vertically in an elevator-style lift, too. As more and more places are strapped for space, I see this becoming more common.

2. The cars are elevator cars - modified with wheels on the back, true, but elevator cars neverthelss - not coaster trains.

Wildcat uses single cars that look more like dodge 'ems with modified wheels, and they look nothing like coaster trains, either. Come to think of it, the trains on X don't look much like a coaster train, either.

3. It has one single gravity powered descent.

Top Thrill Dragster, 'nuff said.

4. There are no hills.

There are no hills on Wicked Twister or the Schwarzkopf shuttle loops, either.

5. There are no curves.

See Shuttle Loops answer above.

6. You land on your back.

You do that on Vekoma Flyers, too.

None of these things by themselves would disqualify it as a coaster, but together they eliminate it from the pantheon. It doesn't look like a duck, sound like a duck, or smell like a duck. Hence, not a duck.

If there were roller coasters around in ancient Greek times, Plato would expound about the 'ideal' roller coaster we could all immediately and instinctively recognize. This ain't that.

Is that enough evidence for you? :)

It sure looks, sounds, and maybe smells like a duck to me. :)

What you're saying is, it's not your ideal definition of a coaster. That's your opinion and that's cool, but I'm telling ya, it's cuttin' it close.

*** Edited 8/1/2006 3:15:05 AM UTC by e x i t english***

Stop making sense, exit.

If somebody wanted to call a 1st Gen Intamin Freefall a coaster I wouldn't argue much.

If somebody wanted to call a 2nd gen or gyrodrop a coaster, I'd call them an idiot.

Yes, e x i t, you're correct about all those coasters. In fact, you successfully identified the lone feature that makes each of those rides 'un-coasterish'. In virtually all other regards, however, each of those rides holds true to ideal coaster form (and yes, I know it's my ideal, but I'm having fun so hey...)

As such:

Once Lost Coaster reaches the top of its rather elevator-like lift, it adheres to true coaster form, with multiple drops, hills, turns, and a traditional orientation when it returns to the station.

Wildcat, like most other mouse coasters, does have weird little, single cars that look more like bumper cars. But Wildcat has a traditional lift, a circuit dominated by hills, drops, turns, etc.

I could go on with each of the coasters you cited, but I think I've amply made my point. Each of those rides is 85 or 90% pure roller coaster, and in fact many of those sub-types have had a generation or more to be accepted so that now even traditionalists don't bat an eye at them. Demon Drop, in contrast, is at most 45 or 50% roller coaster, and that ride type has never attained significant acceptance among enthusiasts.

You raise an interesting point about Lost Coaster's elevator lift probably becoming more common in the future. If that happens, then down the road people may retroactively include circuit-type drop rides as roller coasters. If so, who am I to have an issue with it?

Boy this is great fun. I even missed the last 10 minutes of Colbert Report for this post. That's how much I'm enjoying it. :)

Well, if it helps, I can do my Stephan Colberto impression for you.

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Between that and the Daily Show, you just can't get any better.

LOL.

Last night during the segue, Colbert and Rob Corddry were arguing about who had the better "beep-beep-boop" sound effect from the God machine. Hysterical.

Thanks. That's a great way to wake up. :)

In my opinion, DD, WT & TTD are not coasters. They're thrill rides, as far as I'm concerned.

I'm surprised no one mentioned Superman The Escape at Magic Mountain. Its considered a coaster but really Demon Drop is just a tiny version of it in reverse. ;) Well, sorta...the overall shapes of the two rides are very similar.

djDaemon, you are the opposite of e x i t english. While he is an inclusionist, you sound like the ultimate purist. I guess I'm somewhere in between.

So if in your view DD, WT and TTD aren't coasters, what do you think about something like Headspin (formerly Mind Eraser)?

I think a lot of people wouldn't categorize Superman The Escape at SFMM as a coaster.

Notice the IMO in his post. TTD is a coaster and you really can't argue differently. WT you could argue but I would say that it's a coaster as well.

That's all this is, just an exchange of opinions. Although mine are the only correct ones, and the rest of you are wrong, wrong, wrong! Just kidding. ;)

I would agree that TTD clears the bare minimum for a general definition of a coaster, and WT arguably does so too.

Here's an idea. What if you had a shuttle coaster like WT, only it was a flyer. Would that still qualify? I think probably so.

But what if instead of twisting spikes fore and aft, the cars just accelerated, braked, accelerated backward, and so forth, all while staying in one plane? What then?

See what I mean? Cognitively, instinctively, there is a bar in our minds for what makes a coaster. For some like e x i t, the bar may be lower, and for others like djDaemon, it's higher.

That's why I'd love to get out to Kingda Ka on one of the rare days it's running. I don't care that it's higher than TTD, only that it has a second, speed hill. That makes it a little bit more like a coaster, and therefore more interesting and worthwhile to me.