Actually, I believe it is attached to the gray arm on the left of the disk and the green lift is merely holding up the cables to keep them out of the way. Great photos! Thanks!
^ I kinda disagree that a track refurb would have taken more time then rebuilding the entire ride from scratch. But hey.
It really comes down to how and where the track would be refurbished. If it was sent back to Ohio, they would have to be a lot more careful dismantling it, then you have the time to ship it plus the actual time to refurbish the track and I have no idea how long that could take. Construction of the new track could have begun well before a single piece was removed.
I'm no expert but that's just my 2 cents.
Seeing how they did things with cutting the track and supports from the footers, I'm not even sure that removing the track for a refurb was an option. If they had to cut the things free from the footers rather than unbolting them, there was not going back with the same pieces. It also explains why they didn't just try and sell the thing to another park. For whatever reason, there was no removing it without destroying it.
Selling Hulk was never an option. The launch system design is not owned by B&M or Universal, so it would be another legal hoop to jump through.
...Besides the fact that Hulk is deeply integrated with the elevation changes its environment. Pretty much what I'm trying to say is the customer's location would need to be an exact copy of the elevation at IOA. Most coasters that get resold are the Six Flags variety where they are traditional chain lift style and sit on flat terrain.
One last thing - Teebin - right on about Sapphire. EE is coming to the entire park (not just HP) for onsite guests, which means Hulk will start cycling about 5:30 AM.
.Who owns the launch then?
I don't think variations in the land elevation would really make a difference as extending the supports would be pretty easy. Most of Orlando is pretty flat anyway as it's mostly just swamp land so I assume there isn't a great difference in elevation in the Hulk.
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MTS Systems owns the launch system. It's licensed to Universal.
Raise the supports and you have to recalculate the stress loads on each support. This was a coaster designed to only ever be in one place.
My word. What are they up too?
It's almost like they reached the conclusion we did a while ago. "How in the heck was this core drilling ever going to work?"
At this point it looks like they have given up on reusing the existing upper sections of the footers and are just going to take it back down to the base footer and repour the upper sections.
Unless they do things differently in Florida(which I know it is somewhat different, but not drastically different), they would have been poured originally with a large underground section with rebar sticking out of it first, then formed up to pour the upper section with the mounting bolts. It looks like they are just returning it back to that mid point. It's possible that they key the footer to make a more physical bond, but there is no way to tell from the picture.Yeah, but repouring the upper sections just won't be strong enough despite the rebar I don't think. If they core down into the earth then they are going to end up in watery sand. Can concrete be poured into water? Would it cure properly?