World's Largest Loop?

I have never asserted that the quick picture thing that I threw together was accurate. All I did was find two pictures which looked similar and did a quick comparison to see how they stack up. It's kind of funny to see this has not been brought up or questioned before (to my knowledge).

And people wonder why enthusiasts have a reputation/stereotype ;) Thanks for that info dannerman, that made my night!

Fricken Ugees! ;)

mOOSH [emgee]

I figure B&M will never have a website for just that reason. It would be an idea to have one with no email, but then its like "What's the point".

If B&M wanted you to be able to get in touch with them, they'd let you know how to reach them....;)

Don't call us, we'll call you...:)

Really Bill? I must be one of the chosen few then!

-Jim ;)

Tell Uncle Claude 'Hi' for me, Jimvy;).

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dannerman said:

However dr_pepper_PhD came to the opposite conclusion by taking the photos, and measuring the length of train vs. length of loop. (for reference, it's at the bottom of page 1 of the thread, and he also mentions that SFWoARules' measurements were inaccurate.. that post is on page 2).

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dr_pepper_Phd came to that conclusion well BEFORE SFWoARules posted the side by side photos (he referenced the photos on pg 1). I thought the two side-by-side photos were the best piece of evidence I had ever seen, yet all pepper could say was that SFWoARules' measurements were inaccurate. But the reasoning for his statement was in error, he claimed the train lengths should be different --SFWoARules did not use the same train length for each photo, he realized that the train was not the identical length in each photo and used a different length for each, so pepper's arguement was pretty baseless. Thus my statement about not understanding how anyone else can conclude...

But now there appears to be more than a few of you who did not find the side-by-side photos conclusive and I respect your opinions, I always have. I still disagree with most of pepper's conclusions, particularly the whole tangent of cookie cutter loops increasing by sevens.

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Anyone get a letter back about this from B&M yet?

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That's going to take some time, it has to travel by post office to Switzerland and back.

What, you mean B&M isn't into obtaining design specs for the newest 1000 foot coaster with 50 loops from a bored 13-year-old in Iowa?

I think it's safe to say that both loops are darn near the same size. I know it says 114 foot tall for SKC, but it's bigger. Personally, I think Dominator got the size, but not by much. After futher studying, I'm willing to bet that these loops are only a couple of feet in difference. Maybe even inches. My conclusion is this one is almost like the presidential race. Too close to call.

Sounds like a really bad case of "loop envy."

The only way to settle this is to get about 30-40 people or so (preferably with no lives and lots of free time), go to each park in question, and climb on each other's shoulders until the pile reaches the height of the loop. Wherever the person at the bottom ends up being shorter, or suffers the most internal organ damage, is the coaster with the largest loop.

someone needs to count the track ties.

I was going to say something along the lines of "It's not the size of the loop its the blah blah blah...." then mention "Hangtime" and "Pullouts" but I'll just pass for now. ;)
I hope you do hear from B&M Jeffrey. I would love to hear the official stats.

When I using the length of the trains, I was trying to get a ration of train length to loop size. If both trains are close to the same size, then you can determine how big the loop is by figuring out how many trains fit in the loop. Using the trian length as a measureing stick for the loop. That way I wasn't trying to compare pictures but trying to figure out a wayto mesure each indivisual loop. If youlook at my original "experiment" on page one you'll see that my numbers were extremely close to rcdb.com I was able to figure out the length of the trians and then find out that the trains fit either 6 or 5 times into that loop. My numbers were so close considering I was using sight of eye. Are my numbers right? I don't truley know. But they just happen to agree with what the accpeted sizes of the loops were. I basically took the oldest way to measure a circle and it's diameter, taking a string(the coaster trains) and placing it around the circle(the coaster loop) and then mesure the string.

superman, I forget which page, but the notion of track ties indicating the larger loop was disproven - the ties aren't necessary monospaced - it's basically dependent upon the amount of support needed based on a lot of factors that are beyond my grasp.

dannerman,

While I am sure there are exeptions to the rule (dive machines and possibly flying coasters) B&M usually use the same spacing in between track ties for most of their coasters. While the track ties on an inverted do differ in shape very, very, slightly from those found on floorless, sit-down, and stand-up coasters, the spacing is usually the same.

Other manufactures, like Arrow, do space ties quite a bit when there are more stress areas. Take a look at the bottom of the first drop on PKI's Vortex and you will see what I mean.
-Sean

I know you're someone rather "in the know" Sean, but I would really call that into question. It seems like really bad engineering/economic practice to have the same tie spacing no matter where you are in the track. The force exerted on those rails has got to be significantly increased in flatspins, the bottom of loops, zero-G rolls, etc. and to keep the tie spacing the same seems to me to either be skirting the edge of safety, or overdesigning to the point of causing some pretty hefty costs for the parks in steel purchase and fabrication that might not be necessary. Not to mention that different environmental conditions would mean that track needs to expand and contract more or less, meaning the stiffness (ties) would need to be altered.

If they do things that way, well, maybe that's just too much swiss cheese on the brain or something, but just seems like a waste/dangerous to me to keep them absolutely constant.

Unless the constant you're keeping them at is designed for the ride's maximum forces. Brett...go to RCDB and check out some pics of B&M coasters. Tie spacing seems to be at regular intervals.

Which takes me to the other thread....B&M is NOT going to comporomise safety in any way....over-engineering, OTOH, that sounds more like their style...;)

Well, then Walt and Claude are livin' large thanks to those track ties ;) Or at least, moreso than they probably could be.

*Writes down idea on how to low-bid B&M when he gets his own coaster design firm* ;)