500 ft roller coasters? 600, 700ft, where does it stop?

> How high do you think that roller coasters will
> eventually get, taking into consideration the
> comfort level of the ride and the intense speed
> experienced while riding it. I personally do not
> think that roller coaster will get higher than
> 450 ft, then people won't want to go on them. I
> am interested in what you have to say, and hope
> to read many replies to this message.

> Thank you,
> Ken

Well i think as long as theme parks are willing to spend enough money for the rides , the sky is the limit

Bing it on baby, the taller the better. I would love to ride a coaster with a 450 foot drop. On the other hand, there has to be some height limit or else the g-forces will be too extreme for the average person. I don't know, I'm not an engineer but the thought of a 450+ foot drop sounds good to me.

Here's another idea for an extreme coaster. The total track length would be about 10 miles long (just keep reading). The coaster would be built around the circumference of the entire park. This would be a continuos circuit coaster. There would be 6 different loading stations on the circuit. Each of the 6 sections of the coaster would have its own characteristics. One section would be all loops, another section would be all drops, another sections would be a twister, another section would be back to back helices, etc. The entire coaster would be double tracked. One track would be non-stop for the complete ciruit only with block brakes at each station (no unloading). The other track would allow riders to enter and exit at any station they wanted.

Yeah, I know it sounds crazy, but I think it could actually work with all the technology available today. That's just something I've been thinking about for a while now. I know I got off the subjet of this thread, sorry.

-Streaker-

I somewhat agree with caliboomer in the fact that the sky is the limit. Somebody will always try to go higher, bigger, faster, it won't stop until something beyond their control makes them stop. However, I cannot see the general park going public lining up for something much taller than the 350-400 range. Try this if possible. Find a building that is 450 or above in hieght that has an observation deck. Stand at the edge of the observation deck and look to the ground. I just can't see many non-crazy people such as ourselves wanting to be perched ontop of a hill about to be thrown down from that hieght. Personally I would love it, and would love to see it built.

I think what we will start seeing more of, are coasters that have longer drops without the insanely high lift hill. Coasters that use the terrain to get the drops such as Steel Phantom/Revenge, and Thunderbolt. There are other examples also that do this. If the terrain isn't exactly what is needed, I think it will be altered to meet the needs. Yes, they may be more difficult to plan out, but I can't imagine i would be much harder building a terrain coaster over a MF-dwarfing coaster.

There you have my two cents worth, thanks for reading.

Rob

Unless the surrounding town/state has other regs against it..2000 ft. is the highest they can go i think, at least thats what it is with buildings.

> How high do you think that roller coasters will
> eventually get, taking into consideration the
> comfort level of the ride and the intense speed
> experienced while riding it. I personally do not
> think that roller coaster will get higher than
> 450 ft, then people won't want to go on them. I
> am interested in what you have to say, and hope
> to read many replies to this message.

> Thank you,
> Ken

Come check out my site! "Chocolate Lovers Guide to HersheyPark!"

> How high do you think that roller coasters will
> eventually get, taking into consideration the
> comfort level of the ride and the intense speed
> experienced while riding it. I personally do not
> think that roller coaster will get higher than
> 450 ft, then people won't want to go on them. I
> am interested in what you have to say, and hope
> to read many replies to this message.

> Thank you,
> Ken

As far as height goes, if you have the cash and space, some company can probably build it. From the comfort level and G-level...these are all relative. The forces are still designed around the rider, or human limitations...and are controlled through radius of curvature...this is why the layout of Millenium force looks like a lot of straight track. The turns aren't as tight because they have to be looser to accomodate the speed...

As far as the fear level of the public...if you build a 1000 foot coaster, I'm sure it would be a hit...I think the future and fear factor in rollercoasters lies in innovation, unpredictability and shear terror of rides like the new Vekoma Cliffhanger and X...
new experiences...combined with 200 foot drops and such are going to make for some really awesome rides...cant wait!

Later,
DAVE

I think that with more height you get more problems. For example, let's take Millenium Force. Didn't they have to reinforce the supports on the lift hill due to excessive swaying in the wind? I just have to believe that with this type of structure, there is a limit to what can be done with maintenance, lift heights, etc.

I think capacity also has to be an issue. With a taller hill comes a much longer chain/elevator style lift as far as time goes.

Maybe I'm wrong. Just a few things to think about.

Thanks,
Tye

Personally, I'm not a fan of very tall coasters. The way I see it, if we say the average person is 6ft tall, a 60ft coaster is always going to be 10x bigger than a person, a 120ft coaster 20x bigger, and so on... Because it's all relative to the size of us, a 100ft coaster is always going to seem "big" to me.

Maybe I'm stuck in my ways, but the 150ft coasters like Montu and Kumba always seemed the right size for a big ride. Sometimes you do need the extra scale, but that's about the limit for me.

I'd love to see more junior hypercoasters too, like Goliath at La Ronde. It's great we live in an era where you can have steel-tracked hybrids that size too. It would be great if there were some huge GCIs, using all Titan Track, that were more like Mean Streak and Texas Giant than the RMC rides that are full of extreme elements.