Windseeker construction cam up!

It's easy for me to say I'll ride it now, but I know I'll have doubts when the time comes. I don't think I'll ride it the first day there, I'll want to know the ride has cycled a few hundred times, just to be safe :)

A new ride is typically cycled more than a few hundred times before opening. Before the ride typically opens a park normally has selected individuals ride the new ride several hundred times to shoot commercials, promos, etc. for the ride. (Had a friend ride Diamondback in 09 two weeks before opening 250 times to be in the commercial). Don't forget the rides aren't just installed and then open to the public, they have to go through several in depth tests.

Are some of you really worried they don't know how to engineer and build a foundation? I sincerely would not worry about that, no matter how deep the hole looks.

I guess it's sort of yes and no. I mean, yes if I sit and think about it, everything should obviously be ok. They are paid millions to build the ride, no one has ever died on a ride at Cedar Point, the odds are probably greater of being eaten by a shark while on an airplane or whatever. At the same time though, that's the point, to get people's adrenaline going, to scare them a little bit, to make them think twice as they fasten their seatbelt.

Not that I think it's necessarily the case with WindSeeker, but being designed by an engineer or being paid a lot of money are factors that do not guarantee safety. History is full of examples of very bright, well-paid teams of engineers designing things that fail in spectacular fashion.

In fact, in many cases, it's actually the failure of something that leads to future iterations of that something being improved, and less prone to failure.

Sometimes, even, teams of engineers are collectively less safe than a single, dedicated engineer. See: Mars Orbiter. ("You know what they've done? They've gone back to metric without telling us!")

Coaster Enthusiasts know everything there is to know. Especially about engineering.

djDaemon said:
History is full of examples of very bright, well-paid teams of engineers designing things that fail in spectacular fashion.

So much so that Modern Marvels has dedicated at least 20 different episodes to such engineering disasters.

Don't forget, some of the best disasters were not the fault of the engineers, but the fault of the construction workers who felt changing the engineering plans during construction would be just as strong as the original engineered design, but weren't.

Such as...?

I believe that bridge that collapsed in Minnesota a few years ago was one of those examples. Someone decided to use plates thinner than the engineers specified to save money.

The one that sticks out in my head, was at a ball room, hotel- early 1900's. There were 3 levels of balcony's, the original design called for each level to have its own support beam from the ceiling, during construction, the builders decided that one beam with nuts at each level would be the same as 3 separate supports from the ceiling, the single support would not hold the weight of all three balcony's, and they collapse during on the opening day ceromony. Killing many people.

There are others, they had a show a few years back, showing all of the failures, don't remember what its called.

But on the other side, engineering failures, the one that sticks out was in a popular science magazine, explaining how a ship was designed to support its weight when in the water, but when the ship was in large waves, and each end was supported, but the center wasn't, the ship cracked in half. - That too could have been a change of metal, but I don't think so. Too long ago to remember.

The Hyatt Regency disaster (1981) is probably the one that sticks out in my mind, and in fact was probably 1 of the 2 most referenced disasters while I was at school - Tacoma Narrows being the other.

I was a little off on my information, but the Hyatt Regency disaster is the one I was talking about. It happened in the 80's, man am I old. . :)

No worries - your date didn't jump off the page as being that far off the mark (I looked it up), so maybe we're both old. :)

I thought the Tacoma Narrows was the bridge that, as engineered, was induced to harmonic resonance in a specific wind pattern, leading to tidal forces that destroyed the structure. Not sure how this reflects badly on the engineers, since before this event the phenomenon had never been accounted for in large structures.

Edit: fixed for grammar.

JuggaLotus said:

djDaemon said:
History is full of examples of very bright, well-paid teams of engineers designing things that fail in spectacular fashion.

So much so that Modern Marvels has dedicated at least 20 different episodes to such engineering disasters.

Agreed. But on the flip side, history (and Modern Marvels) is even more full of examples of very bright, well-paid engineers designing things that succeed in spectacular fashion.

Ensign Smith said:
Not sure how this reflects badly on the engineer...

It doesn't. When that disaster was brought up to us in school, it was typically in the context of ensuring that nothing is taken for granted when making design decisions, and that you have to do whatever possible to imagine scenarios you've never thought of.

Gregcoaster said:
The deeper hole for the tower is being dug adjacent to this one and not being shown now for safety reasons. The 'hole' for the tower will be quite deep and secured with underpinning and cement.

OK, I'll bite... if they show the footer, the terrorists win?

Also, what good does a footer do if it's adjacent to the structure it's supposed to be supporting? That makes absolutely no sense.

In looking at the webcam, there is a lot of dirt/sand piled up on the beach, more than there appears to be in the pic CP posted previously. Perhaps the hole was dug deeper after that pic was taken.

djDaemon said:

Ensign Smith said:
Not sure how this reflects badly on the engineer...

It doesn't.

If anything, it reinforces that no matter how many models you build of a project, you can't uncover all the issues until it is built to full scale.

Ooh, good idea! I just looked it up. Adjacent means next to. As in, not underneath. You really do learn something new every day.

So, I ask again... what would be the point of constructing a footer that isn't acting as the footing for the structure? That seems unnecessarily complex. What would be the reasoning for such an atypical, complex design?

I should add that I'm glad to know they're not using that new-fangled lightweight cement. ;)