Tower of Terror 2 - Slow Launch

[Aimsley81]

Sorry for the bad topic title but I wasn't sure what to call it and just wanted to share as I thought what happened was pretty cool. Again, my apologies if there is already a thread for this or if it belongs elsewhere. 

I rode the Tower of Terror 2 today at Dreamworld and the launch started all very normal but towards the end of the tunnel the car started to slow down considerably and we barely got vertical on the tower. We  rolled back down but only got about halfway back through the tunnel. Then the car rolled back outside and we ended up coming to a stop right at the entrance of the tunnel. We sat there for a bit and maintenance came and they had to winch us back to the station. I would guesstimate that the whole experience was only about 10 minutes. 

I thought it was very cool. Have any of you fellow riders experienced something similar?

[red dragin]

Computer lost track of the car is my understanding of the cause behind what happened. 

Not been involved in one myself. 

[Santa07]

Congratulations, you just experienced a rollback! (or as much as you can call it one on ToT)

[Park Addict 93]

What is it called when a car overshoots the station, was excited the other day when I got one of those!

[emmakiwi]

I have never experienced this but I have seen it happen!! I wish my mum saw that, she would have thought that was all it did and would have gone on it!!!! 

[themagician]

9 minutes ago, Jordan M. said:

What is it called when a car overshoots the station, was excited the other day when I got one of those!

An overshoot 

[Theme Park Girl]

Bugger. I was at Dreamworld today, but missed this moment lol. Around what time did it happen, @Aimsley81? 

[Aimsley81]

@Theme Park Girl It would've been about 1:15 pm today. I bought the on-ride photo and the timestamp on the receipt is 1328. 

@Santa07 Wow, a rollback? That's so cool!!! 

[Theme Park Girl]

@Aimsley81 D'oh! Yep, I was there at that time, but up the back in the Corroboree watching all the early goings on toward the Stage 2 upgrade lol. 

I guess this adds to my list of exciting/interesting things that happen behind my back at the parks whilst I'm there, or have just left (although I dare say that there was one fateful day late last year that I'm very glad to have left the park when I did! I consider that a blessing ??) 

You're lucky to have gotten that experience haha! Should have asked them for a copy of the ride photo of the rollback, would have been hilarious ?

[Aimsley81]

@Theme Park Girl I know what you mean about missing out on interesting/exciting things at the park. I can't believe how incredibly lucky I was to have this experience today. 

For those of you interested, this was the ride photo -

 

[TomiJ]

That's a cool experience thanks for sharing,  I have always wanted a rollback. I have only had a e-stop on the tip of the  wild mouse at Luna Park Sydney, awesome views of the harbour. I was up there for about 20mins

[djmcbell]

And today's news headlines...

TERRIFIED passengers TRAPPED on roller coaster as it DOES NOTHING on a flat bit of track!!!

"We sat there for a bit" - says victim

(coverage on pages 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 & 11)

[Spotty]

Ah... good old drive trips. The last time I had one of them was back when it was the original ToT. Basically computer loses track of where the car is in the launch sequence, computer shuts the launch sequence down and you just chill there. Last time it happened to me we launched, got maybe to the end of the old launch tunnel before slowing down and just causing down the launch track at a nice leisurely place.

An e-brake is the opposite. The system loses track of the car during the braking sequence (or another fault is detected) so it shuts down the automatic braking system and you end up in the "Bog Zone" as it has been commonly known as in the past. The brakes are fail safe and very similar to the Giant Drop's system. It makes for a bit more of an abrupt stop... and the reactions of some people when you go whizzing past the station nearly full speed is quite entertaining

[Aimsley81]

@red dragin & @Spotty - thanks for the info guys. But how does the computer lose track of the car? Like is it some sort of rare glitch, or had the potential to be an 'over launch'?  Sorry to sound dumb but I know nothing about this stuff and I find it fascinating. 

[liz.wis]

I got to experience this on original ToT as well.

6 hours ago, Spotty said:

Ah... good old drive trips. The last time I had one of them was back when it was the original ToT. Basically computer loses track of where the car is in the launch sequence, computer shuts the launch sequence down and you just chill there. Last time it happened to me we launched, got maybe to the end of the old launch tunnel before slowing down and just causing down the launch track at a nice leisurely place.
 

