Recent content by Hyde

Each state is different (who oversee safety and inspection of rides for amusement parks, fairs, etc) but yes, there will most likely be a public facing report; especially for such a public incident as this. Here’s a sample report from Ohio over the 2022 TTD accident - 600 pages in total...

I think you and @SeanN90 are closer than it looks. Under normal operating conditions, the restraint has to be locked before the train can dispatch, and a locked clamshell holds a rider very securely by design. The hard part is bridging the gap between leaving the station and a rider being...

I’ve found weight drop to also be the more intense. Flywheel takes a little bit of time to get up to speed while the weight drop provides higher torque and better force out of the gate. The biggest thing I’ll miss about the old flywheel launch on this coaster is the complete lack of...

"When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." - Sherlock Holmes We have yet to rule out all the possibilities. Could the lap bar have been secured to a safe level when it left the station? Maybe. Was it fully open during the...

Yup exactly right on the ratchet and pawl! I had a previous life working in high ropes and outdoor adventure - a lot of these safety mechanisms for ziplines, high ropes climbing, etc. share the same mechanics as coaster restraint systems. :)

Good old weight imbalance also helps among the four riders on board each car. I’m sure engineers who actually passed calculus can explain vector forces better than I can, but the idea that the heaviest part of the train travels to the back (i.e., rotates to the backmost position) during the...

Thanks to @Nicky Borrill for blacking out the rider in the photo. I've also added a spoiler tag (available under More Options in the post interface) to provide an additional layer of sensitivity. This is obviously an unusual and powerful image, and I appreciate everyone being thoughtful about...

yeahhhh. 😶

Absolutely bizarre, and so many factors/unanswered questions for how this played out; hoping investigation yields light fast, especially if it was a mechanical failure on the harness.

Apparently I'm smoking the wrong stuff, versus those putting Rutschebanen as #1. 😅

Yes it's a good idea because creds. I will die on the hill of Zamperla trains are a billion times better than Intamin stadium seating lapbars. Death to seatbelts! :P

Trains look fine - I have yet to find aesthetics ruining my experience of hurtling my body hundreds and hundreds of feet in the air. As TTD exhibited, sometimes less is more when it comes to train detailing. ;) Also worth reminding, the spin rate of these trains is controllable/settable, for...

yeah, that’s what @coasterbot’s survey is for! 😝 I’ve also ridden steel coasters far rougher than majority wooden coasters! Where I get stuck on the hybrid classification is where do we insert those coasters if they aren’t counted as wood nor counted as steel? What’s more - they are some damn...

But wood is still on the inner structure of the track. I get the why, but I've always found the question of how much steel/wood blend in the track makes a track steel-or-wood pretty subjective. FWIW, you do let Wolverine Wildcat through, which also has Titan track. ;)

Topper track as steel? Definitely a hot take. But hey, whatever makes Phoenix go up in the rankings. :P Love this ranking system and ease of use for importing CSV. Thanks for putting in the work, and excited to see the results! I'll also be sure to bake into comparisons for EC's own Favourite...