Richard

There will be alloy (copper/aluminium) and a top steel plate sandwiched between the layers of rubber on the base of the boats. Because, as you'll notice, the magnet assemblies are one-sided, the steel plate creates the perpendicular magnetic field required for optimal induction, which occurs in the alloy beneath it. Heat shouldn't be an issue given they're only over the LIMs for short few-second bursts at a time followed by wet sections and, as you said yourself earlier the required forces will be much less than those on a coaster due to the fractional weight, so we won't see heating anywhere near as much as on a LIM coaster. As for the heat of the magnets, dispatch intervals will take cooling into account, as will the constant flowing water over them.

Interesting thoughts. Disneyland gets about ten times the attendance of Dreamworld (almost exactly). They therefore have to cater for ten times the amount of guests. They have far more than ten times the amount of staff, spend hundreds of millions on new attractions, far more on maintenance and ongoing costs. In fact, at the end of the day, Disney's entire Parks & Resorts division reports an operating margin of around 15%. That is, in very simple terms, for every dollar they get from a guest, $0.85 of it goes into running the parks. Dreamworld meanwhile has a margin of close to 40%. For every dollar, only $0.63 goes back into the park. This "higher revenue" argument really doesn't hold much weight, considering that dollar-for-dollar, Dreamworld is more profitable than Disney. I don't understand how anyone can feel that a $185 Dreamworld annual pass is good value compared with a $165 (AUD) Disneyland/Disney's California Adventure pass. For that matter, you could have both Sea World and Movie World annual passes for about $25 less than the cost of Dreamworld's with their promotions.

The parks operate at peak certainly for the east-coast holiday periods. If you're going to be taking a week off school etc., expect it to not be very different. They always do maintenance at this time of year because they want the rides operating without a hitch because for the next two months or so it's non-stop. I find it interesting that no one seems to mind that the Dreamworld pass is actually more expensive than a Disneyland/Disney's California Adventure annual pass.

Yeah that's a very good price. I think I paid about $85 for one nearly five years ago (with a discount), and that was before they had Scooby-Doo even, so this is awesome value. To all those people who think that Dreamworld's $185 pass is good value, what do they have to say about this Movie World offer, at less than half the price? It's great to see WVTP giving locals a fair offer. Given how successfully the similar offer went at Sea World, I'd expect this to go through the roof given that WBMW has had many more recent additions than SW. They realise, unlike Dreamworld, that annual passes aren't about the ticket price, they're about encouraging repeat in-park spending. If you got both a Dreamworld and Movie World pass you'd need to spend over $700 in each park before Dreamworld's 15% discount gives them the edge in price. Here we have a significantly cheaper pass in a park with newer and better attractions (and more on the way) and better capacity on nearly all rides. To me the choice seems obvious.

Sounds great. Even 6,000 people is a bit much for Movie World. Halloween events overseas are traditionally pretty packed, but without the mazes and other attractions they have, Movie World's certainly going to pretty packed out. What'll really make the difference is whether they got families or teenagers. It's quite possible that even with 6,000 people Superman Escape and possibly even Lethal Weapon won't have queues that are too long, hoping that they're both running two trains. I wouldn't dare go near Scooby-Doo all night. Without a doubt it'll have the biggest queues given its family-friendly nature and Halloween-esque theming. No losses here of course because it's exactly the same ride at any time of the day. Same goes with Batman - save it for a day visit. This certainly sets a precedent for a bigger and better event next year. I'd like to see them maybe raise the price to around $30 and extend the event to be a week long and go all-out with several big mazes and temporary night-only Halloween attractions.

Yeah that's logical. I think I was over the idea of variable by about my second sentence in the past above. Every section of the slide will have water, both the uphill and (obviously) the downhill sections. At the peaks of the downhill parts they have large outlets similar to what water slides normally have at the start. You can see every few feet the outlets along the sides of the uphill sections which will keep them wet. It's not going to be fast-flowing obviously, it just needs to be wet enough to allow the boats to travel smoothly up the hills. You can see a close look of the outlets and piping on page 2 (first two images).

At this stage there is still only one section in place. There's a few things that need to be worked out before they can continue with the vertical construction, but fingers crossed it'll be up before too much longer.

