EVERYONE IS WRONG ABOUT DRAGSTER!!! (AND I CAN PROVE IT)

foreign the hydraulic launch coaster made a splash when it blasted onto the market in 2002 with the debut of accelerator at Knott's Berry Farm honestly I can make a whole other video about that ride but for now just check out the video I Linked In the description by my friend Ki coaster guy it became clear to parks that intimate had created a launch system that was really good at two specific things speed and acceleration heads up right now this is going to be more of a tactical video than my other ones so much so in fact that I had to run some of this past a nerd Enthusiast named Ryan just so I can make sure that my main point was actually locked in and I wasn't making anything up before we get too far into the video though I'd like to ask you to subscribe and hit the like button I promise I'm not going to take another two month long Hiatus and I have some awesome content coming up that you definitely won't want to miss thank you the coaster that breaks every height and speed barrier is here top thrilled dragster it's the fastest at zero to 120 miles per hour in four seconds it's the tallest at 420 feet the first and only strata coaster on Earth is now open Cedar Point's 16th coaster Top Thrill Dragster wanna go got the guts as I was saying the hydraulic launch is a beast of a launch system even with accelerator being designed to launch up to 82 miles per hour in just 2.3 seconds they were still able to push the system way past that and do test runs at 115 miles per hour as a proof of concept for dragster only one launch system has ever even come close to that level of punch that of course being the SNS compressed air launch you may be asking how similar these two launch systems are in term of how much punch they can pack and luckily for us we have this wonderful thing called math to help us determine exactly how similar or different any given launch is there are many types of forces experienced on roller coasters all of which are measured in g-forces for a basic understanding of what a G-Force is think about the natural pull you feel towards the earth when at rest that gravitational pull that you feel is exactly one G if you're feeling anything less or more than 1G you're moving and are probably experiencing a mix of other forces a feeling of weightlessness for example will happen at a perfect zero g and anything below that would be considered negative G's or air time on a roller coaster anything above 1G makes you feel like you're being pulled into the Earth more aggressively Fugees for example makes you feel twice your weight side to side forces are called lateral forces a great example of this would be when you're in the car and it turns abruptly so you slide sideways in your seat all of these forces are discussed very frequently when breaking down rides but there's one other type of force that rarely gets discussed that being linear g-forces while laterals positives and negatives are felt mostly by your entire body being thrown around on a coaster linear g-forces are mostly felt in your chest linear g-forces are what I previously described as the punch that a coaster packs if you've ridden a launch coaster you know exactly what I mean by this while this might sound relatively complex the math involved is actually really simple all you have to do is use this formula to calculate linear g-forces all we need to know to calculate how strong a launch is is the initial speed final speed and the time it took to get there for these calculations we will assume that the initial speed is zero since Hydraulics and air launches have to start from a dead stop to allow the catch car to attach properly to the catch dog on the train as I said accelerator launches from 0 to 82 miles per hour in just 2.3 seconds if we convert the miles per hour to meters per second and enter them into the formula using 9.81 meters per second squared for the acceleration due to gravity you can see that this Powerhouse of a coaster pulls 1.6 G's on its launch which at the time was the second most powerful launch in the World Behind only DOTA domba which held the Record for fastest coaster in the world at 112 miles per hour with this fastest acceleration topping out at 2.7 G's like I said the air launch was the only thing that could even touch the Hydraulics punch maybe that should be the other way around though because intimate spent the better part of 15 years trying to match the insane acceleration SNS perfected early on 2003 saw the opening of the coaster that we will loop back to early on as the point of this video Top Thrill Dragster which ironically had a linear acceleration exactly the same as accelerator see since the time it took to get up to speed is 1.65 times longer than Dragster at 3.8 seconds but the top speed is only 1.46 times faster at 120 miles per hour dragster ends up having 1.6 G's due to the power of division math is crazy for the next few years intimate put out a new coaster that would crack the top 10 list of fastest acceleration in the world let's quickly look at those stats 2004 saw storm runner at Hershey Park reached 72 miles per hour and two seconds flat giving an acceleration of 1.6 G's which matches its older brothers 2005 debuted the world's tallest and at the time fastest coaster kingdaka with a top speed of 128 miles per hour in just 3.5 seconds for a slight increase over the other Hydraulics with 1.7 G's the now defunct Saturn took a step back in 2006 when it pulled 1.6 G's by accelerating to 80 miles per hour in 2.3 seconds however stealth slammed 2006 onto the map by pulling an insane 1.9 GS by reaching the same 80 miles per hour in just 1.8 seconds Enderman wrapped up their record-breaking acceleration streak in 2010 with the world's fastest coaster entitled formula Rosa this monster goes zero to 150 in 4 seconds giving it an acceleration of 1.7 G's this meant that while Benjamin did not hold the top spot on the charts they essentially