Jim Hill Luigi's Tire Article

[chesirecat]

Thought I'd post a link to a Jim Hill Media article which discusses the Luigi's tire ride,

jimhillmedia.com/editor_in_chief1/b/jim_hill/archive/2012/09/03/why-for-are-the-ride-vehicles-for-luigi-s-flying-tires-being-retooled.aspx"]Why For are the ride vehicles for Luigi's Flying Tires being retooled

One thing Jim got sorta glossed over was the real reason behind the removal of the "20 lbs" of unneeded equipment in the tire. I've been told that the removal of 20 lbs. will really help the ride because al lot of this weight is in the bottom of the tire, lowering the center of gravity of the tire, hence making it harder to "tilt". Being able to tilt the tire a good degree allows the tire to move faster along the floor, so while removing 20 lbs of weight will make the tires slightly faster, the real reason is that it will raise the center of gravity of the tire + guests and make them a whole lot easier to speed up via "tilting."

Just rode the ride last week and had a fun time, maybe I got one of the new more maneuverable tires ;-).

I also posted a link to my trip report below with some mildly disturbing pics at the end which show some problems with park upkeep, maybe Micechat needs a permanent upkeep thread w/ pics?


Chesirecat trip report link: http://micechat.com/forums/disneylan...wald-ears.html

[techskip]

Re: Jim Hill Luigi's Tire Article

I still don't understand why they didn't learn from the old design. The old design alternated, loading one, running the other. In that way CM's could get Guests in the queue loaded in an efficient manner while other Guests enjoyed their ride.

The other annoyance is bulk. Weight was one of the primary reasons the old saucers didn't work. If you were a kid, great you floated, if you were an adult... good luck. KNOWING that the population today is... larger... I'm surprised they didn't do everything possible to slim down the tire. It's the same concept as a racecar. Strip it down to the basics of what is needed, add in safety, and then figure out how to dress it all up without adding weight. Saying "we left 20lbs worth of crap in there" tells they didn't learn from the past.

[chesirecat]

Re: Jim Hill Luigi's Tire Article

I still don't understand why they didn't learn from the old design. The old design alternated, loading one, running the other. In that way CM's could get Guests in the queue loaded in an efficient manner while other Guests enjoyed their ride.

The other annoyance is bulk. Weight was one of the primary reasons the old saucers didn't work. If you were a kid, great you floated, if you were an adult... good luck. KNOWING that the population today is... larger... I'm surprised they didn't do everything possible to slim down the tire. It's the same concept as a racecar. Strip it down to the basics of what is needed, add in safety, and then figure out how to dress it all up without adding weight. Saying "we left 20lbs worth of crap in there" tells they didn't learn from the past.

I take it the old design had two different tire areas, and that they load each one independent of the other. It would sure cut the wait time in half if they duplicated the flotation/ride area, sort of like how Mater is setup. I rode Luigi's early in the morning, not sure how long the lines are running, but maybe when things calm down it will only be a 15-20 minute wait, or something similar to teacups.

[Rave]

Re: Jim Hill Luigi's Tire Article

I take it the old design had two different tire areas, and that they load each one independent of the other. It would sure cut the wait time in half if they duplicated the flotation/ride area, sort of like how Mater is setup. I rode Luigi's early in the morning, not sure how long the lines are running, but maybe when things calm down it will only be a 15-20 minute wait, or something similar to teacups.

I've always thought it would be smart and more efficient to have a bar that spans the short side of the rectangular platform. As it swings across the platform from left to right, it frees up space to all the tires on the left and pushes the tires on the right closer together where they can more easily be accessed to load unload. Once the right side is loaded, the bar swings back to the left releasing the right tires and bunching up the left.

It just seems foolish that the entire system has to be loaded at one time.

[tech4all]

Re: Jim Hill Luigi's Tire Article

I take it the old design had two different tire areas, and that they load each one independent of the other. It would sure cut the wait time in half if they duplicated the flotation/ride area, sort of like how Mater is setup. I rode Luigi's early in the morning, not sure how long the lines are running, but maybe when things calm down it will only be a 15-20 minute wait, or something similar to teacups.

Honestly after going on that ride, it's not even worth a five minute wait. In it's current form the ride a failure. Maybe we had a bad tire or something, but we moved maybe five feet the entire 'ride.' Either fix the ride or take it out. Nice idea, horrible implementation.

[bfdf55]

Re: Jim Hill Luigi's Tire Article

Honestly after going on that ride, it's not even worth a five minute wait. In it's current form the ride a failure. Maybe we had a bad tire or something, but we moved maybe five feet the entire 'ride.' Either fix the ride or take it out. Nice idea, horrible implementation.

Personally, I just hate the HUGE tires. The original Flying Saucers were smaller, one person vehicles that were a lot easier to maneuver. I hope the redesign the current ride to provide smaller tires. Of course, given the air-hockey type system, the limited amount of air available per vehicle (and NOT WASTED in non vehicle areas) may not be enough to lift a smaller vehicle.

While the original Flying Saucers had problems, the system was technologically superior to the air-hockey system, as ALL the air produced went ONLY to lift the saucers. While it would probably have been more costly to develop an enhanced and superior version of the original, I think the long term costs (half dozen huge fan systems constantly running and wasting 80-90% of the air produced) will be more.

[JMazz]

Re: Jim Hill Luigi's Tire Article

I call BS on Mr. Hill's Ron Dominguez story about leaving the queue!