I'm not sure exactly how the LIM system will operate exactly, but I suspect it may vary the amount of energy based on the boat's speed, which can be easily calculated via the proxy sensors. If a very heavy boat goes along, there's no point in firing up the first few magnets if the boat is travelling faster than they intend for the boat to go (and hence actually increase its speed). It'd use gravity and friction to slow it, at which point the LIM system would seemlessly kick in. This to me is the most logical way to operate the ride as the key advantage with the LIMs is their controlability and ability to adapt entirely to the boat on the course at any given time. Remember that you're not going to just stop at the bottom of the hills. Much like the Speed Coaster at Wet'n'Wild you'll continue uphill. The LIMs will just allow your boat to keep up its speed and boost it enough to get it over the crest. The electronics will be covered. You can see in the photos on the second page the mounts that the cover will be attached to. Electronics and heavily chlorinated water tend not to mix too well. We'll have to wait until future updates to see whether it'll be an open grill style cover or completly enclosed. The first means less downward force from the water cascading down, but they may be taking this into account and just enclosing it and using more power for the ride. A cover will only add a few millimetres to the spacing between. The boats will be mounted with alloy plates that will be induced and create the motion. It's a given they'll need to be protected to ensure they don't corrode and don't damage the slide surface. The LIM system will be nearly identical to Magic Kingdom's Tomorrowland Transit Authority (Walt Disney World), to the point where it looks like they've even used the exact same model/manufacturer of electromagnets (see picture). Interestingly, the key advantage of LSM systems (such as Tower of Terror) over LIMs is their efficiency. LSMs are capable of being up to 97% efficient, compared with a LIM's 70%. LSMs require starting torque (such as the kicker wheels on TOT), whereas LIMs can start from stationary. LSMs can very precisely control the position of the vehicle, whereas LIMs can't. Of course as Adam mentioned one of the LSM's key disadvantages is the huge amounts of monitoring and calculating required to synchronise everything perfectly. A LIM can just be switched on before the train gets to it and it'll do its job.

Some people have posted sources which suggest it opens December 26 which is a bit after Schoolies. Note: I have added three new photos to page two of the gallery. http://www.roller-coaster.com.au/gallery.p...=159&page=2 These three new images show some better closeups of the LIM systems including the black boxes which contain the electromagnets required as well as the sensors just below each magnet that will activate them as the boat goes over the top.

The LIM system is something that will be amazing to see in action. It seems so logical when you think about it. It'll be far more efficient with much less wear and tear than the conveyor belt systems and the terribly inefficient water-powered versions. My thought for the netting is it is to prevent bored guests in the queue from being tempted to throw things onto Cyclone. It makes sense given the unfortunate nature of insurance these days. It's certainly not attractive, but I assume they had no choice. Anyone else notice the little touches here and there, such as quality wooden railings for the tower queues?

There is a lot of work that still has to be done aside from slides. Filling everything and stabilising the huge amounts of water will take several weeks. The shops and other facilities need to be fitted. The electricals all need to be connected. The gardens and landscaping need to be completed. The staff need to be trained on-site. This list goes on... Aside from some of the slides the site is still very much under construction and is very rough. It's going to take every bit of the next month or so to get the park ready for operations and then it's going to take a while to get everything perfect for opening. I know with all those slides there looking pretty complete it seems crazy to think it'll be another two months, but there is a lot to do yet.

As I've mentioned before you're not going to see the park opening prior to the set official opening date. Many attractions have soft openings to work out kinks before there is a surge of people whose sole purpose of visit is to try out the new ride that's been hyped non-stop for the past few weeks. They can do this because there's already guests in the park and it's no stretch for them to just open attractions early. The difference with an entire theme park having a soft opening is there's no pre-existing customers because... the place isn't open yet. Having said this, of course it's natural that they have things like staff and family days and (certainly don't quote me on this; it's hypothetical) annual pass days to work out all the operations issues.

Today we have a huge update for you on WhiteWater World as it nears completion. http://www.roller-coaster.com.au/gallery.php?gid=159 At 9 pages with a total of 65 images I believe it is the largest single gallery on the site and it's fully captioned with some very interesting new information if you can make it through to the end.

Paramount is a Viacom company. Warner Bros. is a Time Warner company. Let's keep Dreamworld discussion to the Dreamworld forum. It doesn't serve a whole heap of purpose in here.

I really don't understand how they can sustain their excessively priced annual passes up against the far more realistically priced passes at WVTP's properties. As Dreamworld's collection of rides and attractions continue to become more dated, it's interesting that they're still able to charge a good $20 on the competition while at a park such as Movie World we see cutting edge rides, better operations and better food & beverage options for cheaper. I personally don't think $185 represents good value at all. This is $20 more than Disneyland's most basic annual pass and it gives access to two parks which are worlds above Dreamworld in terms of quality and quantity! I paid only around $150 for my Universal Studios Hollywood and Six Flags season passes put together. Dreamworld has a 40% greater operating margin than the Cedar Fair chain in the USA. I know their pricing is sounding less and less reasonable to me... We'll quickly see them price themselves out of the market if we see this kind of increase keep up. WVTP with their cheaper prices and better parks look set to be taking Dreamworld's previous stronghold on the annual pass market.

All tube slides at WhiteWater World with the exception of the "Cyclone" tower with its three standard tube slides will feature conveyor belts so that you won't have to carry your own tubes in the queue. I think you may be reading a little bit too much into it. Obviously they want to make out that it's the best water park out there, that's standard marketing. All of what you've quoted are pretty much standard buzz words that all parks pull out to launch a new attraction. The process of designing theming would have revolved entirely around market research to determine what people respond most favourably to. Jamberoo's expansions will be of minimal concern to WhiteWater World. Water parks are targeted largely at local residents. They have to worry about the competition against Wet'n'Wild before they even think about any other potential competitors. When parks open an attraction before its official opening date it's known as a "soft open". This is to allow staff to become well aquainted with the operating procedures and also work out any kinks that may appear before the official opening date to minimise chances of guests who have visited to ride it from being upset in the event of any issues. An entire park is a whole other matter. They won't publicly open prior to the official opening for one simple reason - no one would go. They will most likely open it privately with staff and families in attendance to figure things out, but don't expect to be able to rock up a week before it opens and be able to visit.

