Richard

Please use appropriate capital letters and punctuation, HussRainbow, as per the Community Guidelines. You're almost there, just need more capital letters and apostrophes here and there. So Australian roads can handle 100 tonnes when it's something "more important"? When it's amusement rides what, do the roads collapse? Show me some state laws and I'll gladly believe you, but until then, your argument is just opinion, because I assure you that there's not much that can't be taken on Australian roads. Larger loads might need permits, escorts etc., but that's not the point here.

The suburb of Fortitude Valley in Brisbane, which was the scene for much redevelopment in the late-90's and still today for inner-city apartments. It also happens to have Brisbane's best clubs and other nightlife. Residents complained and had their winge. The council said "No" and declared the suburb a "noisy district", that the clubs, music venues and nightclubs and whatnot were there first and consequently when residents moved into the area, the noisy surroundings were part of the deal. They basically can't complain and places like The Arena can still pump out the best live music in Brisbane. Now, I'd absolutely love to live in one of those apartments above Luna Park. Not for the proximity to Luna Park, but because damn, those are some fine looking places! I'd take the place as it is and accept that there's a 70 year-old amusement park on my doorstep. Unfortunately I don't live there, and seemingly the most vocal people that do live there don't share my opinions. I dare say that 50% or more of the residents are either indifferent or for Luna Park, but they are the voices that are heard. Maybe Sydney can pull off something like they did with the Valley in Brisbane. We're talking much the same sort of thing. I don't think we'll ever see Luna Park's restrictions relaxed any time in the future, but if the local and state governments are behind it, then we surely won't see the place go down the path of previous installations of Luna Park. As for operators being abused by residents, well I hope (and assume) that they're calling the appropriate authorities and getting them escorted out of the park at the very least, if not cuffed and taken away.

And you're trying to actually put the point forward that there is a future in carnival rides? The Pinfari Xpress will set you back around USD$2 million. That'd be probably a five year investment before it pays itself off, not bad returns really. Wide trucks can very easily travel on most Australia roads, especially rural roads, as they would to get from the different Royal Shows etc. Over a certain width and you need a pilot (vehicles in front and behind that warn other drivers of the wide/slow load and help you to overtake etc.). No police or anything like that is needed, just the required permits, which are hardly too costly or hard to get. It's hardly a rare occurance on Australian roads, and I can assure you that weight would not be an issue outside of major towns and cities. Getting them in wouldn't be much of an issue either. Anyone seen the main street of Coonabarabran down in NSW? There's about a foot-deep depression from the semi-trailers going through nonstop, and the soft earth in that area of the world. The roads all down the East coast of Australia take industrial and mining loads day-in-day-out. I can assure you that the comparitively light loads of a few rides will not make much of a difference, nor is it somehow illegal or not allowed.

Construction discussions, such as those regarding the "large circle" should be posted here: http://www.parkz.com.au/forums/sh...hread.php?t=725 Please keep this topic to the load of rubbish that it is.

The Huss Rainbow's weight is 65 tonnes. The new Top Spin 2 is 75 tonnes. If they charge $5 for a ride on a Rainbow, then they could get away with $7.50+ for a Top Spin (I wouldn't pay it, but that's another story). I don't know how many trailers these things pack down to, but I'm guessing roughly the same. That means we've effectively increased revenue and profits by 50% over what we could get with a Rainbow. Perhaps things like Frisbees etc. would be out of the question because of weight, but it doesn't limit them too much. They'd certainly have no troubles with some of the large travelling coasters on our roads.

