25 Extreme Drop Tower Rides

Besides your roller coasters, carousels, and Ferris wheels, a staple attraction of any major amusement park is the drop tower ride. While common today, these freefall attractions don’t have a long, hundred-year history like the roller coaster or amusement park. The first tower rides didn’t appear until the 1980s and didn’t start catching on until the 1990s when the technology and ride experience improved enough to make them “can’t miss” attractions.

What are the tallest, fastest, and most extreme drop towers ever built? Find out all this and more by reading 25 Extreme Drop Tower Rides. You'll learn about the history of the drop tower as well as all the different seating configurations and where the most terrifying freefall rides can be found.

Download it for FREE to read on Kindle between April 14 through 16, 2017. Follow this link to get it on Amazon.com

Snow White's Adventure Layout

 Snow White's Scary Adventures Closing

Snow White's Scary Adventures was an attraction located in Fantasyland at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom in Orlando, Florida. The ride was recently closed forever (May 2012) as part of the New Fantasyland expansion and renovation project. Let's take a look back at this classic dark ride as it lives on in our hearts and memories.

Snow White’s Adventure was based on the Walt Disney film classic of 1937. The attraction brought to life the well known fairy tale of Snow White and her adventures with her little friends, the Seven Dwarfs, and the wicked Queen. Guests were transported via a six-passenger vehicle - themed like a mine car - on a three-minute ride along a 617 foot track. During the ride guests passed through scenes depicting the Castle Courtyard, Queen’s Chamber, Dungeon,Threatening Forest, Frightening Forest, Friendly Forest, Dwarfs' Cottage, Chase Begins, Dwarfs' Mine, the Cliff, Loves First Kiss, and finally They Lived Happily Everafter with Snow White and the Prince. The scenes used effects such as animated props, animated figures, projectors and lighting to create the correct illusions.

How it worked - Disney Magic Unveiled

The Snow White’s Adventure ride consisted of 17 six-seat vehicles. The vehicle consisted of a fiberglass body attached to a chassis. The vehicle rode along a steel track which contained a bus bar. The vehicle was connected to the bus bar through contacts located on the front bogie assembly. These contacts collect the electrical power from the bus bar and transfer it to the motor located on the rear bogie assembly.The mine car themed vehicles were electrically operated and traveled along a guide rail with a bus bar. Safety lap bars automatically engaged as the vehicles left the Load Area. The bus bar was supplied by the attraction main electrical feed at 240 VAC. There were two isolated conductors of the bus bar which are parallel and horizontal to the exterior of the track surface. A third isolated conductor was mounted on the opposite of the track and acted as the ground for the system. The bus bar ran the entire length of the ride track.

Audio-Animatronics(AA) figures

The Snow White ride featured a few Audio-Animatronincs figures. The Animated Figures are mechanical actors (person or animal) designed to perform an action or actions in a show scene. A steel skeletal framework, jointed as required, makes up the figure. The figure is covered with a body form and costume for the character that it portrays. The activity of the figure is controlled by electrical signals. These signals are sent from the show control system (SCS). A combination of components are used to control the movement of the figure. These components include and are not limited to pneumatic valves, mechanical feedback actuators, solenoid valves and first stage valves. Each figure will contain a combination of these components. The actuators and electric motors are contained within the AA figure or the base frame under the figure.

Snow White Ride Blueprint and Overhead Layout

Embedded below is the best official looking layout I could find of the Snow White attraction on the internet.

YouTube Video of Snow White

Here's one of the best ride through videos of the ride I could find on YouTube.




I believe the Snow White ride at Disneyland is still operating. Will YOU miss the Walt Disney World ride?

Brochure Spotlight: Ontario Place 1999

After hearing the news that the Ontario Place rides will not reopen for the 2012 season I finally got around to scanning in my brochure and park map from Ontario Place 1999. I posted a video earlier of one of my personal favorite log flumes which will be missed. It was a very unique park so hopefully whatever happens to the property is just as unique!

S&S Worldwide's new thrill ride

Blooloop recently posted a fantastic interview with a vice president from S&S Worldwide. What really caught my mention was the talk of a new ride described as a thrill version of the Free Fly coaster, which will offer a new sensation to the industry, and be exclusive to S&S. Here are the known facts directly from the article:

• ...we have a new concept but you will not see it out in the open.
• It is a thrill version of our Free Fly “family” coaster, capable of a truly unique ride sensation never before experienced and exclusive to S&S...
• ...we’ve patented the mechanical piece that creates the ride experience. 
• We vetted the idea with significant people in the industry last year at IAAPA and over the year.
• ...a new product, especially one of the caliber we are introducing, S&S is making a statement: beyond being creative...
• ...we have partnered with an engineering firm in Southern California that specializes in aerospace and government contracts, and have additional tools and engineering resources we don’t.  This union has created a feasibility study and product analysis I doubt has ever been done before. 
• ...decision to bring in the best talent, worldwide, to create, engineer and validate not only the ride, but also the effects the ride experience has on the human body. 
• ...the ride concept, which has a “4th-dimension type ride experience” but at half the cost of a 4D coaster, is extreme and thrilling beyond previous experience...

What really got my attention from the above information was the fact they have already patented the concept. Knowing this, I scoured the internet to try and find this patent. Well, I didn't find any new patents related to S&S Worldwide or any of their engineers but this didn't exactly surprise me because it sounds like they want to keep this under wraps. 

However, after an extensive search, I believe I found the patent and the type of ride system they could be talking about here. It doesn't have a name that I know of at this point so I am going to dub it "the gyro-coaster."  

The seat assembly is capable of fully rotating about a first axis, second axis, and third axis independent of the track system. The rotation can be free or controlled. Each individual vehcile assembly could have a different degree of motion than the other vehicle assemblies. The launch tower concept looks pretty cool too!

 

 

Here's the evidence that leads me to believe this is the ride we are looking for.

• The patent was filed in 2009. S&S discussed the idea at the IAPPA show in 2010, thus the timeline works out and makes sense.
  
• The patent attorney's office is in Salt Lake City, Utah, not far from S&S headquarters.
• The inventor resides in Southern California (and presumably works for the hired engineering firm). I couldn't find any other information on the inventor, which is odd.
  
• When S&S Arrow filed the patent for the 4d coaster they used James Sonntag as their patent attorney, the same person who shows up on this new patent. 

Is this all just coincidence? I have no idea if it actually is but the evidence would lead me to believe we are looking at new ride concepts from S&S Worldwide. You can see why they would bring in another firm to do analysis- some pretty complicated dynamics there! If this is true, I am really excited by this design concept. The possibilities are endless; the human body being the major limiting factor. What are your thoughts?


How to Design a Coaster

How a Zamperla Demolition Derby Works - The Explanation

Last week I was trying to figure out how a Zamperla Demolition Derby ride worked. After a lot of research and digging through the interwebs I have finally found some answers. I actually haven't figured out how Zamperla's modern version works, but I have found a few patents for earlier versions of the ride. You see, the demolition derby is actually based on a ride called "the crazy daisy" (or crazy dazy) built by Philiadelphia Toboggan Coasters (PTC). There's also another variation called the Cuddle Up (or cuddle-up) which I think depends on the number of turntables involved. Anyways, here are a few of the patents with diagrams of the flat rides with intersecting ride paths: