36 replies to this topic

[Wolfman]

Vesuvius is a prototype of a similar coaster I plan to use in a park in the near future. The thing is that it will most likely have a good portion of it underground. Which will probably boost the nausea levels a bit. But for the most part, I was trying to get the launched lift hill nailed down to the point where the trains would be launched into a vertical accent. Go over the top, then drop down through the rest of the circuit.

I have already gone through many track changes and tweaks. And I think that it's had plenty of rollbacks (due to a miscalculation in track design.) and I think it's ready to be released as one of my first designs with the launch into a vertical hill. Mind you... there are a lot of images, mostly because I wanted to show the G forces throughout the circuit.

First, the train will crawl at 4 MPH through an underground tunnel. You really don't know when you'll come upon the chain lift that takes you to the launch.



The chain lift simply allows the train to get into position before it is accelerated. You don't want to launch a train if there are cars still on a horizontal flat track, or still on a curve. This causes some lateral and vertical spikes in the rear cars.



The train is accelerated to 46 MPH by eleven launch lifts. This is just enough to accelerate and allow the train to coast uphill to vertical and curve back to the horizontal position, and run over a rollback chain block. At the chain block position, the train is rolling forward at 14-15 MPH. And a good bit of air time has been grabbed.



A spiraling drop to the right levels out as the trains accelerate to 54 MPH. But this isn't the big drop of the circuit.



The big drop comes in after another brief acquisition of air time, where it goes into a 111 ft. drop.



At the bottom is a large curve for a 180 at 64 MPH. The lateral Gs here are just under 2.00G.



The trains pass another chain block, and traverse the curve at around 15 MPH. Plenty fast to prevent the trains from stopping.



Another curved drop and an "S-Bend" Rise and the trains are moving along faster at 25 MPH. The S-Bend rise consists of a medium banked curve, two transitional track sections into a small banked curve in the opposite direction. This ensures that the trains keep a bit of the momentum, yet the height has lowered a bit at this curve.



Another spiral drop and the trains enter the first of four inversions at 48 MPH, a vertical loop right. This is a totally acceptable speed, for a four car train like this. Shorter trains loose momentum quickly. So a more aggressive track layout isn't as nauseous as when running a full sized train.



A medium banked climb and the trains run through a reverse Emmelman loop. Flipping over first, then into the half loop.



The trains fly upward through a steep climb and drop once more, this time through the double corkscrew inversions. You can see how the G forces are well within the parameters to ensure that the nausea levels are minimized.





We change the viewing position to the far side of the circuit. The helix has two large banked curves leading into a helix, then four large banked curves ease out of the helix, before a short but steep drop.



A taller rise on the other side of the dip allows for another chain block. But the trains have cept up their momentum throughout the circuit. So theres really no threat of a rollback on this track layout.



More to come. I have too many images to show in one post. So after someone replies, I'll post the remaining images.

Edited by Wolfman, 02 May 2009 - 07:45 AM.

[Luketh]

Looks pretty original, I like how the lift hill leads to a verticle hill.

[Wolfman]

Continued...

On the right side of the image, the train just made the last drop. And is snaking it's way toward the brake run. The trains are rolling along at speeds fairly close to 50 MPH at this point. I've included vertical and lateral G readouts





The train has passed through the snake-like S-bends and you can see what that looks like on th vertical and lateral G read outs too.





The brake run is shorter than what I would prefer. So I had to skip every other settings for the brakes. The settings are... 49, (because it comes closest to the actual speed of the trains at this point. 45 to just bring the trains speed down a tad more. The following settings are "skip" settings... 36, 27, 18, 9, block brake, (painted red.) You can see that the trains are slowed within 2 seconds on the Velocity graph.



The coaster has more than enough block brakes to catch, hold and shuttle the trains to the unloading station. There are a total of six trains. This ensures that there is ALWAYS a train waiting to enter the loading station. The extra block brakes? Thats just to ensure that if there are more than one train on the circuit, that at least three trains can be safely brought back to the stations without mishap.



Heres the entire layout. I hope that people respond and ask questions and post suggestions.

Edited by Wolfman, 02 May 2009 - 09:25 PM.

[Woodpecker]

Normally I'd call this a space-waster but since it would be underground I'll overlook that. The ride looks very good - I like how you use rider psychology especially with the tunnel to the lift. May I ask how fast the trains go through the corkscrews? I see your graph statistics are very good, but for me they'd have to creep through to get those results. Anyway, thumbs up and looking forward to the extra pictures!

Edited by Woodpecker, 02 May 2009 - 10:04 PM.

[Wolfman]

Ask and you shall recieve. And I'll repeat myself. The shorter trains slow down quickly. So a more agressive track layout isn't as bad as it may seem.

[rcthelp]

Which parts are you planning to have underground?

[Wolfman]

If you know Mt. Prometheus, of Tokyo Disney Sea, you might have a general idea of what I'm working toward. I have to build a volcano and it's a lot like the Mysterious Island I created in The Ultimate Tomorrowland. Only, there isn't that much that is supposed to be above ground.

From what I'm able to see of it through Google Earth, only a few small sections of exposed track is visible. So this may have to be scaled waaaay back to get the whole thing to fit inside the volcano. The actual attraction doesn't even have inversions in it. And since I can't find much in the way of a decent on-ride video OF the attraction, it's going to have to be a wild stab at what it actually is.

So it all depends on the size of the volcano. I know it does not come out of the crater. So that's going to play into the limitation of height. I wanted to use the launched lift hill sections to push the trains up over the top. But if I'm limited in height, I may have to omit the "push to virtical & over the top" feature of the attraction and just go with a normal launched lift hill, with a standard hilltop instead.

I might be able to buy myself a little room by lowering the track to the bottom of the baseland. But that'll be limited to six levels, or 30 ft. And the crater of the volcano can only be 120 ft. high. And the coaster, as it stands, is 150 ft. And since the track is actually nowhere near the height of the crater... THIS particular track design isn't going to work out as planned. I'll have to go with a normal lift hill with a launched section. But I won't be able to do the "push to virtical & over the top". It just takes up too much virtical space.

But in doing so, I don't have to make such a large track layout. I don't have to built it that tall. I won't have to build track designed to slow down the trains. I can build a much smaller track circuit. And all this means, less cars, less of a brake run and less block brake & chain block sections. So it's a harsh realization that I'm going to have to go back to the drawing board and redesign the ride to be quite a bit smaller & shorter.

[Woodpecker]

Ask and you shall recieve. And I'll repeat myself. The shorter trains slow down quickly. So a more agressive track layout isn't as bad as it may seem.

Yes, I remember you saying that and indeed you are right. The 38mph entry looks very good: fast, but not too intense.

[Wolfman]

Well, this might be a halfway decent layout. But I still think it's much too big for what I want it for. I created a much smaller version, that's only 95 ft. tall. And not quite as long as this. I have yet to decide on the final layout. (and the trains are pushed up a steep incline, rather than a virtical incline.) The rest of the layout is just hills & helix's. And I think I can make a better layout for the momentum. Infortunatly, I have no reason to believe that the real ride has any inversions. Because it looks like the same sort of track used in Epcot's high speed Test Track.

[Woodpecker]

Would you mind putting it on the ridex? Then we can all have a closer look at the track.