1. How to Australia's road rules affect the transporting of modern portable rides? How is a brand new two-trailer ride different from a twenty year old two-trailer ride? 2. They get rich by offering rides that are worth paying the ridiculous prices. The same Zipper we all rode 12 years ago isn't worth paying $5++ to get on. New rides = new customers. 3. Because annual trade shows and easy-to-contact international offices aren't good enough? If I were looking for a new ride, I wouldn't pull out the Yellow Pages, I'd book an October flight to Orlando and take the I•RIDE south to stop 32. Seriously, these people don't say "I would buy a new ride, but there's nowhere here I can buy one, so I guess I can't get one." Seriously, the reason we don't have any good rides is pretty obvious when you go to your Royal Show. It's very rare to find a ride that there's not two or more of. These companies are so unoriginal in the way that they follow trends that they bought the latest ride, and like two other operators with the same ride haul it to the show and effectively third their potential revenue. Then they can't afford new rides and we end up where we are today. Enough Zippers and Dodgems and other junk to fill Sideshow Alley, but nothing new because they can't afford it because they dilute their own profits. Yeah, there's a ride new every now and again, but it's a very slow process. All the politics involved with the RNA (or whoever run your respective shows) doesn't exactly make it encouraging for new operators to get in, so we're relying on the same old operators who are relying on the same old Rainbow to get them enough profits to make replacing it possible. I'd say the industry's not dead, nor will it die, but they've really shot themselves in the foot time and time again and it'll be a downward spiral until they get a clue or bankrupt themselves.

The way Wonderland looked from about 1999 til 2001 was far far better than how it was looking towards the end of the previous owners' tenure. Even when it closed this year it was on the whole a nicer and cleaner park than it had been, and the rides were operating better than they had in the past. I'd say that this was really a result of Wonderland's management team, because I think it's clear that Sunway didn't give them much to work with at all. Yeah, they could definitely have done with more rides, that goes without saying, and again that falls on Sunway, because they were definitely working on potential/new attractions until relatively recently.

I bet that guy who lives 79km away and has ridden it 400 times this year is really kicking himself.

You're going there for the first time soon? How about waiting til then rather than asking us to explain the storyline of the ride. The name hints everything you could possibly need to know prior to visiting. It's about the Bermuda Triangle. Aliens, lost planes and all that sort of stuff.

Don't you think it's a bit premature to be judging the ride, given that the development really hasn't begun? Then you go on to say that you think that the Royal Show's Ferris wheel is better. It keeps getting better and better. I still think that they should just buy the second-hand 38m Huss Ferris wheel that is listed on their website. It's Huss so it's clearly better than what they're building... Oh wait, nevermind, you were supposed to say that. My mistake.

Well, I can tell you that it's considered to be located at the front of Ocean Parade.

All I'll say is Intamin's Gyro Swing doesn't use the same platform system as Huss' Giant Frisbee. I believe Intamin use small steel steps that fold away when the ride begins, not a giant lowering platform cut into segments as Huss use.

Sea World's park number 3 in the database, Wonderland is 4. Simply typing the wrong key when creating rides and the whole system slots it where it shouldn't be. Of course, the great thing about it being database driven is I change those two numbers and it changes on every other page.

Nothing more than your good old Galaxy. http://www.roller-coaster.com.au/coaster.php?cid=14

It's not the Mack Tilting Coaster is it? http://www.parkfunworld.be/dossier/tech/pr....htm#funcoaster Looks fairly interesting, like a homage to the wooden wild mouse coasters that freely tilt like this ride. Also, from the looks of it, Mack are taking on after Gerstlauer, who have become very big on their freeform wild mouses (they're calling them Bonsled Coasters). This ride's unmistakably a wild mouse, yet it has the banked curves more flowing elements that appear to make these rides much better.

The latest Thrill Ride construction update is here. See the link below (or at the top) to see today's seven photographs documenting the progess to date. http://www.roller-coaster.com.au/gallery.php?gid=60 Enjoy!

And as some of us suggested earlier, the extended maintenance period is a result of the entire first drop being rebuilt from the ground up. If I actually cared, I'd mention that in my post just above I predicted this exact situation, but I don't care. :cool: (Really, what would it possibly prove?) An update from today can be seen here: http://www.roller-coaster.com.au/gallery.php?gid=61

By all means amazing, but don't be fooled - there's only two types of slides there, just about a dozen of each to give the place the capacity a Japanese park would need. DCA does have the Coaster Wheel - I forgot to add that the Coaster Wheel Drop looks seriously sweet. If it's anything like what the description suggests, it'd be an incredibly thrilling and amazing ride.

