August 26, 2004
The art of roller coaster designing
Posted by Jess in
Day to Day
In order to get psyched for our upcoming trip to Universal Studios & Islands of Adventure, we watched a Travel Channel special that was an inside look at some of the more popular roller coasters. They covered my two favorites.
In Islands of Adventure, there are two coasters that are my favorite. The first is The Hulk, which has the most exhilarating first 5 seconds of any ride I've ever been on. You start in a tunnel, slowly creeping up, hearing a voice say "the reactor can't take it, it's too much, it's..." LAUNCH! All of a sudden you are propelled forward, feeling your cheeks sucked backwards, as green lights surround you from the tunnel. The next thing you know, you are high in the air outside already dipping downward to start the ride.
The launch sequence (designed by NASA's Jet Propulsion laboratory, as they usually are) requires so much power that the ride has it's own power generator, lest it cause all of Orlando to lose power just from the ride launch.
But here's the neat thing: I had commented to Matt one year as to how loud it was, we were all the way across the park and I could hear it roaring as it went every time. Well, I found out that the Hulk rails have a hollow buffer around the rail to make it sound like the Hulk is roaring! Whaddya know, it was all part of the ride's experience.
As for the second coaster, that would be Dueling Dragons. It's actually two coasters intertwined. The line starts the same, in a medieval castle, and then you are asked to choose your fate, Fire or Ice. This is where you choose the red or the blue coaster.
The ride is suposed to be a mid-air fight between two dragons. The ride is artfully designed to that at several points along the ride, there are near-misses as the dragons "swoop" at each other. Be noted: you won't even know this unless you're in the front row! The key point in the ride is a fast-approaching game of chicken, in which both coasters veer out of the way at the last possible second, avoiding a head-on collision with the people in the other coaster. Again, you won't see a thing if you aren't in the front row.
This coaster has always been my favorite because it's so smooth, comfortable and quiet (aside from the screaming, of course). You don't get jostled around, it's pure bliss as you can just sit back and enjoy the feeling in the pit of your stomach.
Again - it's by design. You are riding a dragon flying in the air! You should feel like you're soaring. The key feature the coaster designers wanted to add to the experience was that realism. They accomplished it by adding a square-foot buffer of gravel around the rails to absorb noise and shock, leaving nothing but a smooth ride.
So, my hat's off to you, oh designer of gut-tormenting coasters. I'm sorry I ever doubted you, you really do have it all under control...
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Matt & Jess, THANK YOU guys SOOOO much for giving us the tour of Islands of Adventure yesterday! It was totally awesome. The Hulk, Dueling Dragons (ok, just Dragon, since Red didn't run with ours), Spiderman, all the extensive soaking on the water rides...it was all totally cool. AND thanks for recommending the Express Pass...definitely the only way to fly. Cheers!