owned the rest of the chart I like to think of this in the same way I think about Arrow hypers sure they were first and paved the way for other companies but I think it's safe to say that b m owns the hyper game now in the same way that intimate owns the fast launch game intimate had found a way to make an exclusive coaster model that would instantly be one of the most intense models in the world well it wasn't technically exclusive since vakoma made one hydraulic family motorbike coaster in 2004 but we don't talk about that one it's fine just like that SNS and Enderman dominated the leaderboards for acceleration and not much changed about that for quite a while it wasn't until 2019 that SNS put up another Contender that yet again could beat any hydraulic launch the compressed air coaster Max Force hit a top speed of 78 miles per hour and gets up to that speed from a dead stop in just 1.8 seconds meaning it exerts an even 2 G's on Riders with intimate retiring the hydraulic launch model recently it seems they will never have a chance to take the record back from SNS or could they looking back at top throw dragster once it was announced that the ride would remain closed for all of the 2022 season speculation began running wild I heard so many theories about this ride ranging from it being torn down entirely to the idea that they would be using the top hat as a drop tower without reopening the actual coaster part of the ride literally anything was on the table in terms of theories so people started chatting I was a strong believer early on that we would see it coming back with a new launch of some sort but tons of people told me that there was no way this would be happening as linear synchronous Motors or lsms did not have the acceleration power or top speed required to clear the top app I've spent the whole video talking about Hydraulics and air launches so let me give you a crash course on lsms lsms are a launch that requires no contact with a ride vehicle at all so unlike the other two models mentioned they can be used to implement what is called a rolling launch in essence LSM coasters can launch from a dead stop or be used to accelerate an already moving train to a faster speed the perfect example of this versatility is Maverick at Cedar Point see these weird fins on the track those are called Staters Staters interact with a magnetic system attached to the bottom of the train and using alternating polarity of the magnetic field can cause near instant acceleration when Maverick opened the train stopped at the start of the tunnel in this block zone right here for those of you who are unfamiliar a block zone is a section of a ride oh wait that's not my script how did that get in here if you want to know as much as you can about Maverick's block zones definitely go check out Altura Orion's problematic roller coasters video on it it's a wonderful video and it's linked in the description also thank you Ryan for being such a good sport about this joke anyway a very brief explanation of block zones is actually necessary for the example I want to make here block zones keep trains from running into each other by spacing out the trains properly in a perfectly functioning ride trains report back to the computer where they are and the computer will not allow dispatch or will stop trains that are already dispatched until it's clear to proceed like I said when Maverick opened in 2007 the trainer originally stopped at the start of the tunnel before the launch this caused a great 0-70 launch moment however over the whole course of a day this could cause black Zone issues essentially the stop end can cause trains to inch closer and closer together in such a way that the computer doesn't flag it at first but will eventually cause the whole ride to shut down to combat this issue the hold break essentially got turned off meaning that even though trains were traveling slowly into the launch they do not have to stop fully which keeps trains spaced out in a much better way than the dead stop could ever allow this versatility is exclusive to Magnetic launch coasters due to the fact that they do not need to make physical contact with the trains to provide an acceleration boost so what does that versatility have to do with dragster since lsms are not capable of getting trains up to speed in the allotted space enthusiasts quickly focused on how Cedar Point and intimate or zamperla because remember we still don't know who's working on this ride would be able to utilize modern launch technology to clear the iconic Top Hat we knew that this would be happening as the launch and Brake track were ripped out immediately after the announcement that dragster was being retired but the top hat remained intact throughout the entire off-season after months of deliberating two main theories prevailed as top contenders for what could possibly be done to make a reimagined ride experience these are a swing launch and a vertical LSM launch let's tackle the latter first as it seems to be much less likely for a few reasons what you're seeing on screen is entenman's vertical LSM coaster model they claim it is the first of its kind but tell that to Wicked at Lagoon basically this model allows for Staters to be placed on the track facing 90 degrees upwards but this was quickly abandoned as an idea once people realized the logistics of running that much power all the way up a 420 foot top hat I still love this idea in theory assuming that dragster gets a space theme think rocket launch but I know it's not going to be the direction that Cedar Point goes with their project so I abandoned it the only remaining Theory at this point was and still is a swing launch if you're unfamiliar with that term I have a few swing launch povs playing on screen to help explain most notably Pantheon at Busch Gardens Williamsburg a swing launch is a launch in which Riders pass over the same LSM status more than once picking up speed every time easiest way to make this