SUPER BOWL 2012

I just posted an interview with Andreas Wild Stengel Engineering (an interview feature started back in September) to Coaster101. What really intrigued me was his response to this question: "At what stage in the creation of an amusement park attraction does Stengel Engineering become involved?"


And his response " ...sometimes the layout shows dramatically false guesses (in terms of accelerations, clearances, etc.) and we have to redesign the layout entirely. Sometimes this is too late to redo things completely and we have to find a compromise which works for all parties." 


Wow! Could he be referring to Intamin projects such as Maverick where they had to remove an entire inversion element? Or Millennium Force where they screwed up the clearance envelope by placing some of the roller coaster's supports too close to the track (pictured below)? I think so. Do you?

Read the full  interview here.

The Discovery River Boats was an attraction at Disney's Animal Kingdom. They were diesel powered boats which made a circuit around the Tree of Life. One scene along the route was called "the Dragon's Cave" and was located on the riverbank of Discovery River adjacent to the Beastly Kingdom Bridge. When riverbank sensors detected an oncomming Discovery River Boat, an audio roar and fire stream simulate the approach of a fire breathing dragon just inside riverbank cave structure.

The Discovery Rive Boats opened in 1998 and closed in 1999 due to the number of disappointed guests who did not realize the nature of the attraction. Below is an overhead layout diagram of the original ride. Click on the image for a larger picture.

Check out our other ride layout diagrams.

Click here to see an overhead image of Conservation Station at Disney's Animal Kingdom.

You know America is getting fatter when "It's A Small World" ride at Disneyland has to close for 10 months so they can make the water channel deeper and the boats more buoyant because the average weight of Americans has increased since 1965, causing the current boats to bottom out and get stuck.

"The Imagineers who designed the unique flume ride system for the World's Fair assumed that adult men would average 175 pounds, and adult women would average 135 pounds. Needless to say, those 1960's statistics are hopelessly out of date in today's world. This same issue creates similar problems on the drops at Pirates of the Caribbean, or even on the older dark rides like Pinocchio or Alice In Wonderland as the more heavily loaded cars try to keep up their pace throughout the ride. But at it's a small world, the weight related problems happen more frequently."

"...added buoyancy of the new boats should allow for several hundred extra pounds of churro-loving park visitors to pile into the new boats before they bottom out and bring the ride to a stop."

"It's a small world may be the attraction everyone loves to make fun of, but its popularity has endured for almost 45 years...2,500 riders per hour to cycle through the 15 minute long attraction...35,000 or more people float through in one day."