Tijuana Taxis, Looney Tunes River Ride and Police Academy Stunt Show are the only three attractions in the park still in their original state.

Yeah that's correct. No different really from how most sled-launched coasters creep back after engaging so that the ride can monitor the weight of the train to put the right amount oomph into the launch. On a similar note, one thing which I don't think a lot of people know is that Space Shots aren't as simple as just shooting the gondola up and then having it fall down to do it again. I think perhaps the way they work in RCT has caused them to be perceived this way. The gondola is fixed to a cable loop and every motion is completely controlled by air pressure, both upwards and downwards. What makes these rides more exciting than a regular freefall ride such as Giant Drop is the fact that at the start of the launch downwards, you accelerate faster than gravity which lifts you right out of your seat like particularly extreme airtime, much like that on Superman Escape, as opposed to a freefall's gentle floating sensation.

I'd say whoever put up the information on Wikipedia got it from our database entry for Batwing. This information is based on S&S's official statistics for this ride. It's not as simple as shooting up and then falling back down. From dispatch there is a small amount of time as the gondola slowly creeps up a few feet into position to prepare for the launch (they don't launch from ground level). From here you do one big launch that takes you to the top of the tower and then back down to about 1/3 of the way up. Then you do another smaller launch that shoots you to up to nearly the top and so on until the thing runs out of energy. From here you slowly lower back to ground level. It's very much like a bungee kind of experience. No worries on the title. It's easy to edit your own post to fix things like that, or wait until a moderator sees it and fixes it up (I've corrected it for you).

It's a Ronald Bussink designed ride, and they generally outsource manufacturing. I had originally heard Chance-Morgan was the manufacturer of Sea World's wheel - they are the company behind the identical R60 Giant Wheel that is found at Niagara Falls, but sounds like a second hand installation is the go. It's actually only two years old - the temporary model from Paris operated in Birmingham for three months, but it wasn't until October 2004 (this day two years ago actually) that this model was installed. The company responsible for the design and construction of the individual gondolas is CWA Constructions, who you might remember recently designed the Scenic Skyway and Flyway cabins at Scenic World. They're also responsible for the monorail trains at Sea World. The gondolas are fully airconditioned so it'll be a very comfortable ride.

All Intamin Giant Drops feature the fins on the tower and the magnets on the gondola. I know this to be the case, but if anyone has any close-up shots of the lower section of Space Probe's tower they can post to show these fins - the pics in our Space Probe gallery are a bit dark to show it clearly.

Dreamworld: http://www.roller-coaster.com.au/park.php?pid=1&map=yes Their land is from the road to the south (just below Cyclone's helix) to the road at the north. They own as far back as the sporting field to the east. They've actually used less than half of the total land owned but nearly all of this unused land lies to the north and won't be easily expanded into without huge investments or risking making the park (even more) impossible to get around. WhiteWater World could probably double in size if they used all of the land that is available in that area. It'd require the relocation of much of the park's maitenance and storage areas, but that's easily done.

Yep, the B&Ms which feature magnetic brakes (alongside traditional friction brakes) have the magnets mounted on the track. My guess is it was done this way because of space limitations. With the thick central beam which the friction brakes use and the lowness of the trains to the track I'm guessing there isn't adequate space underneath for magnets mounted to the trains.

The place only had the one slide tower. It was more or less an amusement centre with the slide, gokarts and other basic kinds of attractions. The place closed down at some stage in the mid-90s and the slide sections were taken down over time after it closed well after the Harvey Norman was there because you could see the slide slowly disappear each time you visited the store. The actual slide was a boat slide with multiple riders per boat. I can't for the life of me remember the name of the place, but I have a feeling it had 'Aqua' in there somewhere.

The "whoosh" sound you hear as you slow down on Giant Drop is a byproduct from the electrical engergy that is created by the braking process. It's the same noise that an electric motor will make. I could look up what causes it if you'd like, but it'd most likely be at the molecular level of the metal in response to the intense magnetic field. The sets of magnets on Superman Escape, Giant Drop, Tower of Terror are attached to the cars. The alloy fins are bolted to the track. It's done this way for no less than three logical reasons - it's cheaper and also more maintenance-friendly to have one set of magnets and lots of fins than it is to have one set of fins and lots of magnets. It's also maintenance friendly seeing as the magnets are made up of several different parts bolted together than need regular inspection while the fins are far more simple. Finally is the issue of grounding the electricity which is created in the fins. I'm not totally sure how the older Intamin coasters with train-mounted fins (Such as the Superman - Ride of Steels) dissipated this current safely but I'm assuming they had some kind of ground connection sorted out.