happen is with a switch track and a spike as you can see once the train enters the launch section of track it is essentially stuck in the valley until it passes over the launch total of three times the sun's Riders up the top hat backwards across the launch again up the spike and back down across the launch to clear the top hat for a one-of-a-kind experience only achievable by a swing launch swing launches almost always have an airtime Hill in the middle of the valley as well which provides a quick pop of air time to spice up the ride this was a clear front runner for Dragsters reimagining in the eyes of the community but unfortunately it is built on a popular misconception dare I say lie this is a lie that I have heard hundreds of times I guarantee you've heard before and I can do that because I have told you this lie multiple times in this video before I explain take a look at fluctvonne Novgorod at hanza Park in Germany [Music] for the sake of my lack of pronunciation skills I'll be calling this ride nov garage from now on navgarad is a coaster that most people wouldn't think twice about but one very specific thing fascinates me about this ride this one detail is what started me down a research rabbit hole that eventually led to this video that detail being the launch now footage of this launch is semi hard to come by due to the fact it's enclosed in the dark so I cannot find high quality footage of it launching up to full speed but you can even tell from these low quality videos how fast this ride gets up to speed though it is a slow rolling launch nav garage goes from a crawl to 62 miles per hour in just 1.4 seconds if we do the math this LSM launch pulls two G's making it the second fastest accelerating coaster in the world meaning it is faster and stronger than any hydraulic launch coaster on the planet which inherently disproves the notion that lsms do not have the acceleration force needed to get up to speed in the space that the current launch track on dragster provides I even reached out to Taylor from coaster Studios for a comment on what this launch feels like subjectively since he has ridden the Hydraulics I would compare this to like stealth and he confirmed that the launch is quick Punchy and much shorter than the Hydraulics but wait there's more I can already hear you saying but lsms are slower than hydraulic launches and you're right well kind of there has never been an LSM coaster that has reached 120 miles per hour or faster this would seem to cancel out my entire line of thinking however we have to remember that lsms are constantly being developed this technology is used for such a wide variety of things it is not exclusively developed for roller coasters so manufacturers are constantly trying to figure out new ways to adapt them to launch coasters faster and more efficiently for context less than a year ago people were trying to argue this exact point so I looked into intimins marketing they claimed that their LSM coasters can exceed 124 miles per hour and at the time I was happy with that as my proof But as time went on and the progress began on the dragster plot I began thinking it's clear that digging is happening behind the old photo booth and they're planting Footers for something the most common explanation is of course the spike that I previously mentioned for a swing launch this sparked a lot of concerns in the community firstly I've seen a lot of people discuss the height of the spike and whether or not it could count as a record-breaking coaster if the whole train doesn't pass the highest point the general idea that I have seen thrown around is a 500 foot Spike with the train not making it all the way to the top which would inherently go against how Cedar Point has denoted record-breaking coasters in the past for example they ignore the existence of moonsault scramble and Superman escape from Krypton since they're not full circuit coasters and their entire trains do not reach the highest point Cedar Point used this technicality to claim the first coaster over 200 feet 300 feet and 400 feet as well as various other records such as world's fastest another concern that I have seen echoed in this community is that no LSM launch could give the same jolt as a hydraulic the perceived intense yet smooth acceleration dragster was famous for is one of the reasons that top throw was considered one of the best launch coasters in the world if not one of the best coasters in the world the spike definitely points towards a swing launch which would have decreased acceleration compared to a hydraulic launch system and a lot of people don't like that the last major concern that I have seen is capacity the time it would take for a train to launch almost all of the way up the top hat roll down hundreds of feet all the way up a 500 foot Spike and then clear the top hat with seemingly reduce capacity immensely even with a switch track that one block Zone would be occupied for significantly longer than the run time of the original ride I'm not a block Zone expert so maybe Altura Ryan can comment on this video with his opinion on the matter but this is something that I have seen repeatedly mentioned when discussing a swing launch so I've been thinking about it a lot all of this thinking led to research and what I found astounded me I began looking into companies that manufacture and design lsms to try to find their exact specs if you didn't know companies like intimate and zamperla do not make their lsms in-house but instead buy them from external companies that specialize in making them it is more cost effective and allows for a more reliable product this way so it just makes sense for everybody involved I headed over to the website for the company that leads the charge in LSM technology in Drive Tech this is the company that intimate uses exclusively for their launches so I knew that this would be a great place to start after pouring through their site for a while I found their documentation