Tornado Loopers

[Tyler Bannowsky]

Ihave noticed that the style of Arrow's track has changed over the years. From Matterhorn to Tennessee Tornado, there have been a lot of changes. For the most part, Arrow track is the same on all of their coasters - excluding 4th Dimension and supended. Peopl have mentioned how smooth TT is, and I wondered if it had to due with the track, and how it is different from all the other Arrow loopers. Here are some examples of the track changes that Arrow has made. Matterhorn track at Disneyland: =1 Gold Rusher at Six Flags Magic Mountain. Notice how the track doesn't meet in the center at a tubular spine: =1 Magnum XL 200 at Cedar Point. This is the style at track that was used on most Arrow hyper and Multi-Looping coasters: =6 Desperado at Buffalo Bill's Resort and Casino. Notice how the track is different than Magnum's. Pepsi Max Big One at Blackpool Pleasue Beach also has this style of track: =8 Viper at Six Flags Magic Mountain has the same track style as Magnum XL 200: =4 Tennesse Tornado has a different track style from all of Arrow's other roller coasters: =4 -----------------

Intelligence is a God given gift: Know how to use it. All styles are virtually the same, however, their bending techniques have improved with age so they can make a rounder sort of style. You can run a Viper train on Tenn Tornado if you wish...its the same gauge and precision. Tenn Tornado is the best Arrow Looper hands down. Why? The computer technology the are using now allows better bending techniques, They had this technology 10 years ago, but Toomer was reluctant to upgrade Arrows systems. Agreed John. The ties are spaced differently depending on the part of the coaster you are at. this creates most of the differences you see. -----------------

All I need is 4.5 million bucks and a half a mile long sliver of land and maybe someone could build me my very own Shivering Timbers. ;) A bit about the Mine Train track example. Gemini and Cedar Creek Mine Ride at Cedar Point have the same track as the Gold Rusher. The only difference is that the Gold Rusher has a system of spines that serves the same purpose as the wooden structure used on the CP mine rides. You can see here that the ties have their own support. I'm guessing that since the GR goes in and around the hill in the middle of SFMM, a shorter support system to minimize structure and cost and it was determined that a double spine would be the best way to implement it. However, you can see in this picture that Arrow used a Magnum style track design on the mine train at SFGAdv. Aren't mine trains cool?? :) -----------------

Scott W. Short

sc...@midwestcoastercentral.com

Arrow's wild mouse coaster at Michigan's Adventure is smooth and it uses a completely different type of track. I think that it was upper management having too much a hand in design than old computers in older Arrows' roughness. Ron and some others probably wanted everything done a certain style and there was probably little disagreement toward him, because he ran the company. in fact, I recall him saying that he didn't even ride his coasters (probably not always this way, but years toward his retirement). As for smoothness, you need not look further than Schwarzkopf designs for proof that lack of technology was cause for roughness. Most of those designs were probably drawn out longhand with a set of french curves, calculators and slide rules, and a small army of engineers working together to get everything done. Much like Arrow, but the results were very different. TT was such a nice change for them. Why did they use the exact same loops (isn't it 40 foot vertical and 24 ft rad. screw?) for 20+ years? Lazyness? They already had those engineered from '76 and just did the math to see how high it had to go? I just don't understand why. For me, that's a big reason TT is so much smoother, they finally got unstuck out of their cookie cutter loops, and lame transitions to connect them. (I always had this vision of old arrow coasters being contstructed this way: They just took some of their stock loops out of their storage, erected them, and went and found pieces of track that would connect them :) ) I love TT (Just rode it for the first time last month) I hope whatever form Arrow continues in will further their progress. -----------------

- Peabody

De tornado loopers zijn de nieuwe fidget toys! Draai de knikkers in hoepeltjes en zorg dat hij er niet uitvalt. Bij deze fidgets heb je een hoop concentratie en doorzettingsvermogen nodig. Daag je vrienden uit en win de mini-games!

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Recently, Intamin coasters like Maverick, Stormrunner, and Fahrenheit have added soft restraints to prevent pain from headbanging. Would it be possible to do the same for Arrow loopers? I've only ridden Maverick with new restraints, but I was able to let go of the restraint and put my hands up without any problems. I'd love to ride Arrow loopers without being subjected to painful headbanging.

