Intamin SLC's - CoasterBuzz

Does anyone else find it amusing that the park that had the first aborted suspended now has the most?

I'll point out that Kennywood doesn't have any inverted or suspended coaster; nor does Silverwood. Of course, it depends on what your definition of "major park" is, I suppose...

--Greg
"You seem healthy. So much for voodoo."

onceler - That's because in addition to seating only two across, Anaconda only has one train. It's capable of running two, but apparently the park couldn't afford a second.

I find it amusing that the park that had the first aborted suspended went back to Arrow and had another one built. You would think they wouldn't gone for something different just on principle.

Isn't reptar's at PKI an invert rather than a suspended?

Technically, yes...it's a Jr. Invert. But the trains themselves to not invert the rider...rather riders remain suspended below the track at all times.

kRaXLeRidAh said:

Name me a few major amusement parks in the states that doesn't already have some sort of suspended roller coaster. Not see easy is it? There's the answer to your "Why don't parks want them?" question. Because MOST IF NOT ALL ALREADY HAVE SOME KIND OF INVERTED/SUSPENDED COASTER!

Nah. But there are several 'major' parks that don't have them, as other's have named some. Hell, Magic Springs just added one this year. And stop yelling.

The standard Vekoma SLC does seem to have one central mount point and uses the shocks as bracers.

http://www.rcdb.com/installationgallery1799.htm?Picture=19

However, the Intamin Inverts have 2 pins holding the seats to the chassis, and as such would not have any kind of sway or swing to it. That kind of swinging motion would be absolutely horrible when trying to execute a heartline roll. Vekomas are the only ones that still swing a bit, which isn't as bad since all of their inversions swing the train around the track, rather than the track around the train.

Anaconda has a 600 person capacity because it only was ordered with one train.

Can anyone confirm the B&M inverted patent? More importantly, can they confirm that B&M has some sort of strangle hold on inverted coasters only allowing Vekoma to compete or Intamin if LIMs are used? I highly doubt such a document exists as you can't really copyright the design of riders below a track. It would be like Ford owning the design of a car and being the only ones that can make things with 4 wheels driving under their own power. Other manufacturers make other designs of cars, like other coaster manufacturers make other kinds of coaster and train designs.

Basically the answer is going to lie with no parks in the US wanted to buy one, and Giavanola doesn't make coasters anymore. A second group split off to keep making coaster designs and had that awesome rotating and tilting past 90 coaster model on display, but they haven't gotten any contracts either.

-Ride_Op

Ride_Op Coaster Productions: http://www.twistedrails.com/ride_op

Ride_Op said:

I highly doubt such a document exists as you can't really copyright the design of riders below a track. It would be like Ford owning the design of a car and being the only ones that can make things with 4 wheels driving under their own power. Other manufacturers make other designs of cars, like other coaster manufacturers make other kinds of coaster and train designs. -Ride_Op

You kind of answered your own question. B&M dosen't have some all powerful patent on riders riding below track, arrow did that WAY before walter and claude.

But B&M have a patent on a rigid seat for their train design, and any other company that builds in countries where there is such a patent has to come up with a different way to design the train. When ford invented the car(wich, btw, the patent has run out on most of the stuff there anyhow), other car makers could make cars, but unless they had an agreement or bought devices from ford, they would have to come up with a different design for a car. It may look similar, but it would have to work differently.

Ford did not invent the automobile, I'm afraid. I'd like to continue in the car vein, but I don't know as much about it, unfortunately, so...

Do you really think, Ride-Op, that having the exclusive right to produce a train rigidly connected below the track is such an outrageous idea? I'll tell you what's outrageous: That someone could put a patent on the airplane. Imagine only one company having the right to produce wings and propellers. Yet that's exactly how it was. The Wright brothers were very careful when they invented the airplane, and they made sure that, for years, planes could pretty much only be made through them. That's why aviation started in the U.S., but really took off in Europe. It wasn't until European innovations more or less made the Wright's patents obsolete that there was an aviation industry here at all.

Frankly, I find it amazing that there can be any competition in this country at all. Apple could have patented the PC before Microsoft came into existence (yes, your Apple computer is a PC. PC stands for Personal Computer-which you Apple is. Please call those other computers Microsoft compatible, or something). A "four wheel device which propels itself via an internal combustion engine" could easily have been patented, though (to my knowledge) it never was. Not that patents are bad things at all. It's just incredible how sometimes, things just work out the way they ought.

To get back to coasters, there was a link in a thread here, maybe a year ago, that went to a patnent site. There, in very clear terms, one could read that B&M has a patent in this country on any amusment rail device which is rigidly fixed under the track. I have no idea what the site was, and I'm not even sure that's what the thread was really about (so a search would be very difficult). I think Rideman brought it up, but I'm not sure. Anyway, if that is so, it could explain a thing or two. Though that still leaves the Intaimin Impulses to be considered.

"Though that still leaves the Intaimin Impulses to be considered."

Hence the two joints in the seat support. I suspect that is their way around the patent. Or, Intamin has paid B&M to use their patent.

Nor does Dollywood have an invert/slc either.

I survived a Japanese typhoon and the Togo flat ride of death!!!!!!

Yet ;)

WHAT??!!??

YEAH!!!!

Hey thrillerman1, we can dream, huh?
Then Dollywood might have the smoothest Arrow, best woody, and only standard non-launched Intamin SLC in the country. Or possibly the only Intamin SLC in the US with a vertical loop and/or cobra roll.

PC stands for Personal Computer-which you Apple is. Please call those other computers Microsoft compatible, or something).

LOL. I think the same thing when the Mac people call them PeeSea's, not realizing they're cutting down their Mac's as well. They used to be called IBM compatible. Else x86 based/compatible, referring to the actual hardware (rather than the OS, since they don't have to use a M$ OS). Some people call 'em Wintel (Windows/Intel).

Mamoosh said:
Intamin #2 [This is the newest Intamin invert, Steel Venom...notice no joint, or perhaps it just doesn't show in this pic?]

I was on it today and remembered to look. There are no swinging joints.