2

 

[red dragin]

1 hour ago, Aimsley81 said:

@red dragin & @Spotty - thanks for the info guys. But how does the computer lose track of the car? Like is it some sort of rare glitch, or had the potential to be an 'over launch'?  Sorry to sound dumb but I know nothing about this stuff and I find it fascinating. 

No idea to be honest. I think it was explained here once years ago. I know the "rail" in the centre is part of the position tracking system. 

I'd imagine it would be the computer expecting the car to accelerate/decelerate to certain points at certain times, and it not meeting those goals. Not loosing it as such, just giving up if it runs slower or faster than expected. 

 

[Spotty]

The sensors monitor the positioning of the Escape Pod constantly and all it takes is a slight variable in the speed of the car etc for the ride to freak out and shut down. I know when it was the original tower it used to play up and was frequently doing this but as far as I am aware when it was upgraded to ToT 2 it had a major overhaul and it's no where near as common these days.

To this day though, I don't know why they don't run it full speed unlike it's twin at Six Flags Magic Mountain. I've heard rumours of it being because Dreamworld didn't want to upgrade the system to enable it to launch at full speed more reliably (take that with a grain of salt). Because basically the faster it goes, the more room for error and hence making it unreliable.

As far as the centre rail goes though, that's the first I have heard of it being used as part of the tracking system. I'm not saying it's not true, but i've just never heard of that myself. If anyone can confirm or deny that would be great.

[red dragin]

I might be wrong on the centre rail then, I'm sure I read that here somewhere though. 

[Original]

I'd read here the reason it launches slower these days is because of the stronger forces on the body to go backwards and our laws won't allow the stronger forces on the body. Whereas they're more lax in the US and can continue launching at full speed.

If anyone knows for sure, It'd be great to know exactly why.  

[Spotty]

I honestly call BS on that, I very much doubt they actually would have a law for that. Especially considering from a statistic standpoint the launch on Superman is much more powerful as far as G-Force on the body goes. I'd say you'll find, the faster the launch the more power it uses and considering how power hungry it is already... well yeah.

[Santa07]

I've heard a lot of stories about why ToT doesn't launch at full speed - eg to save power, to make it more appealing to less-adventurous audiences, etc. I've also heard the one about it having too high forces, but I'm nearly certain that's definitely not the reason.

[Naazon]

20 minutes ago, Spotty said:

I honestly call BS on that, I very much doubt they actually would have a law for that. Especially considering from a statistic standpoint the launch on Superman is much more powerful as far as G-Force on the body goes. I'd say you'll find, the faster the launch the more power it uses and considering how power hungry it is already... well yeah.

I think its more to do with the way you face. Superman your facing forwards and have a seat and headrest to support.

[Santa07]

Only linear forces are affected by the way you face, and these forces are quite minimal on ToT because of the long launch tunnel (ie the coaster has room to accelerate more slowly) the actual "big" g forces you feel on ToT is when you go from horizontal to vertical and vice versa, and these aren't affected by the direction the train faces.

ToT launches at a rate of ~7 m/s/s (at full speed) which is not that much compared to superman's ~14 m/s/s (please excuse me if my math is wrong)

[mission]

25 minutes ago, Santa07 said:

 

I've heard a lot of stories about why ToT doesn't launch at full speed - eg to save power, to make it more appealing to less-adventurous audiences,

 

I would have thought you'd start with changing the name if you're trying to attract less adventurous type.

Perhaps:

Tower of Typical

Mast of Mediocre

?

[rappa]

5 hours ago, Santa07 said:

Only linear forces are affected by the way you face, and these forces are quite minimal on ToT because of the long launch tunnel (ie the coaster has room to accelerate more slowly) the actual "big" g forces you feel on ToT is when you go from horizontal to vertical and vice versa, and these aren't affected by the direction the train faces.

ToT launches at a rate of ~7 m/s/s (at full speed) which is not that much compared to superman's ~14 m/s/s (please excuse me if my math is wrong)

There is still quite a significant force (linear) applied on launch and change of direction and all of this is without support of the next in the first (prior to free fall) phase.