Intamin combo observation tower and giant drop.

Came across this at Intamin's website. I am sure alot of you have seen it. This is a pretty cool creation and had a couple questions on it if anyone knows.

1. The picture looks real and not a computer generated pic so if this is a real one, which park is this at?

2. I take it the tower cabin rotates because if it didn't, the ride wouldn't be that appealing. If it does rotate, how does it physically do this attached to the tower when the Giant Drop cars are on a vertical track going up the tower?

Gyro tower/Giant Drop

Perhaps the cabins rotate around and the arms are stationary. It appears that the arms run up and down, between the drop tower cars.

Imagine a doughnut shaped cabin, rotating around a smaller doughnut shaped track, and the doughnut shaped track is supported by the non-rotating arms that fit between the drop tower cars.

It's pretty easy to figure out if you don't over complicate it.

I dunno. The pic looks fake. Follow the "cars" down on the drop tower, and they look like they overlap eachother. Also, the people on the cars look about twice as big as those in the cabin.

Did you click on the PDF. It says Computer Animation. It does however show the Panorama/Parachute Tower at KNB

I was kind of thinking that LK, but wasn't sure. That is probably right though.

Dave: Damn, I didn't click the PDF file but after looking at the pic again, the giant drop cars do look animated.

Oh well, I will say it's a pretty damn cool contraption. Sitting in the observation tower and watching people climb up and then drop down would be a cool visual.

Edit: o.k, looked at the PDF and the picture is definitely animated. Got confused with the initial pic because it looks like they photoshopped it in with a real pic.

I didn't think there was any question that the image was a Photoshop job. Obviously this does not yet exist.

Talk about crappy PhotoShop images. Look at this one for MaxAir on the Huss website.

http://www.hussrides.com/index2.php?option=com_jce&task=popup&img=i...=0&click=0

Why not just take an actual picture of the ride?

What's Photoshop'd about it?

Glad you said something.. I clicked the link on several different monitors thinking im missing something.

Nope. Looks good to me, too.

That pic looks like I remember from the past few years...

Considering it's not a "real" picture, that's a really good animation. As for the drop tower/observation deck... I think it's a great idea. Why spend the money on two really tall towers when you can buy one? The only problem I see is that most of the bigger existing parks have one, if not both of these. Their best hope of selling one is in a smaller park, or a new park in development, which is a pretty rare thing this day in age.

The MaxAir photo is real? My eyes must really be going!!!

The hub looks so fake to me. It is almost to edited orange. Oh well, my bad.

I don't think the ride was photoshopped in, but it does look like they played with the saturation after the fact, which I say because of how the top left corner looks, as well as some of the colors. I've spent a lot of time taking pictures of that ride the last few years, and have never gotten a result with color vibrancy near that intense, nor an "artifact" problem with the sky from any angle, including that head-on angle. Just thought I'd throw out those $.02 for good measure. :)

On the topic of the combo tower, I certainly find it an interesting concept and am curious how it would compare price-wise to separate rides.

LostKause said:
Perhaps the cabins rotate around and the arms are stationary. It appears that the arms run up and down, between the drop tower cars.

Maybe the observation gondola thing would double as the catch car?

What maXairMike said is what I meant. I thought Photoshop did that stuff. I have never used Photoshop so I may have misspoke the technology.

However, he is pointing out what I see of the picture.

About the Maxair photo - Maybe photoshop was used to screw with the colors. lol

About the tower ride, I would like to think that the drop ride would have at least twice the cycles than the observation ride, therefore, the observation ride probably isn't the catch cars for the drop ride. It's a neat idea, but I don't see the timing working out.

But we really haven't seen anything like this, and as far as we know, that is more of an artist's rendition, so any of us could be right. Who knows, maybe the manufacture doesn't even know exactly how it's supposed to work...lol

^ good point about the ride cycles. I'd like to see specs on riders per hour for both parts of the ride...

For a park with room problems this is a great idea. I always thought using a drop towers structure would be a way to save money on a 300' coaster...

Tower of Terror at Dreamworld did that!