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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: 2021 Discussion
- Thread starter AstroDan
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i wont name the park or ride…. But a certain intamin coaster likes to shred its chain dog too often, falling from the top of the lift,
that lead to 2h safety checks being introduced looking for damage/wear
John_P
TS Member
Well given the circumstances I thought the park did a pretty good job of celebrating the 125th season.
Managed to get in 4 seperate visits during the year myself. July, which coincided with the Euro 2020 final, illumination switch on weekend, Halloween Weekend for Journey to Hell and the final late night riding, and finally closing weekend in December. So 11 days visiting the park, so great value for money from my £48 season pass.
Managed to get in 4 seperate visits during the year myself. July, which coincided with the Euro 2020 final, illumination switch on weekend, Halloween Weekend for Journey to Hell and the final late night riding, and finally closing weekend in December. So 11 days visiting the park, so great value for money from my £48 season pass.
Matt N
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Shambhala (PortAventura Park)
Out of interest, where did Blackpool's 85mph speed claim for the Big One come from?
I only ask because it seems very high for a drop of 205ft like RCDB states the Big One's is; I did some SUVAT calculations, and when applying v2 = u2 + 2as to the problem (For those of you who don't know about SUVAT, v = Final Velocity, u = Initial Velocity, a = Acceleration and s = Displacement), I calculated that the highest speed it could possibly hit is around 78.6mph (if my SUVAT calculations and unit conversions are correct), and that is before factoring in real world factors like air resistance, angle of descent and the turning motion of the drop (SUVAT never factors in air resistance and assumes a straight freefall, so this result is effectively the terminal velocity of an object falling straight down from 205ft in the air with no air resistance whatsoever). For clarity, I set u to the lift speed of 6mph I once heard quoted (converted to m/s; 2.6822m/s, in case you're wondering), a to the known value of gravity 9.81m/s2, and s to 62.484m (205ft in metres).
I could well have gotten my calculations wrong, but I'll admit I am racking my brains slightly as to how Blackpool got the extra 6.4mph... if my calculations are correct, the ride would have to be falling at least 73.233m (240.2ft) under its own weight or would have to start from an initial velocity of 14.762m/s (33mph) on the existing drop to hit 85mph even under SUVAT, which assumes no air resistance and doesn't factor in things like angle of descent etc... I know the Big One doesn't go underground (a 240.2ft drop from a height of 235ft would require some kind of trench or tunnel, which the Big One doesn't have), and while I don't know for sure, I'm also guessing that the lift hill speed is nowhere near 33mph; that would border on a launched lift!
Does anyone know any more? I know the 235ft height claim is said to be derived from the ride's height above sea level, but I've never heard anything about where 85mph came from. However, everything official, including the ride's design team, says nothing but 85mph for the Big One's speed and 235ft for the Big One's height. I'm also a little stumped as to where RCDB got 213ft height, 205ft drop and 74mph from, as I've never heard these stats anywhere else (everything else says 235ft, 85mph; the only stat Blackpool seemingly concurs with RCDB on is the length of 5,497ft), but I'll admit that 74mph does seem more logical than 85mph given RCDB's claimed stats.
I guess I could just have gotten my SUVAT calculations wrong, but it is confusing me...
I only ask because it seems very high for a drop of 205ft like RCDB states the Big One's is; I did some SUVAT calculations, and when applying v2 = u2 + 2as to the problem (For those of you who don't know about SUVAT, v = Final Velocity, u = Initial Velocity, a = Acceleration and s = Displacement), I calculated that the highest speed it could possibly hit is around 78.6mph (if my SUVAT calculations and unit conversions are correct), and that is before factoring in real world factors like air resistance, angle of descent and the turning motion of the drop (SUVAT never factors in air resistance and assumes a straight freefall, so this result is effectively the terminal velocity of an object falling straight down from 205ft in the air with no air resistance whatsoever). For clarity, I set u to the lift speed of 6mph I once heard quoted (converted to m/s; 2.6822m/s, in case you're wondering), a to the known value of gravity 9.81m/s2, and s to 62.484m (205ft in metres).
