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Alton Towers | The Smiler | Gerstlauer Infinity

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Re: Alton Towers | SW7 | Unknown (Gestlauer?) World's 1st

Surely it would be easier for the cars to flip in the opposite axis (like Slammer), which the two turning wheel-things on the sides so the train can come in and leave in the same direction...
 
Re: Alton Towers | SW7 | Unknown (Gestlauer?) World's 1st

Ethan said:
Surely it would be easier for the cars to flip in the opposite axis (like Slammer), which the two turning wheel-things on the sides so the train can come in and leave in the same direction...

How do you mean? The way I am imagining what you say would mean the car would leave upside down?
 
Re: Alton Towers | SW7 | Unknown (Gestlauer?) World's 1st

No, same direction not path. As in they would enter and leave a room as if they travelled in a straight line from one side to the other. It would make a full 360 spin...
 
Re: Alton Towers | SW7 | Unknown (Gestlauer?) World's 1st

Enigma Shadow said:
Joey said:
Love the shop idea from a creative perspective, but the filth and scratches will soon render it useless... Surely?

If only there was some sort of product that could remove filth, or a way to replace dirty panes of glass with new ones...:wink: (That's obvious sarcasm, pointing it out since the Internet rarely seems to acknowledge it).
Ha. A park maintaining something non essential? That doesn't happen anywhere but Disney.
 
Re: Alton Towers | SW7 | Unknown (Gestlauer?) World's 1st

^A lot of towers have those glass floor things, made from scratch-resistant glass and getting hundreds/thousands of people a day walking on them. Even a UK park wouldn't be averse to swishing a mop over it at the end the day.
 
Re: Alton Towers | SW7 | Unknown (Gestlauer?) World's 1st

gavin said:
^A lot of towers have those glass floor things, made from scratch-resistant glass and getting hundreds/thousands of people a day walking on them. Even a UK park wouldn't be averse to swishing a mop over it at the end the day.
Ah yeah, true, I forgot about those things in observation towers, derp. The mop won't happen though.
 
Re: Alton Towers | SW7 | Unknown (Gestlauer?) World's 1st

Joey said:
gavin said:
^A lot of towers have those glass floor things, made from scratch-resistant glass and getting hundreds/thousands of people a day walking on them. Even a UK park wouldn't be averse to swishing a mop over it at the end the day.
Ah yeah, true, I forgot about those things in observation towers, derp. The mop won't happen though.

Neither will the scratch resistant glass.
 
Re: Alton Towers | SW7 | Unknown (Gestlauer?) World's 1st

Merlin do have form with the walk-on glass though: it's the highlight of the revamped Blackpool Tower and looks as good now as when they opened it a year ago. It's also rumoured to be part of Blackpool Sea-Life's new shark walk-through so, for me, this is the most plausible of the SW7 rumours.
 
Re: Alton Towers | SW7 | Unknown (Gestlauer?) World's 1st

They also use it at the London sea life, you walk over some glass floor over the shark tank.
 
Re: Alton Towers | SW7 | Unknown (Gestlauer?) World's 1st

Scratch resistant coatings are dirt cheap and pretty much everything comes with it as standard. Although if they wanted to make it reflection free it'd cost a bomb! /optical goon xD

Still very intrigued by this, but will go and hide from this topic now, so I get pleasantly surprised by it at worst c:
 
Re: Alton Towers | SW7 | Unknown (Gestlauer?) World's 1st

In terms of a 'drop' (not sure I like the measurement of anything steeper than 90 degrees, but..)...has anything like this ever been done before? The station would be at the top and this would be inside the building obviously...

Drawing.jpg


Surely they could call that 'world beating' if they wanted to play the '360 degree' card, and it could certainly never be beaten, only equalled.
 
Re: Alton Towers | SW7 | Unknown (Gestlauer?) World's 1st

Given me a good idea for a worlds first!

Train comes out of station. Stops out of view of queue. Coaster train locks in place like at the top of oblivion. Track itself rotates 90 degrees in to vertical. Train releases in to a vertical drop start.

Havent seen any heights here and dont think this is what they are going for, but would be interesting
 
Re: Alton Towers | SW7 | Unknown (Gestlauer?) World's 1st

Tom - It's pretty much physically impossible, unless it's a controlled inversion. To carry enough speed to complete the "loop" you have to incur negative g-forces that would at the very least be severely uncomfortable, or possibly even kill riders.

