pluk

It openly was fixed for 13 not to lose, they gave away extra tickets to people who voted for 13 at 13.13hrs on the 13th. Basically buying 13 votes to save face.

Result.....http://www.altontowers.com/all-time-greats/Surprise winner? No.Oblivion/Air virtually a tie 2nd/3rd, seems about right to me.Still think Rita should have beaten 13.

These don't seem to live anywhere specific, a place for ride accident reports.So here's a report of a ride accident.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-14702497Got to presume it's a belt snap roll back or one boat going into the back of a somehow stalled boat on a drop.

A bit of info on the reasons behind the sad demise:Dan Longley was a Tussauds Studios AV technician when The 5th Dimension was built, and played a major role in the 1988 revamp. Here, he tells us about the ride:I worked on the original Tussauds in-house team that designed and built the 5th Dimension. As an AV technician, I was responsible for many of the special effects on the ride.The ride had great aspirations and design ideas but the storyline was a bit too wordy and the sets were not convincing - you didn't feel as if you were going into another world, it just felt like a load of sets in a metal shed built by humans!Some of the effects were good, though I say it myself! I designed a laser/strobe tunnel (travel through galaxies) which you ascended up through after entering through the computer screen. Steve from the Planetarium designed and built the laser unit which consisted of 20 x 100mW lasers (if my memory serves right) and a massive array of mirrors and servos. These lasers were chosen because they were the only low-powered lasers that you could legally and safely point directly at the public at the time. They also didn't require a massive cooling system which I seem to remember lasers used in those days!Unfortunately, we were installing everything into a cold, dirty industrial environment - not suitable for such delicate equipment! These were pioneering days for us! Needless to say, the laser unit needed nursing and it wasn't clear (certainly to me) how or who had the expertise to undertake the maintenance. This was the same for all the animations, light focussing, etc.A month or so later, a memo went around the studio heads mentioning me in all but name for the ride's failure to meet expectations. It was true that many of the effects needed maintenance (which wasn't happening) but it showed how essential the effects had been.So, I trotted off to see Ray Barrett, who was director responsible for new projects at the time, and said that I would like to go down and sort things out. John Wardley agreed to supervise me, Tussauds put in a further sum of money, and I was very much left to my own devices!I worked very closely with Chessington's resident scenic theming team (who hadn't been involved in the original work). They 'filled' up the scenes to make the sets more encompassing and atmospheric, which I think was successful. We also re-thought through the whole ride, including the script.I cannot stress to you how appalling conditions were working in the cold winter months in a blacked-out unheated barn. It doesn't matter how many floodlights you use in a black box - it's still dark and dangerous!The refurbishments had to be ready for the new season (88?) and we just about completed on time. I kept a small team on to fine-tune the show with the public on the ride, checking timings of all the trains, etc.So. after all the work, was it worth it? The answer, I'm afraid, is probably not really. It was a good ride but in the wrong place at the wrong time and operated by the wrong team! I'll explain:I think we as the designers took short-cuts in creating solutions; unfortunately, we didn't have the resources that Disney would have available for such a dark ride. When you design something new it is always a prototype; ideally the prototype is tested and then re-designed and re-engineered into a final product solution. Unfortunately, we never have that luxury! The problem with the operation of the Fifth Dimension was to do with the fact that it was not really a 'suitable' theme park ride. It was a 'show' and should have been presented as such. As a 'performance artist' I understood this. When I supervised the operation of the re-vamped ride, I would ensure that all visitors were held back and I made sure they listened to the video introduction in the queue area.To assist the operator, the loading bay entrance door, video sequence, trains, special effects were all synchronised to ensure that the visitor's 'experience' was maximised, and a similar experience for each visitor. Under my control, I would insist that every train went into the ride full (try performing to an empty auditorium - it's not fun!). When the trains came out of the ride the visitors would often burst into spontaneous applause!I would train up the operators and explain to them that they were managing a show, a performance, and how important timing and hype was to the 'adventure'. I'd leave them to it and all running to perfection!The next day I would come in and the staff would have changed! Chessington employs 10s of low-paid casual (student) labour over the season, so I realised I had no hope of training them all. Anyway, they didn't work for me and they had other priorities!So, I would come in the next morning and take a test ride. My first observation was that only a few people would be put on the train. The passengers hadn't seen the introduction properly so they had no idea what the ride was about - many thought they were going on a roller coaster (and you couldn't convince them otherwise!). Worse still, the park's ride engineers had been in that morning to inspect the trains, etc, and they would leave a door open somewhere, which would flood a scene with daylight and completely ruin the dramatic effect. [Actually, as a point of interest, it only takes a single LED to ruin the effect of a black-out. Try standing in darkness in a room that has an infrared sensor for the home burglar alarm].And that basically was the problem. It was a theatrical show and should have been conceived and operated as such. And like all shows the balance between brilliance and appallingness is a fine line. The ride part is an irrelevance - it perhaps would have helped to have advertised the 'ride' along the lines of the 'travelling laser theatre show'! Well, the psychology is the hardest part to get right, or perhaps I should say 'communication' is...Dan Longley MBA BA (Hons) MAPMVisiting lecturer in Tourism StudiesBirmingham, UKFrom the depths of archived reride.net. - bring back reride.net !!

Not a program, but if I ever meet that bloke off the Gillette ads that jogs into the locker room, whoops and calls everyone buddy I am going to hurt him. Worst advert ever.

