Gazza

Yep, exactly. Unless this goes steeper than 45 degrees (Or whatever the standard proslide Tornado drop angle is), then it's not the steepest, simple as that. Average gradients over distance etc don't count for anything, or else we'd be saying that Kingda Ka is the worlds 'steepest' coaster because it drops through 127m of height in the space of 200m or so of travel distance. For comparsions sake here's Funnel Web and Monster (I'm gonna call it that for the time being) side by side. The one at Jamberoo just has harder harpins turns on the top section so the turns are crunched into less space, whereas the one at Adventure World is more of a gradual zig zag. And at the bottom the Jamberoo one has a spiral straight into the pool, whilst the Adventure World has that wide u turn that places the pool further away from the Funnel. Plus the bonus drop at the top that adds a bit of extra length too.

In all honestly, it's more or less directly comparable to Funnel Web Except that there is that extra open air drop at the start like the one on Zinga that would be pushing it up the hillside a bit further:

But what does overall height/elevation change have to do with steepness? I mean to illustrate my point, a very tall ride, that isn't steep: And a shorter ride, but very steep:

So something I'm curious about, what makes this the "steepest" Tornado? I was of the understanding all of them have the same modular funnel design, with the drop coming in at a 45 degree angle: http://www.parkz.com.au/photo/6961-Funnel_Web/gallery/sort/newest/location/ride-1482/offset/11 http://www.parkz.com.au/photo/1255-Super_Tubes_HydroCoaster/gallery/sort/newest/location/ride-202/offset/3 http://www.parkz.com.au/photo/7978-Tornado/gallery/sort/newest/location/ride-1678/offset/0 How does the drop go on this one? Does it do something funky like this?

I've been on new texas giant and it's one of the best rides I've ridden. Fast pacing, airtime in every direction (Including "sideways airtime" on the overbanks. Plus the steep first drop is mental. I've seen Wicked Cyclone testing, but was at the park about 6 days too early so was spited :(

Nope: http://www.parkz.com.au/photo/1274-Temple_of_Huey/gallery/sort/newest/location/ride-206/offset/8

Three...Little rippers, wedgie, triple vortex.

^Clone stamp tool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPwSV9KgLfQ Some inspiration.....

So, one idea I've had bouncing around is super duper expensive, but basically a robocoaster type ride with full 8/12 seater cars, high speed lifts/ free falls, tilting track sections, and a collosal show building with large sets and screens, basically to really give a sense of being tossed about and totally immersed.

Plus the wheels would be blocked from rolling along the" track" by the various connection plates

Bah, no way that is coaster track. No train couldn't negotiate hard 45 degree welded turns with square rails.

It might be a bit OTT to have a ride video for a water slide. Besides, if you need to have a video, in lieu of actual tentacle theming, you're doing it wrong.

Couldn't people just deposit an amount that covers 12 months of direct debits, and not touch it. So in effect like paying upfront.

Which company is that?

Hey mark, can you post one of proslides renderings/plans for the slide?