for the LSM launch system and my jaw literally dropped there's one major issue in creating an LSM speed machine at Cedar Point that being power consumption the park already has power issues and launches of any kind require a lot of power but magnetic launches drink power for breakfast ironically this is the main thing holding back top speed and acceleration of LSM launch coasters in the industry with an infinite power source you could use lsms to get up to any speed you want but the electrical technology of power delivery has historically capped the upper limit of magnetic coasters according to their documentation in drivetech has created a system which allows capacitors or energy storage units as they call him to be linked in parallel to the central power source which in turn mitigates the adverse effect of insane power draw during acceleration this is by all definitions a game changer for the LSM launch industry looking at the very top spec for their new system in drivetech advertises speeds of up to 70 meters per second with a peak acceleration of 2.5 G's for my American viewers 70 meters per second is just over 156 miles per hour this means that not only could the top hat be cleared but the train could get up to a full 120 miles per hour in less than 400 feet that fact obliterates any doubt as to if they could have just replaced dragster's launch with an LSM and called it a day they could have easily and the launch acceleration would have been stronger than the original launch exceeded only by DotA dumpa they chose not to do this and create a reimagined ride experience but how could they do this while avoiding all of the concerns I mentioned previously while utilizing the spike that is so clearly being built just to be 100 clear now that I have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that everyone is wrong and saying lsms are not strong enough including my own preconceived notions I would like to pose an alternative theories to how this ride May operate again to be clear I'm not trying to say there will not be a swing launch just posing another way of thinking from this point on this is Theory based on math and no limits to simulations that I ran to double check my math these views are my own and are in no way meant to be taking this breaking news or concrete evidence but to provoke another thought and another way of thinking I want to make that as transparent as possible okay let's get into my theory based on this footage from Lake Erie Lifestyles I estimate that the footer is currently being dug will be around 15 to 16 feet deep based on this shot of the two being placed next to a construction worker knowing that Millie's Footers are about eight feet deep I think we can safely say that these Footers are being designed for some massive structure potentially just shy of 600 feet to address the concerns as if it counts as a 500 foot coaster if the train does not clear the 500 foot Mark in its entirety there's a simple fix for that make the train exceed 500 feet entirely duh if my math and simulations are correct a train that is entirely past the 500 foot mark on the spike by just a few feet would free fall to clear the top hat without needing any additional acceleration in fact it would clear it at nearly the exact same speed that an outright launch on the top hat would so how do we address the capacity and launch intensity issues using lsms and a 500 foot Spike well I was wondering that one day too until it hit me who said the launch had to go towards the top hat as opposed to backwards towards the spike by my calculations it would only take around 130 miles per hour of speed to Crest the 500 foot Mark and that is easily doable with the new LSM Tech on the market not only that but it can happen in a very small amount of space if we calculated it at the peak 2.5 G's of acceleration it would only take about 2.3 seconds to reach full max speed and this can be done in the same length of track as Maverick's tunnel launch I checked the spacing on Google Earth and if the spike is located near where the footer behind the photo booth is now the launcher would have to begin where the bleachers currently are this is easily doable with a transfer track like Icebreaker or a Swiss Jack like Pantheon or even a switch track like storm Runner having one massive launch that is faster than the original dragster launch with a higher acceleration also helps with capacity for a new ride instead of waiting for a rollback then a spike then clearing the top hat the ride would go up the spike immediately and then clear the top hat it would definitely be a reimagined ride experience that's for sure this is just one Theory as to what could possibly be happening and I don't want it to be the end of all theories I made this video to prove that the fundamental piece of information used to build theories on is flawed and hopefully to prod a new way of thinking my friends over at ghoster coasters actually use this to make a theory a few days ago you should go check it out that's also linked in the video below I really like their line of thinking and I want to see what you think about that as well I would absolutely love to hear your new theories in the comments and on Twitter I know I cannot wait for opening day so we can finally see this work in person and get a better idea of the scale of this project if you've made it this far into the video thank you so much for the support I'm Josh from stationweight have a great day [Music] [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: Station Wait

Views: 47,522

Keywords: coaster, coaster enthusaist, theme park, amusement park, amusement parks, roller coasters, top thrill dragster, cedar point 2024, lsm, hydraulic launch, dragster theory, theme park predictions, dragster 2024, what is happening to top thrill dragster, dragster future, dragster reimagining

Id: 67gkz7-fc8s

Length: 21min 59sec (1319 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 23 2023