New soft strap restraints installed on I-305

Gonch, looks like we were at the same parks this week. I also found I-305 to be ho-hum, especially my 2nd ride when I grayed out. I did not find that to be fun at all. Carowinds version was definitely a home run though. I wish I had more time to ride it more. Too bad it was so damn hot out all week. It would have made our trip that much nicer.

Danny, I'm pretty sure you were arguing about the top speeds that Millennium Force and I305 reach at the bottom of their first drops...

...not about the trains' momentum throughout the rest of their layouts.

DantheCoasterman said:
Danny, I'm pretty sure you were arguing about the top speeds that Millennium Force and I305 reach at the bottom of their first drops...

...not about the trains' momentum throughout the rest of their layouts.

That was part of it, but not "all" of what I was saying.

The fact is I-305 was going faster than 94mph prior to brakes.

The angle of decent does make a difference, it can acheive max speed faster than a more shallow drop. Not sure that five degrees makes that much difference though.

The velocity of the train has two components--horizontal, and vertical. They are completely independent of each other. It doesn't matter if the drop is 80 degrees, or 30 degrees, the trains will still be going to the same speed at the bottom if the initial height is the same. You will accelerate faster when the drop is steeper, yes. Acceleration down an incline is found using a=gsin(theta). So, yes, the greater the angle, the greater the acceleration, but velocity will be the same.

*edit- acceleration is actually a=mgsin(theta) but I was just assuming the mass of each train is the same.

Well, ignoring any losses, anyway.

So if you want to do a sanity check on some marketing claim, remember this handy-dandy little formula:

Vmax [MPH] = 60/11 * sqr(H[feet])

That will give you the top speed V in miles-per-hour given a drop from a standstill of H feet. The formula is based on an acceleration g of 32 feet/second/second and does the conversion from seconds to hours and from feet to miles. Yes, there is a 3600/5280 component in there somewhere. 8-)

And if you're unfamiliar with BASIC-style notation, "sqr(x)" means "take the square root of x".

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Yeah, I've never ever had to use anything but basic math in my job, and I don't intend to learn the hard stuff now :-).

Dave, please tell us you had to look that up.

The basic physics formulas aren't that hard to remember.

Danny Biggerstaff CoAsTeRDaN said:

DantheCoasterman said:
Danny, I'm pretty sure you were arguing about the top speeds that Millennium Force and I305 reach at the bottom of their first drops...

...not about the trains' momentum throughout the rest of their layouts.

That was part of it, but not "all" of what I was saying.

The fact is I-305 was going faster than 94mph prior to brakes.

The angle of decent does make a difference, it can acheive max speed faster than a more shallow drop. Not sure that five degrees makes that much difference though.

My 2 cents:

The reason I305 reached 94mph and MF only reached 93mph is because the entire train on I305 reaches the bottom of the drop and stays there

In other words, on MF the train drops from 305 feet, to 5 feet, and then raises again. So, only a portion of MF's train will be at 5ft. So it hits top speed as the MIDDLE of the train passes through the lowest point (since at this point, the back of the train is now pushing it up the next hill, and losing speed)

But, since I305 doesn't raise right away after the first drop, the fastest point is where the BACK of the train passes point of lowest height (since the back of the train would still be pushing it down the hill)

So, that extra ~1 mph is due to the very slight amount of extra falling time between the two trains. Aka, the time difference of the middle of the train passing the lowest point (with respect horizontally) to the end of the train passing the same point (a longer train may increase this as one would imagine). However, angle of descent has nothing to do with it, other than slight difference in friction since it may or may not be a longer stretch of track

I wanted to also vouch that Pagel is absolutely full of it with that 90 mph statement.

There is really no physical way the ride was topping out much higher than 95 in it's original form, unless Intamin magically bent the laws of physics. Assuming a top speed of 95 (which is still higher than they originally said) the difference to 90 mph should be pretty unnoticeable. For anyone that has ridden the new i305 with a clear mind, the difference is anything but unnoticeable. It CRAWLS over the formerly-ejector-air-filled 2nd hill with a fully loaded train and empty trains look like they might not make it sometimes!

Think about it this way, 5mph trimming wouldn't allow them to completely remove all of the brakes on the formerly-trimmed 3rd hill - if you remember on old i305 the train was FLYING when it hit those trims (so fast that I could barely breath heading up into them from the extreme laughing and g-forces that preceded it) and you were forcefully pushed forward into the restraint as the brakes hit. It was a very strong braking force knocking off way more than 4-5 mph.