I could well have gotten my calculations wrong, but I'll admit I am racking my brains slightly as to how Blackpool got the extra 6.4mph... if my calculations are correct, the ride would have to be falling at least 73.233m (240.2ft) under its own weight or would have to start from an initial velocity of 14.762m/s (33mph) on the existing drop to hit 85mph even under SUVAT, which assumes no air resistance and doesn't factor in things like angle of descent etc... I know the Big One doesn't go underground (a 240.2ft drop from a height of 235ft would require some kind of trench or tunnel, which the Big One doesn't have), and while I don't know for sure, I'm also guessing that the lift hill speed is nowhere near 33mph; that would border on a launched lift!
Does anyone know any more? I know the 235ft height claim is said to be derived from the ride's height above sea level, but I've never heard anything about where 85mph came from. However, everything official, including the ride's design team, says nothing but 85mph for the Big One's speed and 235ft for the Big One's height. I'm also a little stumped as to where RCDB got 213ft height, 205ft drop and 74mph from, as I've never heard these stats anywhere else (everything else says 235ft, 85mph; the only stat Blackpool seemingly concurs with RCDB on is the length of 5,497ft), but I'll admit that 74mph does seem more logical than 85mph given RCDB's claimed stats.
I guess I could just have gotten my SUVAT calculations wrong, but it is confusing me...
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Matt N
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Shambhala (PortAventura Park)
I’ll admit I am a little stumped as to where RCDB got their stats from, though; I know the 235ft height claim is often said to be from sea level, but I’ve literally never heard anything else besides 235ft apart from the 213ft claim on RCDB. Ditto with 85mph; apart from RCDB’s 74mph claim, I’ve never heard anything besides 85mph. Did Ron Toomer reveal these stats separately or something?
In fact, I'm not even sure they were the actual nineties at all.
Rick
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Crux
Folks are forgetting that this stat and others comes from a period where you took things at face value - you had no way to counteract it.
If you were out and about and thought to yourself "I wonder which song kept Wonderwall or Common People at number 2" ... you just didn't know until you could get home and find out from your Smash Hits magazine.
The age of ignorance. Bring it back.
If you were out and about and thought to yourself "I wonder which song kept Wonderwall or Common People at number 2" ... you just didn't know until you could get home and find out from your Smash Hits magazine.
The age of ignorance. Bring it back.
Tom
TS Member
Looks to me to be based on a freefall drop of 235 feet = 85 mph. I seem to recall from at - and for a while after - the ride's launch it was advertised (or rounded up by the media possibly) as being a 90 mph ride.
In reality however, given friction, air resistance and angle of decent I'd say its actual speed at the bottom of the first drop was less than 70 mph. Recall that Oblivion achieves 68 mph with a drop of 180 feet, which a much steeper angle.
In reality however, given friction, air resistance and angle of decent I'd say its actual speed at the bottom of the first drop was less than 70 mph. Recall that Oblivion achieves 68 mph with a drop of 180 feet, which a much steeper angle.
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Dipper_Dave
TS Member
Don’t forget Vienna being kept off the top of the charts by Shaddap Your Face.
Back to speeds, @rob666 has been recorded at 15.62 mph (wind assisted) walking from the Icon gate to Madame Crevettes. Depends whether he has his fast or slow trainers on though
Matt N
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Shambhala (PortAventura Park)
Building upon the Big One discussion from before, I found this really interesting video of an Arrow press pack from the 90s that revealed some stats about the Big One; for clarity, the Big One section is about 20 minutes in:
(Credit to Arrow Enlightenment Leader)
The video revealed that the ride's length is 5,497ft, the ride duration is 159 seconds, the drop height is 205ft, the top speed is 74.5mph and the maximum g-force is 3.65G.
