eejanaika - S&S 4th Dimension Coaster at Fuji Q

I looked under the news section and the general forums and couldn't find anything posted lately about the new S&S 4D coaster being installed at Fuji Q Highlands. I got the link from Screamscape, believe it or not, and it has a promo video for Eejanaika. Looks like it is scheduled to open July 19th, 2006. Here's to hoping that S&S has worked out the bugs since X.

http://www.eejanaika.jp/

Just click on special movie. If you have a pop-up blocker, you will need to temporarily disable it to watch the video.

If this is not new, I apologize in advance.

this is not new

Cool to see it finished. Or is it? Anybody notice anything missing that is usually found on all coasters in Japan?

I wonder if they made an exception for this one?

It looks very similar to X. The main differences being the luge turn is reversed, the train is shorter, and the height and speed are a bit more extreme.

They claim many more inversions than X. Is this just how they decided to count them, or are there more seat rotations or something?

I wish we would see more of these around the US. I hope that S&S gets the bugs worked out as well.

It's interesting to note that Arrow had come up with a few smaller track layouts for these, but it seems so far that parks are ordering the biggies.

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janfrederick said:
Cool to see it finished. Or is it? Anybody notice anything missing that is usually found on all coasters in Japan?

I wonder if they made an exception for this one?

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Not sure about what is missing. Please clue me in as I am clueless. ;)

Ok, I found another difference. Check out this shot:

http://www.rcdb.com/ig3254.htm?picture=38

Looks like it might be one of those "full/full" moves that Alan Shilke was talking about. How crazy will that be?!

Man, I wish we had more of these!

That is a full-full, yes. That being said if you browse back through the forums you'll see some more discussion about this as well.

It wouuld be funnny to see the whole ride with a catwalk around it, so the ride must be done then. But who knows, they might find a rediculous way to do it.

BTW, most coasters in Japan have a catwalk, presumably for earthquake evac.

Here is a video with some offride footage and a complete Onride! Make sure to watch it to the very end!

The long version is quite a large file. I haven´t seen the short version.

long version:
http://coaster.fc2web.com/movie/fujiq_eeja_0607_org.mpg

short version:
http://coaster.fc2web.com/movie/fujiq_eeja_0607_in.mpeg

Wow... I never rode X, but this looks really amazing - much better than it!

They re-ordered the elements - the 0 G 360 roll is in the first raven turn instead of before the turnaround, and the first flip is a full-full element.

The shape of the track looks much more organic than on X as well - I wonder if that's just me or if they really worked more detail into the course this time (e.g. the overbanking of the turnaround - it also seems the seats are dipping/pitching a little differently)

Very Cool! *** Edited 7/8/2006 12:33:38 PM UTC by superman***

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Coasterbuzzer said:

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janfrederick said:
Cool to see it finished. Or is it? Anybody notice anything missing that is usually found on all coasters in Japan?

I wonder if they made an exception for this one?

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Not sure about what is missing. Please clue me in as I am clueless. ;)

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Every coaster in Japan seems to have a catwalk that runs the length of the circuit, and not just the lift hill. I'm not sure how it would be possible to do that with a 4th dimension.

I stand corrected, it looks like they have steps on the track, rather than a walk with handrails.

http://www.rcdb.com/ig3254.htm?picture=25 *** Edited 7/8/2006 3:09:24 PM UTC by kyleds108***

The capacity on that ride makes me want to gouge my eyes out. Makes it look like Deja Vu is Space Mountain or something. In the video, the guy left his shoes on the moving floor, so I can only assume there is one train, which holds a maximum of 20 people. Due to the lenght of the ride and complexity of loading, I would say a train leaves every 5 minutes, or 12 trains per hour. 240 people per hour. Suicide.

Looks like they have problems getting the restraints open.

@ SFoGswim

The video was shot on media day. The ride is not open yet. You can see that there is a second train inside the station and alledgedly there are three trains (but I doubt that they could use them efficiently)

But some japanse parks are known for their extreme slow loading. Especially when they clean EVERY seat after each ride, regardless if somebody was sitting there. This can bring dispatch times to eight or more minutes.

Ah, Fuji-Q, land of the incredibly slow cycles. Some really nice rides, though. Dodopa is great, and Fujiyama was a pleasant surprise. I'll get back to Japan eventually. I didn't NEED an excuse to go back to Fuji-Q in the process, but this 4d won't hurt the cause...

Interesting you like Dodonpa. Everything else I've heard as pretty much all been negative.

Is the unload the same station as load? Splitting the stations was one of the very few things I thought they did right for X (well, aside from the fact that they had to tilt the trains back and forth in order to move them the 30 feet.) *** Edited 7/9/2006 2:48:36 AM UTC by ApolloAndy***

From the videos I've seen of X and this coaster, they got rid of all the shaky moments from the seats.

It's really to bad this on the other side of the world, I'd like to hear more about this ride and how it runs.

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matt. said:
Interesting you like Dodonpa. Everything else I've heard as pretty much all been negative.

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You don't know Greg, do you? ;)