Extensive math, physics and planning went into Hersheypark's Sky Rush

This is one of the better articles I've seen on new rides in a long time. Definitely worth the read.

Bravo! Great article for sure.

Leave it to me to read the user comments. My IQ jumped a notch after reading the article, then quickly plummeted from the ensuing stupidity.

Great article, even for someone as scientifically challenged as me. Took the author three tries before he spelled Fahrenheit correctly ) Granted, the first two may have been typos.)

I like numbers, and am looking forward to riding this coaster. The summer can't get here fast enough!

Great article, but those comments were unbelieveable!

Milton Hershey was a pedophile? (Citation needed... lol)

Excellent article. Very well-written. When I read the title, I said "No derr Sherlock!". I thought it was going to be an article written by someone who didn't know anything about coasters and didn't want to do any research on the subject. I was wrong.

After reading topic headline, my first thought was "Well...I'd hope so". :)

Add me to the group with LostKause and CoffinBoy. My eyes rolled as I read the title. But, thankefully I decided to ckeck it out anyway. Great Article. :)

"Parts sourced from all over the world must fit — and do so to within extreme tolerances measured in fractions of an inch."

I don't know about you, but all I could think about was the boats for STR. :)

Good article. I did like the info on Great Bear. I did not know about the wheel issues when it was new. I did ride it then and thought it was pretty lame. I am looking forward to riding it again and giving it a 2nd opinion.

My complaint in recent years over coaster designing has been the Maverick fiasco. With all the computer aided design work, how could Intamin NOT know the heartline would be that severe? I sometimes wonder what these engineers are smoking?

Coffinboy, check out this article with Stengel Engineering on Coaster101. In response to the question "At what stage in the creation of an amusement park attraction does Stengel Engineering get involved?" they answered "sometimes the layout shows dramatically false guesses (in terms of accelerations, clearances, etc.) and we have to redesign the layout entirely. Sometimes this is too late to redo things completely and we have to find a compromise which works for all parties." I believe he could have been referring to rides such as Maverick.

It's weird how most of these articles always indicate the park designing the ride, with their own engineers doing the math, when I always had the feeling most/all of the math was done by the designer/builder and Stengel.

Also funny how they talk about the roar sound in the Great Bear as unexpected. Most B&Ms do that, don't they?

The B&M roar was common until Alpengeist. It was one of the first coasters of theirs to have the box-track filled to dampen the sound. It was a weird experience. I prefer the roar. Since then, many parks have opted for their coasters to be quiet. Even Intamin has started to add filler to their supports. I believe Maverick had.

Talon is eerily quiet.

Aw come on, the comments are the best part. You even got the suggestion that building this coaster caused all the flooding in central PA last year. Nobody blamed it for killing the bison... yet.

That's what I love about comments after an article like this... the commentors are not often right, but they're never in doubt.