Hill

A hill or camelback is an element that travels in a straight line designed to lift riders out of their seats and provide a feeling of weightlessness, commonly known as airtime. It produces negative g-force to achieve the effect. There are multiple versions of the hill, mostly dependent on their size and shape.

Variations

Hill

The hill is one of, if not the oldest coaster element, making it the most used element. This amount of usage grows substantially when you take its variations into account. A hill typically slows the train down substantially due to its size, and quickly drops the train back down, delivering airtime to its riders. Sitting in the back of a train often enhances this feeling, due to the front of the train already dropping off the hill while the back is still cresting its top, pulling the back over faster.

Bunny hill

The bunny hill is similar to the hill, but does feature differences; it usually doesn't slow down the train as much due to it being smaller in size. Bunny hills also tend to be placed back to back in a coaster layout, but they can also appear on their own. It is possible for a bunny hill to be bigger than a normal hill in the same layout, that depends on its placement along the course, a bunny hill just after the first drop can be larger than a hill later in the layout. This is because the train lost some speed by the time that it reaches the normal hill, and as mentioned earlier, hills slow the train down substantially while bunny hills do not.

Micro bunny hill

The micro bunny hill is a variation of the bunny hill. The term was coined by Rocky Mountain Construction and gets used frequently by them. It has been used before but went unnamed. A micro bunny hill is, as the name suggests, a very small bunny hill. It is usually placed early on in the layout, typically right after the first drop. They are also often used in small pre-lift sections, but feel drastically different due to the train going slowly over them in these sections.

Twisted hill

The twisted hill or twisted airtime hill is a variation on the normal hill. Its main difference is that, unlike the hill, this version is not straight. This element can start and/or end with an upwards/downwards banked curve, resulting in both side-to-side forces and airtime at the peak. These hills are often found on wooden coasters by Great Coasters International.

Off Axis hill

The off axis hill is a small hill that is banked to the left or right at the apex, delivering laterals a well as airtime. This type of hill is most commonly used by Rocky Mountain Construction and Intamin. It is similair to the Outward banked airtime hill, but doesn't change direction; it stays in a straight line.

Turnaround hill

A turnaround hill is esentially a moment during a ride where the train makes a turn. This turn is raised up in the air, similair to a Horseshoe and Over-banked curve but it lacks the extreme banking. It is most commonly seen on wooden roller coasters.

Images

External links

  • Hill on the Roller Coaster DataBase.


Thrill elements