I've been to Seattle but for some reason couldn't be arsed to go down to Wild Waves (Think I'd done so many parks on that trip the prospect of a GCI and an arrow looper didn't excite me that much) Interested in hearing what the place is like! * * * * * * * * * * The next day was a Saturday, a double park day, where I took in Knoebels, and Dorney Park. Not ideal, but with only 3 days per week with parks open, this was the only way to do it. http://www.parkz.com.au//parks/US/Elysburg/Knoebels/ http://www.parkz.com.au/parks/US/Allentown/Dorney_Park/ Knoebels (Kuh-no-bells) is in a bit of a remote location, though seems to get decent visitation. Essentially, it’s a family run amusement park/camping ground with traditional rides and a cult enthusiast following. The day I was visiting was an unlimited wristband day, and some sort of “thank you” day for those who donated to the local public broadcaster. Bit of a perfect storm in that it made the park really busy, so I thought it was pretty stupid that they didn’t bother opening till midday according to the calendar, when they normally open at 10? Why? It did give me a chance to sleep in, and I got there at 11 and did a lap of the grounds to get photos and scope the place out. To be honest, I wasn’t really taken by the place. Now, I know that visiting a park on a crowded day is never a good recipe for being in the right frame of mind, but really, it felt like walking around a fair/royal show/exhibition, with gravel pathways, and 60s buildings and toilet blocks that look like they haven’t had any love for years, and old rides. In all honesty, parks like SFA are in better condition (But I’m not allowed to say that am I because Knoebels is “family run”, even though there are numerous examples of nice looking family parks out there. On the plus side, the place is CHEAP, I think unlimted rides was around the $20-$25 mark, and individual rides ranged from $1,to $3 for the big coasters. I started off waiting at the entrance of Flying Turns, but when it became clear that the ride was going to be late opening and the place was getting packed I bailed and went to Phoenix instead. This was a really fun ride. Did the front row as people suggest. It’s a regular out and back coaster, but it has several strong airtime hills in a row right at the end which make it come alive. Fast operations too, with no airgates, and trains spending maybe 20 secs in the station. Upon exiting, Flying turns wasn’t ready yet so I went on Black Diamond. Doesn’t really deserve to be called a coaster IMO, more of a dark ride with drops, and you are braked at the bottom of each drop. The ride starts off with a lift hill, up into the ride building, and you pass through various scenes of animatronic miners, and a mine fire and other semi spooky stuff as you work your way back to ground level. Cool little diversion Nearby was the Haunted House. The golden ticket awards etc seem to rave about this as being the best haunted house, and maybe I should have known better given it was a “golden ticket opinion”, but it was nicely done, but it was maybe an incremental step above your average small park haunted house, rather than some killer (excuse the pun)dark ride I was expecting. It was very long, and the track twisted and turned for ages, so you got a decent ride out of if, and the effects seemed to be in good nick. Fairly standard fare scenes like floating skulls, things that pop out, near misses with truck headlights etc. Not sure what I was thinking not doing this ride sooner, but I headed to their 2 week old coaster, Impulse, which is a Zierer vertical lift coaster that is pretty similar to a Eurofighter as far as it matters. Discovered a long queue stretching out the entrance, and ended up waiting about an hour, and there wasn’t much shade, but again, crews were working pretty fast. The queue goes right through the middle of the track. Decent, but pretty middle of the road. I’m of the opinion that this style of compact coaster of today is like what the loopscrew was in the 1980s, in other words fun, but they don’t set the world alight and aren’t that intense. Basically the ride goes vertical lift, straight into a vertical drop, cobra roll, loop, a turn and helix, barrel roll, then one last helix to finish off. The trains are very comfortable, and have an excellent harness design, which makes the hangtime you get in the barrel roll quite enjoyable. I headed back and joined the 45 minute line for flying turns, the much delayed wooden bobsled coaster. I guess overall I preferred the mack bobsleds I have done, faster pacing and a narrower track. The think with flying turns is the trough is so big it takes up your whole field of vision basically, so you lose your sense of speed and direction, especially on the main set of turns and helices, where it was kinda like being in one of those big family waterslides. Points for uniqueness and effort though! Would have tried to ride Kozmos Kurves, the parks family coaster, but a long line stretching back to the main path made me abandon that (No, I’m not that desparate for coaster credits!) My limited schedule left time to do Twister and the Flyers. First of Twister….thankfully, a short wait, maybe 15 mins or so. Surprisingly good! Phoenix gets the limelight, but I thought this was great fun too, it had an interesting layout that was unpredictable, and mixed it up a bit. Helped somewhat that I didn’t know the ride well, so it felt like it was going and going for ages. Quite liked that big continuous bowl helix around the station, and that random section at the end under all the supports where you drop into an underground tunnel. Last ride was the famous Flyers, which I waited about 30 mins for. Haha these are great, and I can see what people mean about being able to ‘snap’ these without even trying. Was a lot of fun pretending I was out of control as the tub whipped and shook around due to my sudden wing movements. I should mention the food at Knoebels, which is supposedly amazing. Yeah maybe, if you’ve never eaten out in your life, or never left Pennsylvania I suppose :S I tried the potato cakes, and the pizza since they seem to get glowing reviews. The potato cake was nice, not like an Australian potato cake/potato scallop, rather it was more like those rostis you can get in the Swedish frozen food section at Ikea, with onion and bits of potato pressed together. As for the Pizza, to me it was fairly similar to most pizza you get in America, a lot of sauce, a lot of oregano, and just salami, so it didn’t stand out that much….I suppose my notion of a good pizza