tigzie1 wrote:

Has anyone though of the worlds first vertical launched lift hill?
If you watch the 3D image u can scan off the Smiler Page you can see the car doesn't stop at the vertical lift hill and they could have stopped them on the render image. (People say it would be uncomfortable however the lift hills are in a field only a mile away... Why keep them out of the frame so late? 

I personally think it will still open in May considering how confident AT are however I agree that the lifts probably aren't standard as they would have been constructed much earlier.

Maybe...though I think there's more of a focus on psychological impact so I reckon the worlds first will be more of a psychological factor rather than an aspect of the track

RCT3Bross wrote:

roodlesnouter wrote:

JammyBand wrote:

Danny wrote:

The Smiler in the snow, anyone?

That is the pic I've been waiting for. It shows the newly built section of the ride, zoomed out, clearly. (The snow is a bonus!) However, the snow has not been cleared in many areas, so it may affect construction yet. You can see half of the bunny hop, which means it is not a barrel roll. (thank goodness!) It looks just about steep enough to give us a pop of airtime, though not any where near as good as Speed at Oakwood. Doesn't appear to be any trims on it, so they must not be worried about the speed of the car as it passes over the bunny hop. Looking great!!! 

Bunny hops could well be will be trimmed. You can see sensors on the loop before them

In his defense the loop before that low speed hill you see isn't build yet. in your defense it doesn't meanthere won't be trims on the hill.  The top of the hill could still have trims as it has to one section and the top isn't reached yet. Wait and see what happens.

The element "loop" before the the "low speed hill" is built, it is the sea serpent element.  see below.



The sensor is near the supports on the lower part of the element, see image below, center of the image.



And zoomed in.



It is this sensor that makes me think we will see trims on the following element. What will be interesting is why , presuming I am correct, do we need trims there, 15th inversion? or just to kill some speed before the cobra?

roodlesnouter wrote:

RCT3Bross wrote:

roodlesnouter wrote:

JammyBand wrote:

Danny wrote:

The Smiler in the snow, anyone?

That is the pic I've been waiting for. It shows the newly built section of the ride, zoomed out, clearly. (The snow is a bonus!) However, the snow has not been cleared in many areas, so it may affect construction yet. You can see half of the bunny hop, which means it is not a barrel roll. (thank goodness!) It looks just about steep enough to give us a pop of airtime, though not any where near as good as Speed at Oakwood. Doesn't appear to be any trims on it, so they must not be worried about the speed of the car as it passes over the bunny hop. Looking great!!! 

Bunny hops could well be will be trimmed. You can see sensors on the loop before them

In his defense the loop before that low speed hill you see isn't build yet. in your defense it doesn't meanthere won't be trims on the hill.  The top of the hill could still have trims as it has to one section and the top isn't reached yet. Wait and see what happens.

The element "loop" before the the "low speed hill" is built, it is the sea serpent element.  see below.



The sensor is near the supports on the lower part of the element, see image below, center og the image.



And zoomed in.



It is this sensor that makes me think we will see trims on the following element.

Not for the hill in question. The low hill in the picture is the entrance of the Batwing and will be connected with the non existing Dive loop over the Sea serpent roll. Where the sea serpent roll will be connected with isn't even started yet.
To work properly they first finish the first drop just before you go under the the Sea Serpent. Then they will work on the last inversion the dive loop and go over in low hill with the one that they started working on. After that you see them work from the Sea Serpent to the Cobra which there is nothing of yet.
For who that ask why there isn't a lift yet: They first need to be in the back to finish of the First Drop and connect it with the dive loop. Then they can move closer to the vertical lift and then finish the final turn. Before the twisted drop can be completed and then the last (or better said first) hill can be build. Think about it they can't really build the first lift already.

My NL recreation isn't the most accurate thing, but I have been finding it very hard to build the batwing in such a way that reduces the amount of Gs as you go into it. Based on that trims, may be necessary...

@RCT3Bross

We are talking about different areas of the ride LOL not suprising as it is huge.

I was talking about the long straight section on the outside leadind into the cobra, see below.


thanks phild94

Where I guess you are talking about the one further in the middle.

My NL recreation isn't the most accurate thing, but I have been finding it very hard to build the batwing in such a way that reduces the amount of Gs as you go into it. Based on that trims, may be necessary...

Could well be the reason, I know montu is trimmed before its batwing element as people were passing out because of the intensity.

roodlesnouter wrote:

@RCT3Bross

We are talking about different areas of the ride LOL not suprising as it is huge.

I was talking about the long straight section on the outside leadind into the cobra, see below.


thanks phild94

Where I guess you are talking about the one further in the middle.

My NL recreation isn't the most accurate thing, but I have been finding it very hard to build the batwing in such a way that reduces the amount of Gs as you go into it. Based on that trims, may be necessary...

Could well be the reason, I know montu is trimmed before its batwing element as people were passing out because of the intensity.

I toke the picture it self and alter it:

Red is the hill in question. Blue is the CamelBack to inline yellow is were the Cobra entrance will come.
As you see on the plan you have. the hill after the dive loop goes under the camelback to inline just as the hill in question. He noticed there where no trims on the hill so he has to talk about a already build part as you can see the entrance to the Cobra is non existed right now. So how can he notice that there are no trims on a non existing piece of track? Thats why I said the loop before the hill isn't even build yet but it still can have trims.

Sorry for what will seem to you all as a stupid question, but what do you mean when you say the bunny hops will be trimmed?
I dont speak fluent rollercoaster..