Almost ashamed to admit this but I've studied the new and old POV's side by side (wish I had a way to edit them into one) and the difference in speed is pretty shocking. The train on original i305 clears the airtime hill before the train even finishes making it around the low turn on the new i305 - that isn't 4-5 mph. The train on the trimmed POV is just slowly making it's way around the turn as the old train is already plummeting down the airtime hill.... Until the previously-trimmed hill the old POV blasts past the new one, after that point the new i305 is actually going faster. So yes, the last twisty and turn up into the brakes (violent imo) are faster than they were before but the beginning of the ride is neutered to a ride-ruining degree.

For further proof anyone that has NoLimits can find the very accurate i305 recreation that's floating around online and play with the numbers. 94 mph in NoLimits matches up perfectly with the old POV, and 79-80 mph matches up perfectly with the new POV. I know NoLimits is a game and isn't accurate for some things, but it very clearly matches up and allows you to see that we lost somewhere around 14-15 mph off of i305.

Will it return now that we see soft restraints? I highly doubt it... the wheels are still melting and the GP is eating up the neutered 305. If the wheels were melting back in sweatshirt weather they certainly aren't going to hold up well in 100 degree heat. I remain hopeful that one day we will see the real i305 back in force because anyone that never got to ride the beast is missing out on the world's best and most intense coaster. It was THAT good, adjectives need not apply.

I haven't used physics since 9th grade, so I don't know them at all, but I would assume that for people that use them often, they are easy to remember. The only formulas I know now are ones used to determine if someone is eligible for Medicaid, and even though I used WV's formulas for over 2 years, I haven't used them in almost 6 months and can't remember them by heart.

I hate math. :)

It was sarcasm, forgot to flash my winky

I finally rode it yesterday, and I can only imagine how good it was sans trims, because it's still an amazing ride.

Apparently I view formulas differently than some people. As Einstein said - "Never memorize what you can look up in books."

So I'm guessing you googled that quote? ;)

I really hate math too, Tek. To me, math is not in any way creative. It's all about coloring within the lines.

The only math that I use is also at work, and that's only on Tuesdays. It's simple adding and subtracting, with a cheat sheet for the multiplication. When this math stuff comes up here on CoasterBuzz, sometimes it loses me, but I still find the outcome intriguing.

About I-305, I remember a time a few months ago that I was anticipating this coaster, and making big plans to visit KD. I held off a little too long, and now, I really don't care. Maybe they'll fix it sometime, and I'll decide to pay the park a visit.

Kevin: I didn't have to look up that formula, but if you want to know for sure that it works it would take me a while to re-derive it (and it's Calculus based, though you can reach the same conclusion via trigonometry).

Someone mentioned combining the POV videos into a single movie...do you mean something like what I did to try and identify differences in motion between two trains on the Voyage recently--

http://capital2.capital.edu/admin-staff/dalthoff/video/RedvsBlue.mov

I don't know what tools you have available, but QuickTime Pro will allow you to combine two video tracks like that. Then you can even export them as a single track at whatever size. The nice thing is that the tracks don't even need to be in the same format or at the same frame rate. The bad thing is that if your source is Internet video, you have to keep in mind the frame rate and screen size of the original clips.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

LostKause said:
I really hate math too, Tek. To me, math is not in any way creative. It's all about coloring within the lines.

You're doing it wrong.

Well I made another visit to the park today to ride i305 with the brakes and new restraints. I must say I am seriously disappointed. I was fortunate enough to have ridden it about 5 or 6 times prior to the brakes, and loved it. Now it's just an ok ride. Whoever said the brakes are at the very top and don't allow you to gain speed first is wrong. You crest the hill, gain a bit of speed, and then the brakes hit.. hard. I was sent forward in my restraint.

Many people in line and around the park were STILL discussing the infamous "black-outs" on 305 today. I experienced slight tunnel vision, but not as severe as it was before. For me, the sheer intensity of the ride was what made it so awesome.

As far as the new restraints are concerned, I love them! Much more comfortable and I don't have to worry about head-banging.

All this ride needed was the new restraints. It's a shame. Maybe one day we will see i305 in it's natural condition?

Forgot to mention something relevant to the physics arguments here. I witnessed i305 travel up the lift hill at reduced speed today. I'm not sure the reason why, but it was about at half speed or so. On this run, the train crawled over the second hill.

I haven't been keeping up with the argument going on here because I'm too lazy to read right now, but that's what I saw happen.