And it is, as seen at Disney's California Adventure, known as Sun Wheel. One of the most oddly thrilling rides I've ever been on. There's truly nothing like just reaching that critical angle, then coasting down a gentle slope and hitting the end, swinging up to about 30º back and forth until the thing moves back around - you're up to 150ft in the air don't forget, and sitting unrestrained in a little cage. On the Sun Wheel, the purple cars give better swinging than the orange ones, in case you're wondering. Not sure if I liked the design of Intamin's larger Wheels. They're not as nice looking, and where other larger Ferris wheel manufacturers go for less larger gondolas, Intamin seem to have kept the smaller, more individual cars, but have many too many of them. I was surprised to read that Meisho are considered the world's major suppliers of not only Ferris wheels, but also amusement rides in general. I guess what goes on in that Asian amusement industry is really unknown to the rest of the world. Regarding the alleged water park, it's supposed to be similar to what Atlantis in the Bahamas has, or that crazy one in the Middle East whose name is slipping me right now. Incredibly optimistic, but we're talking the real deal, fully themed top to bottom - making Wet'n'Wild look like a backyard pool slide. Heat it and they'll come from around the world.

I think it'd be surprising to actually see the numbers of tourists that there are around Melbourne. I think it'd be a lot more than most of you are actually giving credit for. Melbourne Airport does 17 million passengers per year, of which I think it'd be safe to say that no less than 5 million are tourists coming into Melbourne. To put that into perspective, Sydney does about 24 million and Brisbane a mere 12 million. Operating from what, 9am til 9pm or so every day of the year, getting every single backpacker and Japanese tourist group alike, simply because it's a two or so hour sort of thing, not a whole day and not "like all the amusement parks we've got at home", which is one major downfall of any theme park trying to attract tourists as opposed to the domestic market. I can't see this thing getting anything less than a million guests per year to be honest. Liken this to the Darling Harbour monorail or even just catching one of Sydney's iconic ferries. It's certainly not the same as a theme park, and can't easily be likened to one for attendance comparisons.

The London Eye costs about $26 per ride and is the most popular tourist attraction in the city, a pretty mean feat when put up against the sort of culture and historical attractions that city has to offer. You're right, it is pretty expensive, a ripoff if you will, but they'll still have absolutely no troubles churning people through on the thing.

http://www.roller-coaster.com.au/article.php?aid=12 So much for ING the heartless park-munchers they are who will be responsible for the collapse of the entire western world. Turns out they're forming their own tourism trust, which may well see them getting fairly big in the theme park industry if all goes well.

Four ejections from these lapbar restraints, three of which resulted in deaths. Doesn't exactly sound safe to me. I don't believe any other steel coaster manufacturer has ever had such a track record with regards to restraint safety. There's definitely an issue somewhere in those restraints. Clearly, based on the millions and millions of riders each of these would have carried over the years, it's not a completely, but I guess a matter of being seated in such a way and being of a precise build, that's enough to just simply throw riders out. I don't think anyone should be worried about going on their rides, but without doubt something needs to be done, because I think time has now proven that these rides will keep on ejecting riders. Of course, it'll be very rare, you probably have a greater chance of getting hit in your car on the way to the park, but unlike a car accident, this situation can be remedied and future occurrences can be prevented.

Yeah, subsidise it by all means, just don't give away council-owned land (i.e. ratepayer's land). There's plenty of land in and around Brisbane that could be developed that's not a significant part of a significant nature reserve. Remember, he's not building a Wildlife park here, he's building a theme park. That's not worth sacrificing a portion of one of Brisbane's only remaining reserves. I still think that the best place for him to build his park is up at the Sunshine Coast. Build it next to or near Australia Zoo, throw in a nice themed resort and you've just made it a destination. People currently don't go to the Sunshine Coast solely to visit the zoo. Build a second park, with the rides and whatnot and you've got yourself the next Gold Coast. There's already quite a strong tourism element up north, at the moment it's really a domestic location with very few foreign visitors like at the Gold Coast, but those people just go where the cheesy attractions take them. If he'd just stop trying to show up the Caloundra City Council just because a few councillors don't like him much (probably for good reason ).

The only equivalent to a Disneyland Australia could ever get would have Disney somewhere in its name. Sorry, but worldwide, no one has ever come close to pulling off anything nearly as great as a Disney park. Even Universal with their Islands of Adventure aren't quite in the same league. Just a peeve of mine, if it's not something you've picked up on in any posts of mine to do with Disney parks.