Launch... Up... Tophat... Down... Brakes?

I've been thinking lately about all the "wantings" and "needs" everyone has about the new ride. Millennium Force, with a 300 foot drop, needed an overbanked turn at 169 feet in the air. This new coaster, supposedly, will be traveling at a much higher velocity with a 50;-100' further of a drop. Taking that into consideration, I don't believe there could possibly be any other elements to this ride with the small footprint that has been cleared. I haven't done any "math" with any of this, but I'm just taking educated guessed based on what's been done before:

Overbanks--

To have an overbank with a coaster approaching 100+ mph, you would probably need one 190'-200' tall. Can you imagine how large of an area would be taken up by one of that magnitude? Millennium Isn't large enough to zig-zag your way through MF supports and trees while traveling at unheard-of speeds. --not to mention the next step after the overbank would be to bring the track back the other direction, with another, very large overbank or a helix which would be diameter of the park (exaggerated).

Hills--

Millennium Force's 3rd hill is 182 feet. Perfect for nice floating airtime. If this ride were to have a nice "air-time hill", it would have to probably be 220-250' tall, and again, you're not going to get one in as small of an area as what they're working with. A smaller hill would only create uncomfortable amounts of negative g's--think about Magnum, on a hot day, trims aren't on, but its still flying over those bunny hills...ouch!.

Inversions (other than a possible inverted tophat)--

Not going to happen--they would have to be 200+feet tall with huge diameters.

Taking what I've stated into account, along with Cedar Point flipping Six Flags Worlds of Adventure off with Wicked Twister, I have a good feeling that Cedar Point will again be flipping someone else off with this one: Six Flags Magic Mountain. Sure Cedar Point doesn't think Superman:TE is a "coaster", but add a tophat and connect, and there you have it, the tallest, fastest, full circut coaster at minimal costs. Short, yet sweet. Just my two cents.
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Michael McCormack CP '02: 37
Magnum XL 200: 347 (452)
Millennium Force: 7
Wicked Twister: 24

To comment on the overbanks: I don't think that the height of an overbanked turn matters as much as how far it goes out to kind of "catch" the train and turn it around. Eh, Intamin has it all figured out anyway, just have to wait and see.

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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin
http://www.pbase.com/blah
(Coaster Pictures)

I'm wondering where you got these numbers from. Turns and bunny hills don't necessarily need to be hundreds of feet in the air. Just as long as bunny hills are more rounded out, it doesn't matter how high they are.

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Brent Haley
Gemini Crew '02

I think the ride might look a lot like Xcelerator. There will be the launch, tophat, then two nice size overbanked turns and hopefully one or two airtime hills. I am looking forward to the huge tophat, if thats what its launching into, because people say Xcelerators tophat is airtime to the max. Even if thats all there is to the ride, the launch will be amazingly insane, and imagine going straight down say 350 feet. Absolute Insanity should be the name.

Absolute Insanity...didn't that ride move to the employee parking lot in the offseason??? :)

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Scott W. Short, Rail Junkie
mailto:scott@midwestcoastercentral.com
http://www.midwestcoastercentral.com

Hahaha... that's right, it did!

Right now, it looks like the construction zone is VERY "long" along the midway and not as wide as some may have been expecting. This could change, but with those dimensions, I could (and would love to) see a HUGE "floater air" hill right after the top hat, maybe going over the station and ending over by Iron Dragon. It could bank right or left on the downslope, then be on its way back to the station (with an element or two in between). I guess an overbanked turn would be more likely than a hill like this, but imagine how cool it would look on the skyline... :)

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"Meh."
Wicked twists: 9
Danger: Hgih Voltage!

Actually it was called Absolutely Insane. I did not even think about the Vertigo name being so close. I still think Absolute Insanity is a good name for the new ride and I highly doubt the GP would recall the Vertigo names.

Don't worry about the ride. If it was going to be that short, they wouldn't even bother building it.

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Turkeys, the only animal smarter than man

Look at the last bunny hop on MF, taken at over 60 mph. Its so very small, meaning, the size really doesn't matter (to an extent).

I would be VERY disappointed if Cedar Point just installed a "Launch, Up, Tophat, Down, Brakes" coaster. And I know that not only would enthusiasts be disappointed, the GP would be too. "Look, you go up, you go down. What's the fun in that?"

Personally, I think if it is that type of coaster, it's almost an immature thing to do. So they have the tallest and fastest undesputed coaster, but what more can it offer? A good coaster needs substance, not just bragging rights.

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Tommy Penner - Variable X
Cedar Point FanBoy since 2001.

The ride would be even more interesting if it had 2 tophats. What do you think about this idea?

Well, from this picture, it sure looks like there will be at least one hill. I mean, you don't see any supports like this on Xcelerator. Also, It would make sense to switch to white track when there are red supports, am I right?

PS...I am not sure if these are crane extensions, please correct me if I am wrong.

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Cube expected back monday. Alllll riiiggght (In best Quagmire impression).

those are crane extentions.

the possibility of multiple tophats has been discussed before, and many people feel that the idea would be problematic if not impossible.

Launch, Up, Down, Brakes sounds a lot like TA2K. But the GP still likes it.

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Don't Steal, The Government Hates Competition!

granted i want a huge coaster as the rest of you guys do, dont take me wrong.

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Don't Steal, The Government Hates Competition!

This is Cedar Point we're talking about here...not Kings Dominion. Here at Cedar Point, we put in world-class rides (with the exception of Wicked Twister...).

dont dis the WT it had its problems but like all the rest it has its place, and if youre wondering i also enjoy MS and ID, but DT needs something, a few bulldozers would do nicely. push it offshore and into the lake, it'd make a nice artificial reef with all those tunnels. :)

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Don't Steal, The Government Hates Competition!
*** This post was edited by TJohnson 9/20/2002 10:48:50 PM ***

With enough green, you can have just about anything built. If Cedar Fair wanted a 5000' 10 mile long coaster, and have the money for it. It would get built

When it comes to building things, even the sky isn't a limit. The limit is the price tag, and the avalible materials. Everything else is factored by how much your willing to build it.

For the coaster, the footprint is wide enough to have at least Xcelerators layout. I hope CP's coaster has high speed bunny hops. That would be pure evil :)

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House of Tomorrow: Only technology makes live worth living

raptor323 said:
Don't worry about the ride. If it was going to be that short, they wouldn't even bother building it.

Well, that's what we hope at least. But to be honest, all of the construction I see as of tonight is still just in those two parallel lines. I don't see any curves fitting into that scheme of things at all.

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- John
"Look, Sky Ride's running... Nobody fart!"

Just as the tower has changed from Xcelerator to this coaster, I believe that the tophat will change somewhat. If I'm right, I don't think that it will just be a TA2K-esque layout.

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June 28th: LocoBazooka Tour (Sevendust headlining)
July 11th: Korn, Puddle of Mudd, and Deadsy