12 minutes ago, LovinMeSomeBanshee said:

And the Eiffel Tower also sits at a higher elevation than where Orion will sit.  The top of the Eiffel Tower will still be noticeably taller than Orion's lift hill.

How much taller? Will Diamondback look taller?

Is there one piece of track installed in the maintenance shed closest to the crane??

Wish they'd put a cam on FOF's roof

9 minutes ago, sikkinixx99 said:

Is there one piece of track installed in the maintenance shed closest to the crane??

Wish they'd put a cam on FOF's roof

I don't think so.  I think we only have the one piece of track installed so far. White crane is bringing pieces of transfer / station  floor and metal up. No track work at this time.

26 minutes ago, Hawaiian Coasters 325 said:

How much taller? Will Diamondback look taller?

Orion will definitely look taller than Diamondback.

3 minutes ago, Beast Night Rider said:

Orion will definitely look taller than Diamondback.

Agreed its going to look a lot taller imo.

15 minutes ago, Beast Night Rider said:

Orion will definitely look taller than Diamondback.

Are you sure since Diamondback from the top platform doesn't imo look that much shorter than the ET and both sit on a higher elevation than Orion.

So I played around with an elevation finder site (not sure how accurate it is), and I got the following sea level elevations for various locations in the park:

Eiffel Tower:  751.3 feet

Orion Station:  738.2 feet (I believe the blueprints said 740?  So very close..)

Directly below Orion lift hill:  728.3 feet

Directly below Diamondback lift hill:  754.6 feet

So with Diamondback's lift hill (230 feet) sitting on ground 26 feet taller than Orion's (287 feet tall), Orion should "appear" to be about 31 feet taller than Diamondback from somewhere such as the Eiffel Tower's observation deck.  It should be fairly noticeable, but not a huge difference.

Or another way to put it:  From the top of Diamondback's lift hill, looking straight over to Orion's lift hill, Orion should appear 31 feet taller.

9 minutes ago, LovinMeSomeBanshee said:

So I played around with an elevation finder site (not sure how accurate it is), and I got the following sea level elevations for various locations in the park:

Eiffel Tower:  751.3 feet

Orion Station:  738.2 feet (I believe the blueprints said 740?  So very close..)

Directly below Orion lift hill:  728.3 feet

Directly below Diamondback lift hill:  754.6 feet

So with Diamondback's lift hill (230 feet) sitting on ground 26 feet taller than Orion's (287 feet tall), Orion should "appear" to be about 31 feet taller than Diamondback from somewhere such as the Eiffel Tower's observation deck.  It should be fairly noticeable, but not a huge difference.

Or another way to put it:  From the top of Diamondback's lift hill, looking straight over to Orion's lift hill, Orion should appear 31 feet taller.

What about looking at DB from Orion's lift hill? Should we be able to notice Orion being higher than DB?

5 minutes ago, Hawaiian Coasters 325 said:

What about looking at DB from Orion's lift hill? Should we be able to notice Orion being higher than DB?

Yep, it'd be the opposite.  Diamondback would look 31 feet shorter than Orion from the top of Orion's lift hill.

Ok this is the best I could do with what the lift could look like from the tower. This is definetly not accurate since I couldn't really see the base of lift footer on here since it is behind a tree and it is hard to see some footers on the webcam, but here is my best shot.

 

^ Orion's lift hill should be approximately 3.25X the height of The Racer's lift hills.  According to Wikipedia (I know, I know), Flight of Fear's main building is 110 feet tall, so Orion should appear 2.6 times taller than it.  This is probably pretty close.

Just drove past csf and there are only about 9 pieces of track visible at the plant, that counts the 4 pieces on the two trailers

It appears they are about to hoist the track piece that's been on the ground for the last couple of days into its spot.  But then again, we thought that yesterday too.  LOL

Edit:  I guess it's not happening today.  It appears they're all leaving for the day.  Although I guess I thought they always retracted the booms on the cranes when they leave for the day, and they haven't yet.  Who knows.

38 minutes ago, LovinMeSomeBanshee said:

It appears they are about to hoist the track piece that's been on the ground for the last couple of days into its spot.  But then again, we thought that yesterday too.  LOL

Edit:  I guess it's not happening today.  It appears they're all leaving for the day.  Although I guess I thought they always retracted the booms on the cranes when they leave for the day, and they haven't yet.  Who knows.

Yeah, this is almost exactly the same position they were in yesterday, and I thought for sure they were gonna hoist a track piece into place... so who knows. 

10 minutes ago, CedarIslander said:

Yeah, this is almost exactly the same position they were in yesterday, and I thought for sure they were gonna hoist a track piece into place... so who knows. 

I hope it goes up tomorrow. And I hope we will see more supports going up.

1 hour ago, Hawaiian Coasters 325 said:

Ok this is the best I could do with what the lift could look like from the tower. This is definetly not accurate since I couldn't really see the base of lift footer on here since it is behind a tree and it is hard to see some footers on the webcam, but here is my best shot.

