Circuit completed on Australia's first rocket

Wow.

Looks interesting.

Sweet!

The pirate speaks,"That ride aye looks like a lot more fun than t' rockets we have here. I'm curious t' find out more about how this earthquake section works. Does anybody have any information about it?"

Does anyone have a link to the layout? It's hard to decipher from the pictures.

From what i can tell this layout is a mixture of many of their current rockets. it seems to have a few hills that give a pop of air, and then high speed turns like Xcelerator and they look to have a snake dive inversion or something close to it. Do will it run with otsr its looks like it, but is it launching from outside or inside, cause it has that long flat brake area that most of them have, meaning that this could be outside as well. Anyhow it looks pretty good coming from what i can see. Just too poor to fly there.

Rob - where-as the entry and exit of the top hats on Dragster, KK, and Xcelerator are 180 degrees [the top hat reverses the direction of travel] Superman's top hat is "in-line" meaning the 90* twist down is the reverse of the 90* twist up so the direction of travel remains forward. Got it?

Layout, which is sort of a figure-8 as best as I can tell: Launch, top-hat, approx 270* ground hugging right turn, bunny hill, another approx 270* left turn that features an overbank that jumps over the launch track, corkscrew bunny hill [as seen on SFNE's Supermen], the exit of this bunny is a double down, the second half of which is the downward-sloping brake run.

Makes sense. Now I just have to find someone that can make a No Limits recreation! Any idea of what is going to take place inside (as far as the layout is concerned)?

Wow... I'm finding myself excited over a coaster I'll likely never get to ride... a rocket coaster at that... wonders never cease.

I'm quite happy to see more of these being built. Would love to see one or two more on the west coast... I think Xcellerator at KBF is in my top five Steel coasters despite its shortness... just a really smooth and cool ride.

I don't care who thinks it's a bad Idea , If SFMM next coaster can be a rocket that looks as good as Superman or even better then I'm all for it. Beside Xcel we westcoasters have to travel all the way to Hershey to just find another Rocket worth riding IMO, so I do hope in the future SFMM changes that.

Looks like I'm spending this Xmas down in OZ *** This post was edited by westcoaster man 9/19/2005 4:52:55 PM ***

Neato. Looks like someone is finally using the uber expensive launch technology to make an interesting coaster layout. Looking at those pics, I kept thinking about Supes at SFNE, drool.......... :)

So I guess this means all new Rockets, regardless of if they invert or not, will have OTSR:

http://www.ozcoaster.net/

Thought it might just be a US thing, but if even this one has them, then I guess all new ones will. Bummer, personally love the open unrestrained feeling of Xcel's trains.

*** This post was edited by jomo 9/19/2005 10:49:00 PM ***

Careful about that conclusion Jomo... remember that there was a launched Intamin (though technically not a rocket) built recently with only lapbars. Galaxy Express 999, the ride I'm referring to, even had a loop in it. I would bet money that, given the relatively small difference in ride experience, Intamin has simply begun recommending their OTSR rocket trains as the new standard rocket train. That being said, I'm sure if a WBMWA had specified lapbar-only trains, Intamin would have delivered.

Anyway, I love the look of this new rocket. It looks to me like an exageratted or perhaps more fully realized version of Rita... a tophat, all hills a little taller, some unique/interesting turn variations. The cross-over hills (ejector air into a headchopper anyone?) and the ground hugging turns look absolutely fantastic... makes me wish there was something out there that could, you know, ever result in my ending up in Australia. Oh well... another one for the 'would give a nut to but will never ride' list.

Rob- The indoor section at the start of the ride is supposed to be this. You are in a subway station when Lex luthor appears and causes an earthquake. Superman turns up and 'pushes' your train to safety.

Interesting. Love to know if the track is going to move or if the themeing just moves around you. WBMW do a great hob with their themeing of dark coasters. Just look at Scooby Doo.

The trains have a arrived and the are otsr. But they are the new skinny types, so hopefully will reduce any headbanging and still enable lots of airtime.

Cant wait until dec. although i think i will wait until after the school hols in feb so the kids can go back to school and the park can iron any kninks out.

The earthquake effect will be achieved by way of a modified section of track which will shake.

It's highly likely that the park will commence testing of this ride well in advance of the opening date so as to iron out any issues before they become issues. The very early construction of the ride (completion of circuit around three months ahead of opening) hints that the park wants it to go ahead without issues.

So the indoor section of the ride is very short. I was expecting something along the lines of Mummy but the earthquake idea sounds like it could turn out pretty well. Should be an interesting ride!

The indoor section is more extensive than you'd think. Maybe a quarter of the track or so is part of the dark ride section.

One thing to note is this probably means they will be able to run at least three trains on the track. I hope they've gone all-out with trains and purchased three with the ride, because Australian parks are sorely needing three-train coasters and on our two-train rides, you often see them alternating trains for maintenance reasons (probably fair enough when you have a year-round park... but they also should take that into account when buying these rides).

Unless they have separate unload and load station sections or there's an MCBR somewhere in there, this ride would really make the most sense with a Storm Runner 2 train configuration.

Don't forget the pre-launch indoor section, and also it has been suggested that there will be separate load and unload stations for theming purposes.