Vekoma Dutchmen - Inlines or Corks?

With the addition of "Stealth" to Carowinds next year, I was wondering whether the corkscrews on Stealth or the Inlines on Batwing and X-Flight are more comforatable and entertaining. I have heard complaints that they are rough on Stealth, but that should be fixed in the move with the spring-loaded wheels. Anyone know why Vekoma decided to do away with the corks for the second-generations? Thanx for your opinions!

I've done X-Flight and Stealth and I have to say that though both the corkscrew and inlines are great in their own ways, the sensation provided by the corkscrews were better in my opinion.

The original design for Stealth was for the Corkscrews to be taken in the flying position instead of the on your back position but they thought it would put too much strain on your body so they just changed them to the current design on Stealth. The Second Generation flyers have the inlines which are closer to what they wanted to do with the original stealth design but still aren't the flying corkscrews.

I've only ridden XFlight and I thought the inlines were cool, but they really did a number on my wife. Her balance was off the rest of the day (which was kinda funny). I think the corkscrews may be better because it would give a better impression of flying. Just my opinion though.

Jeff had said this a really long time ago, but it would be nice if the inlines were designed with your body as the center of gravity, and not the track spine. Right now, you just kinda get thrown around the inlines, instead of Intamin's style of heartline where you kinda go through the twist. Regardless, it's still a very cool ride.

I was wondering... does the Intamin style of Heartline put a lot of strain on the wheel assemblies? It seems like they would have to travel in some odd ways to traverse those heartlines. If VeCOMA had made the inlines like that, imagine what they would do to a vekoma wheel assembly!! :0

I don't think it puts any extra strain on the wheel assemblies than other other element. The element is designed to be able to tracked perfectly by the trains, which it seems to do.

As for the Vekoma Dutchmen, I really didn't find the corks to be very interesting. Mostly because the "default" position was lying down with a little bit of flying thrown in. On the in-lines, the "default" is flying with a little lying. It may sound stupid, but it made a pretty big difference for me. Neither element was particularly exciting to me.

Maybe if the corkscrews were entered from a flying position, ie from the top and into the corkscrew, they would be more effective?

You're still talking about a lot of strain on the wheels ... at least that's what they say. Now, I look at a B&M Inverted train which looks to the not-so-knowledgable eye to be a hell of a lot heavier than a Vekoma Flyer train and I see the B&Mer goin around the outside of some massive loops with no problem - while Vekoma claims that they can't navigate the relatively tiny loops on Dutchmen without putting strain on the wheels? Well, something doesn't compute for me in there, but then again, I'm with Krax as one of the few who actually prefers the corkscrews to the inlines.

Ill second ApolloAndy, Stealths corkscrews really didn't do anything for me either. If anything, they actually felt more like inline twist than corkscrew loops to me. Maybe if they were taken at a faster speed like the verticle loop, or entered from the top like ShaneDenmark suggested, you'd get some good g's. But as it is, the ride looses all it's steam after the verticle loop IMO. At least on the second generations, you got the helix finale.

Brett I don't think the problem with Vekoma's fliers going around the outside of the loops is in the wheels. I thought it was the gs it would pull on the restraints, being a safety issue.

I think we're talking about two different ideas here. Play RCT2 at all? I'm talking about entering in the flying position, and still rolling through the inside of the corkscrews. Instead of the inversion going up and over, it would go down and under. Get it?

A smaller loop has stronger G's, which puts more strain on the wheels and assemblies (for the same speed). *** Edited 1/29/2004 5:39:56 AM UTC by ApolloAndy***

I get that but he was talking about traveling the outside of loops... And what I'm describing wouldn't put anymore strain on the wheels than Stealth already does. Does it stand to reason then that the inline twists put even more strain than a small loop since it's a tighter inversion? Not trying to be rude, just curious...

I don't think that the tighter inversion on inline twists would put more strain, its the up and over and back down motion that causes the stress, not the inline twisting.

I think im gonna talk to my dorm parent about this. Hes the head of physics and loves coasters. So I am sure he would be able to get the right answer.

After looking at some pictures of B&M invert flat spins and corks, I don't see why intamin would have problems. I think the flat shape of the cars vs. the long shape of the cars on inverts may have an affect.

Reference: Zero-G thread someplace on page 1 right now.

And it comes back so I might as well take a stab at it again ... its the centifugal/pital force of that inline that's putting strain on the wheels. The train's trying to fly off the track, and the wheel assemblies are what's holding it on. The faster that twist is taken, the more force you're going to have on those wheels. But, at the same time, a vertical loop has the same forces, albeit at a much lower rate (generally) because most loops are taken at a slower speed at their apex than zero-g (or inlines) are.

Now, that said, the thing I don't like about the inlines or the helix on a Dutchman II is that's the only time I feel like my wallet's going to fall out of my back pocket because we're going so freakin slow through those elements. While it's probably a little higher speed, I can't imagine there's really that much difference in speed between the instantaneous speed of the train at the vertical point in the loop at mid-course and the instantaneous speed in one of those inlines. And I can't imagine that this speed is any more than say B:TR or Talon hits at the vertical part of their loops (especially Batman's second loop, that thing is taken crazy fast!).

Which brings up my point - how crappy must Vekoma's wheel assmeblies be if they can't withstand the strain of a vertical outer loop or an outside corkscrew when B&M's do it with no problem every day. Even B&M flyers have that strain with no problem - don't the S:UF models have two essentially overbanked turns which place the train perpendicular to the ground? When the force is perpendicular, that's when its greatest ... no gravity to help weaken or intensify it (gravity's a vertical force in case you didn't get that one)

Wow, I need to go hit myself for being such a geek ... *** Edited 1/29/2004 9:04:00 PM UTC by Impulse-ive***

I prefered the inlines myself. I rode Batwing and Stealth, and I would rather have myself shaken to oblivion (thanks to their well designed trains ;)...) thru inlines than corks