RubyGaga wrote:

Sorry for what will seem to you all as a stupid question, but what do you mean when you say the bunny hops will be trimmed?
I dont speak fluent rollercoaster..

it means that when you go over the the hill of the bunny hop, the trims are part of the electronics on the track that will sense how fast youre going and slow you down a little so you go over them safely. However theres a lot of people who love a bit of speed over these because they give you a bit of air time

RubyGaga wrote:

Sorry for what will seem to you all as a stupid question, but what do you mean when you say the bunny hops will be trimmed?
I dont speak fluent rollercoaster..

'Trimming' is something that happens on pretty much all roller coasters after they're built. Basically, in pretty much all cases, the real roller coaster doesn't behave exactly as its found in simulations. In most cases, the ride will be traveling faster than the original designs predicted. To compensate for this, they install 'trims' along the track, which are basically very small brake sections that corrects the speed of the train to bring it closer to the original simulation.

So in this case, they may be installing one of these 'trims' on the bunny hop.

JonoD wrote:

RubyGaga wrote:

Sorry for what will seem to you all as a stupid question, but what do you mean when you say the bunny hops will be trimmed?
I dont speak fluent rollercoaster..

'Trimming' is something that happens on pretty much all roller coasters after they're built. Basically, in pretty much all cases, the real roller coaster doesn't behave exactly as its found in simulations. In most cases, the ride will be traveling faster than the original designs predicted. To compensate for this, they install 'trims' along the track, which are basically very small brake sections that corrects the speed of the train to bring it closer to the original simulation.

So in this case, they may be installing one of these 'trims' on the bunny hop.

I am sorry as I suspect this may not be the place for this and I doubt it would happen with this coaster but has anyone ever build a coaster which after all the testing was so far off the spec it didn't work?

Trisnie wrote:

JonoD wrote:

RubyGaga wrote:

Sorry for what will seem to you all as a stupid question, but what do you mean when you say the bunny hops will be trimmed?
I dont speak fluent rollercoaster..

'Trimming' is something that happens on pretty much all roller coasters after they're built. Basically, in pretty much all cases, the real roller coaster doesn't behave exactly as its found in simulations. In most cases, the ride will be traveling faster than the original designs predicted. To compensate for this, they install 'trims' along the track, which are basically very small brake sections that corrects the speed of the train to bring it closer to the original simulation.

So in this case, they may be installing one of these 'trims' on the bunny hop.

I am sorry as I suspect this may not be the place for this and I doubt it would happen with this coaster but has anyone ever build a coaster which after all the testing was so far off the spec it didn't work?

It's probably more accurate to say that the rides are designed to err on the side of faster, so to speak. You can slow a roller coaster down after you've built it, but you'll be hard pushed to speed it up - so it's good design practice to build it so it may be a few mph speedier than slower.

Somebody posted today or yesterday about Orphan Rocker, which coincidentally also answers your question about roller coasters which have just never worked: http://rcdb.com/1870.htm

The Big one at Blackpool is a good example. It didn't fail to work, but both the drop and turnaround had to be re-profiled.

ukparknews wrote:

The Big one at Blackpool is a good example. It didn't fail to work, but both the drop and turnaround had to be re-profiled.

Guessing the never went through with the re-profiling then...

Hopefully the snow stays off for now and they can get back to some track lifting maybe after mid day tomorrow once some of the snow clears.

Rollercoasters4Life wrote:

ukparknews wrote:

The Big one at Blackpool is a good example. It didn't fail to work, but both the drop and turnaround had to be re-profiled.

Guessing the never went through with the re-profiling then...

Hopefully the snow stays off for now and they can get back to some track lifting maybe after mid day tomorrow once some of the snow clears.

I hope they can get as much done as possible in the next 3/4 days as I've heard the snows coming again Thursday night :/

I know it's not much but.......

@altontowers what date will the smiler be open I wanna get tickets booked to come and ride it ?

Alton Towers ‏@altontowers 1h
@WeLoveTulisa0 we'll be able to let you know soon, all we can say for sure is that it will open in May.

100% sure for May now

Trisnie wrote:

I am sorry as I suspect this may not be the place for this and I doubt it would happen with this coaster but has anyone ever build a coaster which after all the testing was so far off the spec it didn't work?

The best example I can think of is Maverick at Cedar Point. They had delay the opening to take out an inline twist because it was so intense it caused way too much stress to the track and wheel assemblies of the cars. There was also concern that the lateral Gs of the heartline would be dangerous for passengers.

For some reason it's now difficult to find pictures of this, but you can see it at about 3:25 in this video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBO6ExqKRwI

EDIT: A way better video of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guTTVVco1NA

M3tabolic wrote:

Trisnie wrote:

I am sorry as I suspect this may not be the place for this and I doubt it would happen with this coaster but has anyone ever build a coaster which after all the testing was so far off the spec it didn't work?

The best example I can think of is Maverick at Cedar Point. They had delay the opening to take out an inline twist because it was so intense it caused way too much stress to the track and wheel assemblies of the cars. There was also concern that the lateral Gs of the heartline would be dangerous for passengers.

For some reason it's now difficult to find pictures of this, but you can see it at about 3:25 in this video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBO6ExqKRwI

EDIT: A way better video of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guTTVVco1NA

Wasn't Jubilee Odyssy at fantasy island (ingoldmells) lowered because of stalling?  Not sure if that was just a rumour.  If so a clear example of one that didn't work. It still doesn't run in high winds or heavy rain they always close it.

Off topic, but there's been quite a few, Drachen Fire, Steel Phantom etc (although these were after a number of years)!

http://www.coaster-net.com/special-list ... ked-rides/

Good to see that the snow hasn't slowed construction with work continuing on site today and track being put in place





Photos from Lee, Alton Towers Guide facebook account.

Sorry to seem stupid but what track is newly constructed in those pictures?