is one with about 6 types of meat, mushroom, tomato, onion, capsicum etc, really loaded up. Yes No So to sum up, Knoebels is basically a fairground with a few ‘good’ coasters attached to it. By all means visit, but I guess allow more time. There were a few other things I would have tried had I had the time…the ferris wheel, that ring dispensing grand carousel, looper, satellite, but had to press on. About a 90 minute drive away I got to Dorney park I think about 5-6pm ish. Straight in with a prepaid ticket and parking pass. The park has an odd, long, L shaped layout, with a midway at the top with a few rides, then a another long midway at the bottom of a valley that stretches along. First up was Talon. Not many were waiting for the front row, so I popped straight on there. Yep, say in the top half of the inverts out there, decent scale, and nice long layout, but it did feel a bit unbalanced. Basically the first half is loop, zero g roll and immelmann all in pretty quick sucession, then it just mucks around for the middle part with a helix, hill, and a couple of turns, and then you finish off with a fast corkscrew and forceful helix. Here I spotted something quirky about dorney. On their coasters, they don’t use automatic gates, rather they are just spring loaded aluminium ones with magnetic locks, and you just push through yourself when the ops unlock them. Elegant in its simplicity anyway. Next I did Hydra, a B&M floorless with 7 inversions (Which is cheating a bit because you hardly go upside down in that inclined dive loop. On paper, it sounds like it’s a really large ride. Lots of inversions and 1km long, but in reality, its not that big, it sort of runs off a hillside, so it not too tall, so I understand now why it was only $13mil USD. Straight out of the station you do a small drop into a barrel roll. I didn’t think this worked to well with B&Ms harness design, you shift around in your seat a fair bit and it felt kinda awkward. You come around onto the lift, down a straight drop and into the inclined dive loop, which is really just an overbanked turn in different clothes. Following that is a zero g roll, a corkcrew, which drops out to the lowest point at the cobra roll, you work you way uphill again, over a couple of humps, and finish off with another corkscrew and a helix into the brakes. Like Talon, one of the better of its type, but maybe not the best. Both coasters get points for effective colour schemes! Next was Demon Drop. The very first time I was at SFMM I skipped freefall for some stupid reason, and then the next time I was back it was gone, so good to try an intamin first gen freefall. Basically, you sit in these upright 4 person cars that reverse out of the station into a lift, you then get lifted upwards vertically to the top of a tower, pushed forward onto another track, and freefall vertically. These rides were built before the days of magnetic brakes, so the track curves down to horizontal (like Tower of Terror in reverse), brakes stop you, and then there Is this switch track that the car reverses onto to get onto a lower level of track, whilst simultaneously being turned upright again. What I loved was the anticipation factor, because the ride went through several stages rather than just “up, stop, drop, off”. The way you come to a stop on your back is a bit weird on your neck, like a pretzel loop on a flying coaster. Moving on I did Stinger, which I thought was SBNO going by RCDB, well it wasn’t. My thoughts on this type of SLC boomerang are the same….really good, and I much prefer it to a normal boomerang. It’s smoother, and less sickening. This ride has a strangely catchy/hillarious rap as its ride safety spiel: Swings and roundabouts though. I got spited by Possessed, which had been operating, but when I walked over there had an empty queue, and wouldn’t be reopening for the rest of the night due to technical difficulties. Bugger. I wasn’t too bothered since I’ve been on Wicked Twister and V2, but this one had the holding brake and the pure vertical drop, which I was interested to try. Onwards anyway, so I hit up steel force, first time on a Morgan hyper (Though have been on the Santa Monica West coaster) This was really good! What immediately sprung to mind was it was how Apollos Chariot could have been, pacing, and airtime were all a bit better I thought. Thunderhawk was next, an out and back woodie that apparently was made longer at one point, so there is this bit of track at the end that reminded me of the shape of a toilet S-bend. Had a few moments of air, but overall, it was your typical “filler” wooden coaster that the park hangs onto because it has to. I didn’t want to run out of light (Well, I was anyway, but meh) so I did a spin on the ferris wheel and got several blurry photos. Second last coaster I had yet to ride was the Zamperla kiddy coaster, Woodstock's Express…I swear I’ve been on more of those than Wacky worms. I finished the roster on the Wild Mouse, which was perhaps the longest wait because they don’t load two adults (though still fairly short), still cant decide if I like these Maurer mouses, or the Mack ones better….Macks are more comfortable, but the Maurers have a few more hills. This ride had another loading station rap too. I think at that point I’d done everything I wanted to, since the rest was just flats and an overly wet rapids ride….What’s the go with the Dominator S&S tower having 3 towers, but one of them ‘blank’ with no ride car or piping installed? I used the remainder of the evening to re-ride Talon a couple of times (The attendant at the station entrance seemed not all there ..…not letting enough people into the station so whole rows were going out empty, and then seemed surprised when I asked “errm, why can’t I go through and take those empty seats instead of being made to wait here?” Did a couple more rides on Hydra, and squeezed in one last go on Steel Force, just before the park closed. On the way out I tried “Ritas Frozen Custard”, since I’d seen a few parks selling it on the east coast. It didn’t really taste different to normal soft serve though, is there something I’m missing? Dorney is an odd place. Imagine this pic represents the vibe you get at Disney, Alton, Busch etc. And then this is what Dorney feels like. It’s well kept, and tidy, but it looks so plain! But the coasters were good, and I’d rather have this on my doorstep than Dreamworld. In terms of what the park needs….A proper family thrill coaster, a modern woodie, or a full circuit launch coaster would all complement the line up nicely. And a dark ride for sure!