 

haha dont worry it looks better than mine xD

1 hour ago, LovinMeSomeBanshee said:

Edit:  I guess it's not happening today.  It appears they're all leaving for the day.  Although I guess I thought they always retracted the booms on the cranes when they leave for the day, and they haven't yet.  Who knows.

They are still there. If they leave that white crane wouldn't still be up. They lower the boom  when they are done for the day.

 

Unless its holding something in place.

It appears they are about to hoist the track piece that's been on the ground for the last couple of days into its spot.  But then again, we thought that yesterday too.  LOL
Edit:  I guess it's not happening today.  It appears they're all leaving for the day.  Although I guess I thought they always retracted the booms on the cranes when they leave for the day, and they haven't yet.  Who knows.

They don’t usually retract cranes at the end of the day. They are designed to hold the pressure even when the crane is off. If you come in the next day and the boom has retracted or dropped, you know there is a problem already.

The only times they put stuff down is when high winds or severe storms could be coming through. The bigger the crane, the more it takes to get the boom up and down. Straight out horizontal is the most stress and bend you can get in a crane.

Aerial fire trucks are essentially built the same way as cranes, just designed for people.

2 minutes ago, fyrfyter said:

 

 

They don’t usually retract cranes at the end of the day. They are designed to hold the pressure even when the crane is off. If you come in the next day and the boom has retracted or dropped, you know there is a problem already.

The only times they put stuff down is when high winds or severe storms could be coming through. The bigger the crane, the more it takes to get the boom up and down. Straight out horizontal is the most stress and bend you can get in a crane.

Aerial fire trucks are essentially built the same way as cranes, just designed for people.

 

Well watching the cam these past days they have lowered the booms. That being said it seems to be strapped up and holding that track section in place. Unless I am seeing things. Also there seems to be no one around so there is that as well.

@fyrfyter is correct. Also one reason they have the cranes as close as possible to the ride location, is because the further away from the machine you are, the weight capacity drops. Say, 20 feet in front of the machine, 300 feet up, the capacity would be 30k lbs. But, if you go another 20 feet out, at 300 feet up, you may only have a capacity of 25k lbs. Obviously, the numbers arent exact, but its shows what he is talking about. 

I get that, but for the last 4 days, the booms have been lowered at night, like clockwork, just before leaving for the day.  But not today.

1 hour ago, LovinMeSomeBanshee said:

^ Orion's lift hill should be approximately 3.25X the height of The Racer's lift hills.  According to Wikipedia (I know, I know), Flight of Fear's main building is 110 feet tall, so Orion should appear 2.6 times taller than it.  This is probably pretty close.

FWIW, here are some aerial shots of Fury 325 and Intimidator 232 from Carowind's Skytower. The Skytower is 262 ft for reference, but when riding Timmy, you can't really look back and see Fury's lift hill due to the angle but when you are riding Fury and look over at Timmy, they don't seem that much different in height even tho stats confirm that you are actually 93 feet higher than Timmy. Not sure how far above sea level the park is but that area just south of Charlotte is very flat. The only hill I can recall in the park is over by Afterburn and its not that much of a grade to impact height. In any case, here are the pics for reference.

 

Source: http://coastertalknobszone.blogspot.com/2018/06/carowinds-trip-report-and-construction.html

and Swampfoxer on Flickr: 

 

they have def left white crane up its holding something I think I can see the straps. I would bet they will lift it in place tomorrow.

1 hour ago, LovinMeSomeBanshee said:

I get that, but for the last 4 days, the booms have been lowered at night, like clockwork, just before leaving for the day.  But not today.

I believe the confusion is coming from the terminology. The past few days, the booms have been retracted, not “lowered”. I know it seems like a picky detail, but in this case, it does matter. 

1 hour ago, sixohdieselrage said:

@fyrfyter is correct. Also one reason they have the cranes as close as possible to the ride location, is because the further away from the machine you are, the weight capacity drops. Say, 20 feet in front of the machine, 300 feet up, the capacity would be 30k lbs. But, if you go another 20 feet out, at 300 feet up, you may only have a capacity of 25k lbs. Obviously, the numbers arent exact, but its shows what he is talking about. 

Having designed cranes of this type (although not this size), I can say that these cranes capacities are more about the ft-lb rating than the lifting capacity, which is what is discussed above. 

Here is my best shot of what it could look like walking up to the park with Orion's lift hill. This pic was taken by my father on Passholder preview night 2017!

 

6 minutes ago, Hawaiian Coasters 325 said:

Here is my best shot of what it could look like walking up to the park with Orion's lift hill. This pic was taken by my father on Passholder preview night 2017!

 

I think that's way too tall for the skyline.  Remember that's it's way, way back in the back of the park.

1 hour ago, Born_in_'72 said:

Having designed cranes of this type (although not this size), I can say that these cranes capacities are more about the ft-lb rating than the lifting capacity, which is what is discussed above. 

I'm very aware of how these cranes operate. I have two uncles who are both certified to run every type of crane there are. What I stated above were exactly what both of them said. 

Well we expect something like 'Clifford the Big Red Crane'  for the upper lifts of the ride track.

It seems to me that they attached catwalks to that piece of track laying on the ground.