Anyway, i think it's a good idea. But the fundamental "problem" (and I use that word loosely and subjectively) with Arrow loopers is in the physical track itself. Even with new trains, the jarring ride would still be the same. Probably less head-banging as a result, though, which would be nice. Maybe new, more comfortable trains with on-board audio would justify calling it a variation of "Vortex 2" and make it marketable as a significant change to the ride.

I can't think of an Arrow looper that has had it done. I know Vekoma has been outfitting their own designs (both Boomerangs and full circuit looping coasters) with new trains, but they have slightly different designs so they may not work on Arrows. The only 2 Arrow coasters that had slightly different sit down train designs are Canyon Blaster in Vegas and BGW's Drachen Fire.

^Partially true, but Vekoma looks like they took Arrow's track designs and smoothened them out (like on Vekoma's clones of Carolina Cyclone). I'm not sure the new Vekoma stock can take and/or the forces on riders would be different on the sharper corners and transitions on Arrows.

Arrow manufactured Vekoma designed in the United States, Vekoma manufactured Arrow designs in Europe at one point. To my knowledge some of the early Boomerangs(like the one at Knotts) had both the track and trains made by Arrow. The Bat at Canada's Wonderland has an Arrow train.

Just noting that Arrow's track changed over the years, I read on a old CoasterBuzz topic that you can Id Vekoma track by two bolts just outside the rail. Well, Arrow done it too....here is the proof.

From what I understand Arrow wanted Vekoma to be their European distributor. Not wanting to ship track from the US to Europe they sent personal to Europe who spent several months training Vekoma how to build Arrow track. After Arrow had spent considerable money and time training Vekoma, they basically decided that they could handle the design of the coasters themselves and went into competition with Arrow.

It was nearly nine years ago on April 27 that our house was destroyed while we were in it. Watching the recent tornado videos and the radar tracking on the news channels brought back some very bad memories.

We were praying that the tornadoes would miss our rebuilt home in Mayflower. Ultimately, I watched one storm cell pass to our north on the opposite side of the river, and another pass to our south and east. They were clearly visible from our front windows and back porch.

The proximity was unnerving. The tornado that hit us in 2014 took out our home and 34 other houses in our neighborhood. It was an EF4 that was three-quarters of a mile wide and stayed on the ground for 27 miles, plowing up a lot of property until it lifted somewhere on the other side of Vilonia.

I used to be somewhat blas about tornadoes. In fact, I was nonchalantly mixing a cocktail a few minutes before it hit us. The weather forecaster was showing the storm on radar and describing the "hook" of a possible tornado, but he mistakenly identified its path as "nearing Plantation Acres." We live in the River Plantation south of Mayflower, and I knew that Plantation Acres is a subdivision in southwest Little Rock. However, it was clear from the radar that this possible tornado was nearing our area.

I put down my glass and leashed our Labrador, thinking we might have a brief stay in the closet before an all-clear. I took him in the front yard to pee. Across the street one of our neighbors was standing in his yard and shouted, "There it is! Tornado!"

I looked across the river (about a half-mile away) and saw the biggest, blackest cloud I'd ever seen, right on the ground, kicking up debris. I herded Zeke into the house and yelled for my wife to get in our front closet. I set my drink down on a desk and pulled the dog in, closing the closet door behind me.

Sitting down, Ina said, "I think we're going to die." The dog was shivering because he could hear the storm noise much more clearly than I could. I replied, "Not our day to die, dear." I was still confident it would miss us.

About 30 seconds later there was a loud roaring and the sound of crashing. Then it was over. I waited a bit and opened the closet door. The first thing I saw was broken glass everywhere. Every single window in our house had imploded. We had to leave the poor dog in the closet because the glass would have shredded his paws. He was terrified.

I was in shock. Ina was crying. The sun was going down, so I located a flashlight and started looking for better shoes since I had on sandals. Our beautiful new sunroom, added the previous year, was totally collapsed. Our roof was gone. A 2-by-4 had impaled a wall in our living room. There was dirt, sheetrock particles, and insulation on everything.

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