An amazing amount of info you've got on there, gonna take me while to work my way through it all!Already bought back some fantastic memories, had forgotten how the funky old space station zero trains looked, great to see them again. Can't believe how short a period it was there under that guise - seemed to be there forever when I was a kid.Hope the site is the success it deserves to be. Well done!!!

Received my sun tickets today - 04/11/11.Woop!!!Am I right in thinking this date is event no mans land? Fright ends 31st, and I thought blast is 5th & 6th only? Blast dates are not confirmed on the website yet, but the park is open until 20.00hrs on the 4th (same as 5th & 6th) which seems a bit odd for a standard weekday in the off season with nothing going on. Do we 100% know blast dates?

The dates allocated are evenly spread from now till the end of the season, so shouldn't be especially busy.Not recieved mine yet.

.....yetthere's savings to be made in bulk buy - it's only a matter of time!!

Wow, broken kneecaps anyone? You'd think the arms would have something built in to stop collisions between carriages being possible?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-14639954Oh dear.

If it didn't stop at the bottom, which I guess is what generates the fear on here, I'd think you'd have a fairly destroyed nervous system.

Maybe they are talking about...

I obviously don't know but still think a new flume could pay for itself fairly quickly through lower running costs and maintenance with modern technology and new equipment, so there is one big business decision to replace it regardless of how much of an an extra draw it is. I don't think a new flume is SW material, but if SW7 is going in that area it might be a two birds with one stone plan, sort out the whole area out at once.I've never ridden one, but I don't get the aquatrax thing. Looks to me like a fairly crappy coaster built over water, but not interacting with the water in any way. What's the point?

Love the restraints on this, can always have them nice and loose so real floaty time out of seat on the way down. (Don't moan, it's not dangerous. There is no way someone my size is falling out the side!)

A summery tune for a summery day

Why? Simply because every major themepark I can think of has a log flume and so should Alton, and I'm not sure your guess that to make it a reasonable ride would cost less than a rebuild (especially when you factor in the decreased maintenance costs it should save in the long term. It could actually pay for itself fairly quickly). I think it really is that broken and gives an awful ride at the moment.A modern logflume can be a totally different ride to a 20 year old one, depending what they want to do with it. No one thinks it is odd when the same is done with a coaster. I'm quite sure as a one off spend they could have got corkscrew running like new much cheaper than building 13, but they didn't. Because it would have been throwing money at something old and knackered that would doubtless needed a ton of maintenance money every year and not provided anything new to promote. Why could exactly the same thing not happen with a flume?Not saying that is happening, it's just a thought. But I don't see any reason why it shouldn't.

Must agree I think it is well beyond a retheme being worthwhile, it really is a knackered old thing. I just think a logflume is too much of a themepark staple to not be replaced with another one of some sort, hopefully in a way that interacts with whatever SW7 brings, if indeed it is going in that area.

No reports, not nice to think it but does not look good for pilot. There are many eyewitnesses already and I've not heard any mention of an eject, which is loud and obvious if your watching it, so I presume they've gone down with it. Sad.Update: Flt Lt Jon Egging, 33 pilot of Red 4 confirmed dead. Very sad.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-14602900Noooooooooo.Love the Red Arrows, hope this doesn't threaten their future.

Something that size could be amazing, but hugely unlikely simply because that is a heavily protected woodland area. More likely to cover the flume site itself, maybe pushing further up towards Katanga, avoiding all those trees. Unless this is all a red herring in terms of SW7, and merely is a rebuilt / rethemed flume for next year. Surely Alton need a flume ride, they can't just replace it with a coaster and not have one? What's the worlds tallest log flume, and could that be exceeded within Altons planning restrictions?

Love the design of that, diving in towards its own structure after the lift hill. Beautiful.

Buy a bike then?!Big ass trains cost a lot, electricity costs a lot. It's a pain but frankly understandable.

I come home from the pub to this! OMFG. Thoughts...."Would fall within days" ... flume won't even see out the season maybe? Something coming on a scale that will require more than a years worth of site work?I see the Blacks Marauders hint at B+M, but it is not explicit. Lets not forget that there are more than one manufacturer based in Switzerland!!"many of whom have seen the weapon in action first hand". So maybe not quite what we are used to SW wise - something that is based on what already exists elsewhere rather than a 'worlds first'. Or has a prototype been built and viewed by the 'Marauders' who have commissioned the ride.All this reference to 'Black' makes me think there is a link to the 'hole'. Not sure what though. Something new in the tent next year in that somehow links themes towards what's coming the year after on the flume site maybe."Black admits he is unaware of how long long the weapon will take to cross the seas". Maybe a mid season opening? Or why not state to the public it would be a good idea to return in 2013?Can Alton do without a flume ride at all? Or will this be a water coaster that's not as lame as the norm, or maybe a revitalised flume interwoven or somehow duelling with a proper coaster?Whatever it all means someone somewhere deserves some brownie points for this kind of teaser promotion. To say I love it doesn't begin to cover it.

As far as I know the actual tubular track is made in Switzerland, the box section and supports are made in Ohio. The manufactured tubular track is shipped fromSwitzerland to Ohio to be welded to the box sections and painted, then the whole thing along with supports is shipped back over this way to be bolted together. The sections are sent out three up in containers and stay in the container until on site, so it's just going to be on the back of a lorry round the M25 I would think. Can't for the life of me remember where I read this, but it was somewhere reputable and I'm pretty sure I didn't dream it.Seems like an uneconomical bizarre set up to me but it must work or they wouldn't do it. By the time we get it it is one well travelled bit of track!