JoshC.
Strata Poster
Even ignoring money, there's lots of potential reasons SFGAd - or indeed any park - will realistically be breaking Falcons Flight's record any time soon.
Space
You need a heck of a lot of space to exceed FF's height (regardless of whether you're treating its height as a ~525ft hill, or the 600ft+ cliff). Even if you were to just do a top hat, you need the space of a launch track, and the space for the coaster to decelerate too.
I guess we're at an engineering point where we can realistically have a vertical launch, but stick LSMs 300ft in the air (say) is wildly impractical from a maintenance perspective.
Marketability
How many people in the world want to ride a 600ft tall roller coaster? Or one t hat goes 160mph? You're no doubt reducing the size of the market, even if slightly. Is it worth it, when you could introduce a ride which more people would ride?
Also, for those who will ride it, how much does having a ride that's at least triple the height of every other ride on park impact the perception of the other rides?
Practicality
We're reaching a point where we're at the upper limits of what is practical, not just in terms of engineering, but in terms of what the human body can handle.
Engineering-wise, improvements can always be made.
Human body-wise, what is the upper limit for what the body can handle? I don't know. But I can't see the whole population being able to comfortably deal with (for example) speeds above 160mph, or heights exceeding 600ft+. Speed-wise, we're at skydiving levels, and whilst you wouldn't be at that speed for anywhere near as long, that is something which you require a waiver to sign. Height-wise is probably okay, but I reckon there's a fair handful of people who would struggle with such a quick change in altitude.
My point here is simply there's going to be an increase in risk going beyond FF, and I'm not sure I see any park really wanting to broach that.
It's the same for inversion and Smiler. Do we really expect that to be beaten? The only realistic way I see it happening is with a very long ride, and likely with 2 'breather' moments. At what point is it just too much? And can it be achieved comfortably (ie something which Smiler fails at)?
Space
You need a heck of a lot of space to exceed FF's height (regardless of whether you're treating its height as a ~525ft hill, or the 600ft+ cliff). Even if you were to just do a top hat, you need the space of a launch track, and the space for the coaster to decelerate too.
I guess we're at an engineering point where we can realistically have a vertical launch, but stick LSMs 300ft in the air (say) is wildly impractical from a maintenance perspective.
Marketability
How many people in the world want to ride a 600ft tall roller coaster? Or one t hat goes 160mph? You're no doubt reducing the size of the market, even if slightly. Is it worth it, when you could introduce a ride which more people would ride?
Also, for those who will ride it, how much does having a ride that's at least triple the height of every other ride on park impact the perception of the other rides?
Practicality
We're reaching a point where we're at the upper limits of what is practical, not just in terms of engineering, but in terms of what the human body can handle.
Engineering-wise, improvements can always be made.
Human body-wise, what is the upper limit for what the body can handle? I don't know. But I can't see the whole population being able to comfortably deal with (for example) speeds above 160mph, or heights exceeding 600ft+. Speed-wise, we're at skydiving levels, and whilst you wouldn't be at that speed for anywhere near as long, that is something which you require a waiver to sign. Height-wise is probably okay, but I reckon there's a fair handful of people who would struggle with such a quick change in altitude.
My point here is simply there's going to be an increase in risk going beyond FF, and I'm not sure I see any park really wanting to broach that.
It's the same for inversion and Smiler. Do we really expect that to be beaten? The only realistic way I see it happening is with a very long ride, and likely with 2 'breather' moments. At what point is it just too much? And can it be achieved comfortably (ie something which Smiler fails at)?
), but the combined height-length-speed combo is feeling quite untouchable at the moment.
. Plus, with the success of Alpenfury, I wouldn’t mind another one, maybe more nuts than that!