Wheel-Launched System

Although I'm not sure about this, I'd have to guess Hulk's system would be more reliable. In my opinion, there are less possiblities for error by just speeding up the wheels in a certain order rather than having multiple magnetic currents used. I could be all wrong about this though, so don't take it as fact.

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The only difference between stupidity and genius is genius has limitations.

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Jim Fisher said:
A couple of notes here:

1) B&M did not build design the launch system for The Hulk. It was designed by Universals own engineering staff.

2) The Hulks launch system is actually pretty efficient as launch systems go. And it does not brown out half of Orlando. If I recall it is only a few hundred horsepower.

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I think you're right on the money, Jim. I don't believe any park would pay a lot of cash for a ride that's going to cost an insane amount of money to power (a high fixed cost).
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Is that a Q-bot in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Adding to what is said above, and emphasizing that it wasn't B&M that designed the system, I would think the reason not to use it is an issue of expense. If you recall from the Discovery show that explained the ride, electricity is converted to mechanical energy with turbines, then that stored energy is released all at once to the kicker motors. (The thing about brown-outs comes from the statement by one of the park people who indicated that if they didn't store energy in the turbines, they'd brown-out the neighborhood.)

Now compare... Hulk has dozens of motors on the lift and a mess of turbines. Lots of mechanical stuff, and mechanical stuff is prone to failure. Compare this to LIM's, which have no moving parts, or a hyrdraulic launch system where the most common thing to break is the relatively inexpensive cable.

Hulk has a neat launch system, but it's far from ideal. The engineers should've kept thinking about it.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"The world rotates to The Ultra-Heavy Beat!" - KMFDM

B&M is currently working on a similar wheel launch system as can be found on Hulk.

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Dutch Coastin' :: European coasters, thrills and theming!

How do you know? You friends with Walter and Claude?

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"The world rotates to The Ultra-Heavy Beat!" - KMFDM

Personally, I think the relative reliability of Hulk compared with other launched coasters has less to do with the inherent reliability of the system than it has to do with Universal's maintanance program.

It's not that other parks don't keep their rides up as well as IOA, it's that Universal understands that their rides CANNOT go down because any downtime at all on any ride destroys the park's total capacity...the park doesn't have enough attractions to have any of them unexpectedly out of commission. So Universal's approach to regular maintenance is a little more stringent than most parks require. Cedar Point's uptime numbers aren't good enough for Universal.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I don't buy that, Dave. If capacity was really that important, they wouldn't put out rides for weeks at a time. When I was there, it was Pteranadon Flyers (admitedly not a big capacity ride), and now it's both sides of Dueling Dragons.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"The world rotates to The Ultra-Heavy Beat!" - KMFDM

This is the slowest part of the year though Jeff.

It's not as if IOA has the advantage of an offseason.

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Da Poodle

Coming in 2003-The Spawn Of Magnum!

Jeff, I *think* what Dave is getting at is that all the downtime for a given ride needs to occur at once, preferably in the off-season. Being year-round means your maintenance WILL cause problems...schedule them the best you can, and get the maintenance done as quickly as possible..esp. since IoA does lack for attractions. It's kind of like the reverse of SFGAdv and their flats...where if one is down, so what...at IoA, if one of the *main rides* is down in the summer, there is HELL to pay...of course, BGT took neither of the Beemers done this year, but the work that was done on Gwazi....*worked*...:). It IS nice if they'll let you know via the website if there are rides *schuduled* for maintenance....

edit: Shut up, Brent....;) Always funny when someone says in three seconds what I take five minutes to type...
*** This post was edited by rollergator 2/2/2003 11:35:15 PM ***

Bitter Bill? ;)

Take a railroad for instance. If they need to replace or rebuild a large portion railroad what will likely happen is that traffic will be rerouted for a week or so while maintainance tackles the rebuild with a "blitz".

In the long run this makes a lot more sense then shutting the railroad down for a couple hours a day throughtout a year or however long it woudl take them.

The same goes for the coasters at IOA.

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Da Poodle

Coming in 2003-The Spawn Of Magnum!

*** This post was edited by MagnumForce 2/2/2003 11:43:08 PM ***

It all comes down to attention to detail...and I know from conversations with someone who used to manage overnight maintenance at USH that it's an area very important to Universal. When the show opens each day everything has to be right, or there is a whole lot of yelling and screaming and Bad Things™ happening to people who were supposed to make it right. Unplanned downtime is to be avoided at all costs. And sometimes the costs are considerable.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

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MagnumForce said:
This is the slowest part of the year though Jeff.

It's not as if IOA has the advantage of an offseason.

No, really? How could I have overlooked something so obvious? /endsarcasm

Anyway, I see your point Gator, but when I was there in November, which by all accounts is part of the "slow" season, there were serious enough waits on the major rides (especially Hulk) that I was glad to have a room key to bypass the lines. Being without the Dragons, one of the park's signature rides, would've been a serious bummer.

And that's something I don't get as well. With the mess of trains that they have, I can't think of a single good reason to put the ride out entirely for three or four weeks.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"The world rotates to The Ultra-Heavy Beat!" - KMFDM

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I can't tell you what they think of as the *slow season* since I've never worked at a park...(what would be a frowny-face would go here, but the ban remains, and Rob's punishment will be meted out later). But from my experience with the FL parks, I'd do any major rehabbing between New Years' and the early Spring Breakers....up through Christmas, *the snowbirds* just keep on coming...

When Kumba came out of rehab, WOW, did it make a difference. I got on a mini-marathon just to celebrate how smooth it had become. Ten rides before the rehab would've ended my day's fun...after the rehab, that was just the beginning...:) Here's hoping that Ice will have the same miraculous feeling when it comes baack, since it had gone downhill (pardon the expression) much worse than its *sibling*...

It does seem very odd that they would take out both Dragons at the same time. Unless they are rehabbing the queue, but they could do that by re-routing people around it (that ride has far too much queueing space...). I'd think they'd take each of the rides off-line one at a time...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I suppose if they're going to be out in the track area, both of 'em will have to be shut down.

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Is that a Q-bot in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

That's my impression too GP...if they're working in a lockout area, both rides have to be shut down....

Painting the interlocked corkscrews with a train flying through on the other course would be excciting, but potentially dangerous...

But what could they possibly be doing that they have to shut it down all day, every day? That's what I don't get. Even if they're painting, the stuff used these days dries so fast that they can run the ride the same day.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"The world rotates to The Ultra-Heavy Beat!" - KMFDM

When I visited IOA in mid January, I was told that the Ice Coaster was down due to "mechanical failure" and they were still running Fire. I guess both are closed now? Stupid! I really feel bad for a family that travels hundreds of miles for a vacation and plans to visit IOA and the Dueling Dragons are down. It's warm enough to do the work at night with spotlights isn't it?

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"Thanks to you weak mortals, I finally have the power I need to destroy the Fantastic Four. The triumph of Doctor Doom is at hand" ~Doctor Doom's Fearfall (Only at IOA)