However, one particularly interesting piece of info I found in there was that as well as the stats I posted above, Arrow claims the ride's lift height to be 201ft as opposed to the often quoted (as an alternative to Blackpool's 235ft claim) 213ft, with the drop being 205ft as previously stated.
While I'm admittedly unsure how the drop is larger than the height (Big One doesn't go underground at all), I'm unsure why Arrow would claim the ride to be shorter than it actually was, so surely this is likely to be an accurate figure?
With that in mind, an interesting thought dawned upon me; if the Big One is 201ft tall as this press pack claims, doesn't that mean that the Big One never technically held the world height record in the first place, as Magnum is 205ft tall, and doesn't that also mean that its UK height record was technically stolen by Stealth in 2006 instead of by Exodus in 2024 (if it happens)?
It could be that Arrow is measuring the lift height by a different metric, however; maybe they're talking about the amount of lift hill track, for instance. I don't really know... does anyone have any thoughts here? Surely Arrow are a pretty trustworthy source for the Big One's stats, aren't they, especially given that they claim it to be 12ft shorter than RCDB's listing here?
(Credit to Arrow Enlightenment Leader)
The video revealed that the ride's length is 5,497ft, the ride duration is 159 seconds, the drop height is 205ft, the top speed is 74.5mph and the maximum g-force is 3.65G.
However, one particularly interesting piece of info I found in there was that as well as the stats I posted above, Arrow claims the ride's lift height to be 201ft as opposed to the often quoted (as an alternative to Blackpool's 235ft claim) 213ft, with the drop being 205ft as previously stated.
While I'm admittedly unsure how the drop is larger than the height (Big One doesn't go underground at all), I'm unsure why Arrow would claim the ride to be shorter than it actually was, so surely this is likely to be an accurate figure?
With that in mind, an interesting thought dawned upon me; if the Big One is 201ft tall as this press pack claims, doesn't that mean that the Big One never technically held the world height record in the first place, as Magnum is 205ft tall, and doesn't that also mean that its UK height record was technically stolen by Stealth in 2006 instead of by Exodus in 2024 (if it happens)?
It could be that Arrow is measuring the lift height by a different metric, however; maybe they're talking about the amount of lift hill track, for instance. I don't really know... does anyone have any thoughts here? Surely Arrow are a pretty trustworthy source for the Big One's stats, aren't they, especially given that they claim it to be 12ft shorter than RCDB's listing here?
Matt N
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Shambhala (PortAventura Park)
Ah, that would make a lot of sense... were the Big One's footers really 12ft high, though? That seems like an incredibly high footer height, although I'll confess to not knowing a huge amount about the subject.
Matt N
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Shambhala (PortAventura Park)
Come to think of it, however, I do remember some guy claimed to have dropped a tape measure from the top of the Big One's lift hill and measured it at 201ft, but I could have imagined that...
Also, Arrow aren't the only place to mention 201ft... an issue of Coaster Kingdom magazine from 2006 (http://s104638357.websitehome.co.uk/html/magazine_26_01.htm) said:
I also remember reading that Ice Blast, while claimed to be 210ft by Blackpool, had a permit for a 180ft structure filed to the CAA, and I'd assume that includes the bit on top, so maybe 201ft is the actual figure?
Also @Rick, could the drop being above the log flume lake be how the Big One's drop is technically listed as larger than the height?
Also, Arrow aren't the only place to mention 201ft... an issue of Coaster Kingdom magazine from 2006 (http://s104638357.websitehome.co.uk/html/magazine_26_01.htm) said:
Coaster Kingdom said:
I also remember reading that Ice Blast, while claimed to be 210ft by Blackpool, had a permit for a 180ft structure filed to the CAA, and I'd assume that includes the bit on top, so maybe 201ft is the actual figure?
Also @Rick, could the drop being above the log flume lake be how the Big One's drop is technically listed as larger than the height?
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