This is sort-of done on one of the coasters at the “Universal Islands of Adventure” in Orlando. The Dueling Dragons ride has two separate coasters running simultaneously along different tracks. At a few points during the run, the dragons “attack” each other, getting pretty darn close.
Now if you wanted to expand that to have tracks that actually cross…well, I don’t trust timing systems that much…
Well, it is just a brainstorming session, not a full-blown design. Conventional coaster goes tot he top, linear motors drive it down. It hits the base of the hill, goes back up. The track stops, the cars keep going. The cars fly over a major part of the park. They are caught (somehow) and returned to the track.
Remarkable how hard it is to come up with new ideas.
Are linear motors used now? I always thought that would be a good way to start the ride. A better way would be to use a catapult from an aircraft carrier. Better yet, catapult straight into a volcano.
Shot out of a volcano> We could call it ‘Doctor Evil’s Lair.’
The lads in Flight Simulator tell me linear motors are used on some new rides in Blackpool. I have never seen it myself. One way to get a fast launch is a steam catapult, or a freakishly large falling weight combined with electric motors.
Could a fountain of water support a car in midair? There might be something in that.
Well, the famous Space Mountain itself uses darkness and flashing lights to make you think you’re moving a lot faster than you actually are. I think its top speed is something like 35 MPH, but you feel like you’re going 60 because everything appears to whiz by so fast.
Besides Dueling Dragons at Island of Adventure they have a few other rides that are quite unique.
The Hulk roller coaster starts like a typical coaster in that it slowly starts to tow you up the first hill. However half way up the hill the train rockets forward shooting you into an inverted drop rather than your standard hill.
Spiderman the Ride takes a bunch of ride types and thros them together. The car you are in is a motion simulator. At the same time the car moves along a track and progresses through the ride. You move through elaborate sets that are physical models of city scapes mixed with projected images. Add to that the images are shot in 3-D and you are wearing special glasses. So you can have the effect that your sitting in a room with model buildings, Spiderman appears between them, he swings out in 3-D over your car and lands on the front of it causing the car to bounce up and down. Theres even a finale of mixing moving set pieces, moving screens, 3-D images, and the motion simulator where it feels like you car has fallen off a roof and you are plunging 10 stories toward the ground but in reality you’ve never moved more than 5 feet off the floor. A really incredible ride.
I’m surprised that they haven’t run a coaster underwater yet. Think of a track that veers down a hill and plunges into a pool of water (or looks sorta that way when you’re going really fast, in reality it is going into one of those clear acrylic tubes running through the water… then have it emerge through a waterfall or something. If it was in a warm climate it could be a salt water tank and you could have sharks in the water, so for a few seconds you’re surrounded by sharks.
Not a roller coaster per se but the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas has a water slide and tubing ride that pass through a shark tank using acrylic tubes.
I agree with the above assessment of the Spiderman ride at Universal Orlando, It’s astounding how effective the 3D images and subtle motions of the car make you think you’re having an “extreme” ride.
But as to the OP, your #2 is similar to the extreme ‘slingshot’ rides cropping up at things like Six Flags. I think the person in the ride is in a harness and it’s basically a bungee. I’ve never been on it, so I can’t say, but the effect is similar.
