Funworld February 2008
An X-Treme Experienceby Keith Miller
In the early part of this decade, Maurer Soehne, headquartered in Munich, was looking to develop a new and revolutionary type of roller coaster car, so the company surveyed its two most important constituents to get ideas. “We asked park owners and roller coaster fans what type of car they wanted, and the answer was a very maneuverable car with no shoulder restraints,” says Dr. Alfred Muller, a mechanical engineering Ph.D. who heads up Maurer Soehne’s design team. “Also, they didn’t want four people per row, and they wanted everyone, regardless of the seat they were in, to have the same ride experience.” Of these challenges put to Maurer Soehne by the park and guest surveys, one stood above the rest in terms of complexity and trailblazing innovation. “To develop the restraint system was the biggest challenge,” says Maurer Soehne owner Joerg Beutler, “because it was a totally new thing to do.” ‘X’ Marks the Spot The challenge then was to safely hold riders in place with only a lap restraint system, and be absolutely certain there was no way a rider could slip out.
Horst Ruhe, managing director of Maurer Soehne, says that to answer these questions, one of his company’s first steps in the X-Car development process was to consult experts in ergonomics. “We [involved] an institute for ergonomics at the University of Munich to create seats where people in the smaller range and the taller range can sit and be absolutely safe,” he says. “We tested these rides, together with the TUV Bavaria (a technical services company), with slim, small children, and the results were that the seat was safe for children 1.2 meters (47 inches) for non-inversions and 1.3 meters (51 inches) for inversions.” The testing also revealed that X-Car seats could accommodate riders as tall as 80 inches, and seats for children as short as 43 inches could be made.
This development process was painstaking, and Muller recalls three separate occasions in which the company concluded that there was no solution to the problems they were attempting to overcome. “Then, suddenly each time, a solution would be found,” he says, “and we were very happy. It was a creative process and many ideas were investigated. If a solution didn’t cover the whole range of [requirements], then it wasn’t a solution for us.” Muller points out there’s another component to safe design: “It goes beyond the technical—it also means the ride must ‘feel’ safe—that’s very important. It’s not just about physical safety; it’s mental safety, too.” Triumph and Recognition The company’s solution was to limit the X-Car to two riders abreast in each row and to make the trains consist of only one or two cars with six seats each, although up to four cars could be coupled together. Says Beutler: “This gives it the ability of going through a very small radii of track, allowing much more compact layouts than, for example, [long] trains, and thus gives a unique ride sensation.” Finally, with the X-Car completed, all of the meticulous research and development that went into its creation paid off in the form of numerous awards for its innovative design. It won the Red Dot Design Award in Germany, the IDEA award given by the International Designers Society of America, and the Good Design Award of the Chicago Athenaeum Museum. It also garnered both the Major Theme/Amusement Park Ride/Attraction Award and the Impact Award at IAAPA Attractions Expo 2005. As Maurer Soehne has integrated the X-Car into coaster designs, Ruhe says the recognition has brought invaluable credibility to the product. “It supports our marketing because it’s the proof that the ride has really good feedback,” he says, “and it assists sales activities because customers feel it’s an additional advantage to buy the ride.” X-Car Evolution The second X-Car installation was on the “G-Force” coaster at Drayton Manor in Staffordshire, England, and the third was at Magic Springs in Hot Springs, Arkansas, which marked the X-Car’s first appearance in the United States. The $4 million Magic Springs ride, called the “X-Coaster,” was also marketed as the highest upside-down inversion in the world. The next incarnation involved an “extension” of the X-Car coaster on “Abismo” at Parque de Atracciones in Madrid, Spain. It’s almost 1,000 feet longer than “Sky Wheel” and “X-Coaster,” allowing for four additional ride elements. Maurer Soehne then introduced other variations to the X-Car, including a floorless car and a spinning car. But the latest evolution is a linear-synchronous-motor (LSM) launched version called “Formule X,” which opened last year at Drievliet Family Park in The Hague, the Netherlands. “We felt the LSM launch, as an almost noiseless and maintenance-free propulsion, would be the perfect fit to our X-Car system,” says Beutler. Maurer Soehne wanted to accomplish this while still minimizing the ride’s footprint and cost so a small park could afford it. The result is a 1,165-foot ride that launches from 0 to 43 mph in less than two seconds. This launch is followed by a compact loop, an Immelmann, a sharp Camelback, and finally a half Cuban eight with a heartroll. “We wanted to have a loop, and you have to have a certain amount of power for a loop,” says Piet Faaij, director and owner of Drievliet. “But there’s a [49-foot] height limit here, so we needed a launch.” Faaij notes that the launch also saved the park on electricity demand because Maurer Soehne reduced the number of amps required for the launch. “There’s an energy storage system that reduces the amount of peak power required at launch,” says Muller. “We reduced the peak power requirement by a factor of four.” Faiij says guests have come from Spain, England, and even California to ride the coaster, and they like the mobility the X-Car affords them. “When they get off [the coaster], they talk about how much they like the freedom,” he says. As for what’s next for the X-Car, Beutler says, “A further step of evolvement will be the integration of audio and video, which we presented at IAAPA Attractions Expo 2007. Because the [X-Car] system is modular, it can easily be integrated into different applications on which we are currently working.”
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Following the roller coaster battle of the 1990s and early 2000s in which hundreds of new roller coasters were installed around the world and parks were engaged in a pitched battle to outdo one another and break records, there were few radical and cutting-edge concepts left to accomplish with the current technology that had not already been achieved. But in 2004, there was still one particular design element missing that represented an obstacle not yet conquered, and a German ride company was about to overcome it.
Muller explains that building upon a design that already exists is much easier than doing what Maurer Soehne was trying to do. “We were the first people to do what we were inventing, and that has the much higher level of [difficulty] and requirements than it does for successors,” he says. “We set the [restraint] bar to be the widest possible to accommodate a big man, but that put a great distance between the restraint and a small rider. We had many, many tests with persons small and big, from a 5-year-old to a basketball star—people with big legs and children with thin legs—and they all had to be safe.”
The SkyLoop was first installed in Allgau Skyline Park in Bad Worishofen, Germany, in 2004. Called “Sky Wheel,” the ride’s lift draws a train from the station onto a 90-degree tower, then pulls the train toward an inverted position at the top of the loop until it is completely upside down. The train then enters a roll termed a “360 corkscrew” in which it’s twisted right side up, then upside down again. Finally the train drops through the rest of the loop and back into the station.