Busch Gardens Tampa announces swinging family roller coaster

Is this the first B&M to feature swinging cars, suspended coaster-style?

As far as I know, yes. They have a couple junior suspended coasters in China but I wasn't able to find any evidence that they swing.

RCDB lists two other suspended family coasters from B&M, and I didn't see that they appear to swing either.

The picture that Sea World shared shows a similar train to the other two B&Ms, which I find strange. It's missing the air cylinders that the old Arrow Suspended coaster have to prevent it from swinging too much. Did they find a way to hide the hardware? Is the concept art just missing this component? Maybe the design of this style coaster train is not finalized yet?

Anyway, this is a great addition to the park. Looks like a lot of fun!

I am going during the final week of march so I hope it is open

PhantomTails:

As far as I know, yes. They have a couple junior suspended coasters in China but I wasn't able to find any evidence that they swing.

They don't.

A modern swinging train will be a big deal, especially if they can scale it up. The late and much-lamented Eagle Fortress was in my top ten.

Does it definitely swing ?

I wondered if 'swing from side to side' was discussing the 'swinging' of the track, rather than actual swinging of the train.

That sort of manoeuvre for a swinging train would be odd.

That's what I'm wondering. I don't think we've ever seen an overbank on a swinging suspended coaster. The trains in the picture look exactly like trains on B&M's existing family suspended coasters that don't swing.

Dragonflier would like a word.

https://rcdb.com/16124.htm#p=120226

"Riders will feel the rush of the wind and thrill of the flight in this suspended roller coaster that enables ride cars and riders to swing side to side as the train races along the track high above the Serengeti Plain. "

https://www.prnewswire.com/...44661.html

The words they have chosen here give me the impression the cars are not fixed. I wouldn't put much stock in the rendering as evidence that it doesn't swing.

Does Dragonflyer swing? I haven't been there since it opened

This picture of the ride has the cylinders I am talking about. I still don't see how that works, but maybe it does?

https://rcdb.com/16124.htm#p=100673

THIRD EDIT: I just looked at the rest of the Dragonflyer pictures on RCDB. It does swing.The picture of the new B&M do not look like that though. So B&M doesn't have the design ironed out yet, or the design is much different than the Vekoma at Dollywood. Either is equally possible. Why have I obsessed over this today? LOL

Dragonflyer does not really swing. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall the story being that B&M has a patent on their fixed inverted trains so Vekoma's workaround was to place extremely stiff dampeners on their inverted trains so they are considered "swinging" even if they only do it to a minimal degree.

Raven-Phile:

Dragonflier would like a word.

Well at least it didn't "enter the chat." 🙂

“Does it definitely swing ?”

The Vekoma SFCs (including Dragonflier) don't swing in any practical sense of the word.

There's a very slight lateral movement of the trains, but it's not even remotely close to what happened on the Arrow/Vekoma Suspended Coasters built in the late 1980s/early 1990s.

I had no idea that Dragonflier's cars were not fixed. If they move, I never noticed it.

I rode it several times and I was quite certain the cars were fixed.
Does anyone remember waaaay back when Arrow demo’d a scale model of their suspended train navigating a corkscrew? It never went into production as they recognized it was a bad idea. Forces were naturally inconsistent through the element and it would be even worse should the train stall out through there. No amount of hydraulic baffles could guarantee the safety of a smooth landing. And I imagine those early Arrow horse collars would probably kill someone as the cars flopped around.

RCMAC, Look through the Dragonflyer pics on RCDB. They show that the seats swing, individually from each other, even the seats that are beside each other. But they barely swing. It's a very odd looking thing.

I'm still obsessed. I can't wait to get a good look at the swinging mechanism on the B&M. I'll probably be disappointed, now that I think about it.

About the Arrow model... After seeing the model on some TV show, I concluded that an arrow suspended coaster could not go upside down. Little kid Travis came understood that it was probably too forceful for both riders and the train.

Skip ahead a few years... Teenager Travis gets a brochure for Six Flags Great Adventure, featuring the new Batman: The Ride. I freaked out. A suspended coaster that goes upside down. My grad gift from my parents was to take a trip to SFGAdv. When I saw the ride in person, I thought I was dreaming. "A suspended coaster can not go upside down!" I kept screaming to my mom. LOL

It doesn’t swing like an Arrow, but yes, the cars definitely have lateral movement. Ever notice in the station where an adult is sitting on the right side and a kid is in the left? When that train comes in and parks, it’s leaning quite a bit.

I would categorize this as enough movement to me a “swing”, even if it’s not on levels of Big Bad Wolf

See that the track is flat, but the train is several degrees off-axis in the direction of lateral G-forces

photos taken from RCDB and cropped for reference