Yep, Proslide Tornado, obviously remains to be seen if its a Tornado alone, with extra turns like the ones in NSW, or if we get a Hybrid with bonus bowls, smaller funnels etc. Getting the worlds largest would be easy that way, because the only bowl+tornado slide is in the UK at Centerparcs (Tropical Cyclone) is just a Tornado 45, not a tornado 60 like in the bid. Can rule out a Hydromagnetic Tornado like the ones at Yas Island and Everland because the segments in the TT story are semicircles, rather than in quarters (as are used in the larger hydromagnetic tunnel sections) Regardless, good choice. At every water park you go to they are crazy popular slides, and with good reason!

Just getting in first with "Typical Mt Olympus".

Zanstabar, you can often adapt more violent franchises to fit a normal theme park setting. Terminator had people getting stabbed etc, but then Universal had a 3D movie too.

-It was approved for construction in January -Construction due to start within 12 months. -We're only in July. Nice speculation mate.

But why would V8s be going through mines and caves?

Coaster with 45 degree square turns lol. Hi Cooper, do you mind crediting the source of the image, Facebook is pretty big you know and there's a bazillion theme park pages on there.

-On the photo, the bit where the guy in the orange vest is standing wouldn't be the drop, that would be the raft conveyor return. Note the two much shorter supports in line with it running up the hillside. -The bottom part of the ride does seem quite close to the bumper boat and pirate ship side of the park, maybe my dreams of a pirate land will come true. -I reckon it will be a proslide. Yes, both Proslide and Whitewater donated to the sleepout, but AW haven't bought anything from proslide in the past have they (Or, until now?) -I reckon something similar to Kinnaree at Siam Park could be likely. My dream is for a park to do a slide comining all of proslides special elements (funnel, bowl, wave) into the one ride. The most they ever seem to do is two types (eg bowl and funnel like the one being built in Werribee, or funnel and wave like Collosal Curl at Water Country)

A Jet Rescue clone is being built in Turkey: http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=67415&start=50