Greatest Thrill Ride ever. . .again?

On the promo to Millennium Force, the narrator says, "Greatest thrill ride ever." You guys think that will still hold to be true, or will TTD take the title? What ride do you think you'll like better?

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If there's bugs on your shirt, you had a good ride.

Thank you Jeff for your work to make and run this site!

come back and ask this in may...Only way to find that out is to get to ride it. Althought MF will always be my favorite...This ride will be close behind.

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- Dennis
NYC Subways, The next best thing to riding roller coasters.

IMO after looking at the launch numbers, I think Dodonpa may be the "Greatest thrill ride ever" - it certainly is the most intense. Dragster has the height and speed which in and of itself may be more thrilling (time will tell). It all depends on what you consider thrilling - speed, height, or intensity. Dragster should be more thrilling than MF, and could possibly be more thrilling than Dodonpa or Hypersonic, not sure how important intensity is to a thrilling ride since I have yet to ride Hypersonic due to all its break downs.

Tom

Interesting, I guess what I meant was the all around intensity. Apparently, MF has excellent balance in intensity, height, and speed. Is TTD a good mix of speed, height, and launch intensity, or a little bit too much of something?

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If there's bugs on your shirt, you had a good ride.

Thank you Jeff for your work to make and run this site!

Top Thrill is 420 ft. high and 120 mph. Divide that by 2. You get 210 ft. and 60 mph. Is 60 mph enough speed for a 210 ft ride? No. So I think that this ride is a little unbalanced in speed and height.

The physics involved in launching the train to a 420 foot height aren't as simple to figure out as dividing by two.

There's a plethora of threads in this board regarding how the launch will work, why it goes that speed, and so on... Do a little digging, you'll learn a lot.

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2003 - Ride Operations

Interesting take on that Superman. You are right about that. For a 210 ft ride (I'll use Magnum for an example) 60 mph is not fast enough. Just think of going 60 on Magnum and not 72 or whatever it does. (Sorry, but i'm not some statistics nut who has memorized all the hights, speeds, inversions, lift/drop angles, etc at Cedar Point) If TTD were maybe 140 mph, it would even it out. Using the /2 method, that would come to 70 mph on a 210 ft tall ride, about Magnum. I don't think that that kind of acceleration is currently possible though.

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life without danger is a waste of oxygen

You can't just divide by two for this. By your logic you could multiply Millennium Force's 300 feet by 2/3 yielding 200 feet (or Magnum's height). So take 90 mph and multiply by 2/3........the answer is 60 for the mathematically challenged. Bottom line, it isn't that simple.

Ahem... And i Quote

Decker: "With Top Thrill Dragster, the manufacturer, Intamin, built a test track in a field near their headquarters in Switzerland to see if the length and speed of the launch system would reach the height of the coaster – kind of like a full-scale model."

So i dont think we have to worry about that.

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- Dennis
NYC Subways, The next best thing to riding roller coasters.

Scream, I think Dragster may have a very good ballance between all three. The launch certainly could be more intense, but I think Dragster is on the mark with launch intensity - the structure is VERY intimidating (height), with great speed. I expect Drgaster to be very intense, and long 15 seconds.

Tom

I find it interesting and a bit odd that Intamin built a test model and no one ever saw it. Maybe it was brought up before and I missed it. But I would think someone, somewhere would have saw it and people would have been asking "What is that BIG thing Intamin has built?" A model 420' high would be a bit hard to hide.

Seems to me that the only thing they needed to test was the launch and brake mechanisms, and given MF's magnetic brakes, maybe only the former. Once the train is in freeroll, the physics tells you what will happen. So, a "test track" doesn't have to mean "420 foot tower". It may just mean "really long track with a launch mechanism and brake run." By instrumenting the train/track, you can know if you hit your speed target. Given Intamin's experience with their trains, they know that if the train reaches speed X, it will properly clear a top hat of height f(X).
*** This post was edited by Brian Noble 1/15/2003 1:39:36 PM ***

I feel the ride is well balanced, but it's a ride that only the people that know what they are doing will ride this bad boy. I think it turns on more people than turns off. But it may be close.

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If there's bugs on your shirt, you had a good ride.

Thank you Jeff for your work to make and run this site!