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The highlight of the IAAPA and the EAS was the prototype of
the X-Car presented by Maurer Söhne. Without
over-the-shoulder restraints, only kept by a completely new
developed, slightly curved restraint in the pelvis area in
combination with a special seat, the visitors of the trade shows
could be put upside-down.
As soon as fall of this year the first delivery on the basis of
the new Xtended series will open at Skyline Park
in southern Germany. The owners, Petra and Joachim Löwenthal,
call it the "highest looping coaster of the world". The
riders are put upside-down in a height of 46 meters, and thanks to
the restraint system for which a patent application has already
been filed a whole new dimension of freedom is achieved.
The heart of the X-Car is the revolutionary X-Seat
that was developed together with TÜV Munich, the Institute
for Ergonomics at the Technical University of Munich
and an engineering office for industrial design. Its special
feature is the ergonomic restraint system. Only equipped with a
lap bar, forces of more than -1g are possible for longer periods.
Due to thorough engineering of the seat arrangement it promises
safe fixing properties for slender children of 120 centimeters
height as well as for adults of up to two meters with larger upper
body dimensions.
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Dr. Alfred Müller shows different compact
layouts at the EAS booth in Paris |
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The new, compact roller coaster at Skyline Park soars
aloft: With 50 meters total height it is going to be the
third-highest steel coaster in Germany.
The Sky Wheel introduces itself as as vertically put up
oval. The Humpty Bump Lift, used by Maurer Söhne
for the first time, vertically pulls up the car to the starting
point using a chain. There the car slowly leaves the lift in an
upside-down (!) orientation, rushes through a heartline spin
and dives towards earth in a vertical, wide 180 degrees turn with
speeds of more than 100 kilometers per hour. The track length is
only 140 meters but the car runs for- and backwards. Skyline
Park expects two additional stages of expansions in the next
few years.
Already at the Euro Amusement Show near Paris
simulations of such compact layouts were shown at the Maurer Söhne
booth. But such a fast implementation could not be expected. So
Sky Wheel is the second surprising novelty in 2004
together with the Motorbike Launch Coaster by Vekoma
for Toverland in the Netherlands.
The opening of the Sky Wheel at Allgäu Skyline
Park near Bad Wörishofen is scheduled for fall.
It will surely be an enrichment for the selection of thrill rides
in the park. The actual eyecatcher is the 90 meters high Sky
Rider.
From our editor Jochen Peschel
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