A controlled inversion like that though powered all the way through slowly could be done.

Lancebloke - like a reverse Vekoma vertical drop coaster (can't remember what the model is called - Gravity Max)? In which case, interesting gimmick, but pants :lol:
 
Re: Alton Towers | SW7 | Unknown (Gestlauer?) World's 1st

Tom. I have often thought that would be a good idea. I would love to see them attempt it, although, as Furie has said, it would indeed need to be controlled. We know that the maneuver is possible though, since a SkySwat sort of does the same thing and moves at a fair speed. I think the difficulty would be engineering it and the amount of tech it would take. If a screaming squirrel can control the first half of the same thing I see no reason why it couldnt control a return to the upright position.

I doubt very much that we will see it on the Alton coaster though.
 
Re: Alton Towers | SW7 | Unknown (Gestlauer?) World's 1st

Furie.... ah yes. Only one of those out there but would mean not worlds first.

I think if they are going to do the shop thing then it should go right through the middle of the shop, not just above or underneath. Obviously it would be in its own area with glass etc.

Not quite a rollercoater, but the people mover in Magic Kingdom goes over the shop, I think for some buzz lightyear ride that I didnt go on. Not sure that the people in the shop see you though as it is very dark up the top where the trains move through.
 
Re: Alton Towers | SW7 | Unknown (Gestlauer?) World's 1st

Thanks for taking my idea semi-seriously haha. It's my best theory of what they're going to attempt for now disregarding rumours. With lap bars I think it'd be bearable on the rider and we know the upstops are pretty durable on the Euros as a basis. If the ride is costing the £20m they claim then a large chunk of that could be spent on developing this maybe. The exit would be lower than the entry so force required to complete the element would be lower, but I guess it could still be trimmed and they'd still have the record.

Anyway as I say it's just an idea I've had for a while, it ain't based on rumour or suchlike - it just seems plausible that'd they'd attempt something like it for the unbeatable/world's first record which they are obsessed with.
 
Re: Alton Towers | SW7 | Unknown (Gestlauer?) World's 1st

I would have thought the ride was the expensive mainly because of the land alterations required. Can't just build it like most other parks, have to set up a mini quarry.
 
Re: Alton Towers | SW7 | Unknown (Gestlauer?) World's 1st

The ride hasn't been officially confirmed, yet there are 135 pages of comments on it. Then you are still nagging about how bad is Merlin with teasing...
 
Re: Alton Towers | SW7 | Unknown (Gestlauer?) World's 1st

The big B&M flyers do a 360degree roll. Is it really that different just because the riders are lying down?
 
Re: Alton Towers | SW7 | Unknown (Gestlauer?) World's 1st

Not sure if anyone posted this yet and feel free to delete this if it has been posted but Screamscape has an interesting rumor

SW7 - Under Construction - (10/9/12) There is a very odd rumor about SW7 starting to float around the inter-webs that sounds crazy... and at the same time, sounds like something Alton Towers would try to do as well. It has come to light that SW7 may attempt to take the inversion record when it opens, but with the track layout already shown to have only eight clear inversions, this was a bit of a head scratcher until now. We know Alton Towers likes to have new gimicks, and that there seems to be an enclosed section of track between the station and the lift hill that has so far remained out of sight. Much of the building it travels through was labeled as a maintenance area, but what if there is more to it than that? What if Alton Towers has found a way to only only score the world record for inversions, but do it in such a way that they could evolve the ride over the years to keep the record, no matter what the competition was to do?
Picture this... what if before your coaster hit the first lift hill, you traveled into a special effects tunnel (imagine a Vortex Tunnel effect) on a very special piece of track that would essentially bring your car to a halt, but begin spinning around and upside down a few times before stopping and sending you out onto the lift hill? A typical Vortex Tunnel effect is enough to make most people stagger off balance when trying to walk through it, but imagine a Vortex Effect mixed with a ride car that would actually spin and rotate around the room in the opposite direction!
Certainly the crazy looking icon graphic they’ve been using the tease SW7 with lately seems to almost to hint that just such an element may be possible. But the genius part of this concept that that with a little reprograming, they can add on more inversions to the program for years to come to always keep SW7 as the coaster with the most inversions on the planet. Stay tuned!!

http://www.screamscape.com/html/alton_towers.htm

I don't know much about Alton but this is just crazy.
 
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