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Cheetah Hunt- Intamin for Busch Gardens Tampa

And a new update, the theming is really coming along nicely:

RCPro.com

EDIT: Trains are on site!!!

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gec71g5ZsMo[/youtube]

From BGT's blog
 
Trains are orgasmic. Zero car is awesome, where the eyes are, you can envision LED lights there to act as eyes. I love it.
 
Ah well, looks like all I am going to be able to do is look at this ride. I am there the month before it opens.

At least I can get some pictures and have a reason to go back to Tampa in the future.

Might cry a little when I look at it.
 
I dunno.. I just thought there would be more to it? Might just be me? It also weird seeing a 4 train car.. as I personally have only see longer or shorter.. ect ect.
 
I think they look pretty cool. I mean, even without the stripes you can tell these will be sexy trains.

My question is: why would they go for a 4-car train for this coaster but then they put 3-car trains on Maverick (a "similar" ride type)? I know it has to do with the hourly capacity requested by the park but is there anything else to determine the train's length?
 
Possibly the fact that the station building was already there, and this train configuration fit best? Two trains of four cars in the old monorail station might have just been the most favorable choice.
 
I think it's probably the right choice for the layout as well. Enough weight the carry momentum through the layout, but not so heavy that the launches take extra energy. I feel like Maverick is more of a maneuverable, almost short sprint like kind of layout where as cheetah hunt is more drawn out. Sort of hard to explain, and I'm probably not doing it well.

As far the station, with all the work that they are doing already to make it "ride ready", I don't think it would have been hard to extend it a bit. I think it was just kind of good fortune that it was about the right size already.
 
What above has said. The capacity, type of ride, space available.. and almost anything you can think of plays into the length of the train. My bet would be the station and layout.

Of course, I have no idea.. but that would be my best guess.
 
^Seriously man?!? What is your reasoning?

as I personally have only see longer or shorter..
I know that Mindbender had a train of four cars before the crash. That's the only example I can think of off the top of my head...

The trains are looking pretty sexy! I cant wait until they have the decals on them.
 
I love the front "Zero Car". It's fantastic. It kinda looks like a melted plastic pot of some kind, that's gone gloopy on the outsides. I'll be looking forward to when they put the decals on them.
 
Possible issues?

Screamscape said:
The big rumor coming in from several contacts and sources over the past 24 hours is that a couple of big issues have come up with Cheetah Hunt. First of all, several people are saying that the work in “Trench 2” has hit a snag as the digging down there may be having a problem with water seeping into the trench that has to be addressed. (It’s hard to dig too deep in Florida before you hit the water table you know…)
The second and larger issue of note has to do with that “leap” over the Skyride. The big rumor going around this week is that a serious miscalculation was made here and that there is going to be clearance issues between Cheetah Hunt and the SkyRide. I attempted to get a statement about this rumor from Busch Gardens Tampa today, but as of this writing, they have not gotten back in touch with me with a comment.
Having said that, one has to wonder where the error was made. Did the surveyors make the mistake long before the construction started, or did an error come from Stengle’s layout calculations, the track fabricators or even Intamin itself? We can’t just point the finger at Intamin here and say, “Look, another Maverick” as there really are simply too many piece of the puzzle right now to know where the fault came from.
In the end, it sounds like either the coaster is going to have to be altered or the SkyRide itself. Don’t think that it would be simply to try and “shorten” the SkyRide towers however, as there is a lot more involved than that. They would have to get a new shorter cable for the ride, and then likely have to adjust the whole counter-weight system that maintains the tension on the cable at all times. If they used the same old counter-weight, it would likely put too much tension on the cable and could damage or even snap it.
Of course manufacturing new track for a higher jump over the SkyRide may not be a viable solution either if the coaster’s layout does not allow for the train to have enough velocity to achieve the higher jump at that point in the ride. In this case, they could be forced to return to the original idea, as seen in the animation, where the track simply goes under the SkyRide once again

Oh, and please don't bother trying to show how smart you are with the usual "Screamscape is so inaccurate LOL" posts. It's old. That's not to say that this "rumour" is 100% true (hence the name rumour in the first place), but Screamscape has been a lot more accurate over the last few years than it used to be.
 
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