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Sopwith Snipe
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This is my return-from-retirement coaster. I built it in such a way to emulate and honor the aeronautical fights of World War I, and named it Sopwith Snipe, which was a late-era WWI aircraft.
1. A dive was very useful as an evasive maneuver in WWI airfights, or an offensive maneuver by an aircraft at higher elevation and a different angle. As one would infer, a dive increased speed (due to conservation of energy) and bought a fledgling fighter some time to escape.
2. In very early dogfights, the loop was a great defensive maneuver simply because the attacker might not follow. A defender would pull a loop and end up behind the attacker and the roles would switch. Later it was still useful: if a defender's aircraft could climb at a faster rate, and both planes performed a loop, the defender could pull a larger loop than the attacker and therefore, once again, switch roles.
3. For the next element, I am giving tribute to the first well-known ace of the war. German phenom Max Immelmann was regarded as the standard in German WWI flying. He died early in the war with 15 kills (and was the first to achieve Germany's highest aviation honor), and traded off the lead in the ace race with the great Oswald Boelcke until his death in 1916.Immelmann is known as well for his airplane maneuver with the same name. The tactic is as follows: Observe an enemy fighter above and behind you. To engage them, start to pull a loop. At the top of this half loop that you've just done, twist upright. You are now flying directly at your opponent, and this element of surprise alone can give you the upper hand.The roller coaster element is slightly different, as you all know, with a twisting dive instead of a flat inline twist at the top.
4. The lag roll is an offensive fighter maneuver in which the attacker is turning out of sync with the defender, in what's called the lag position (in this situation, the defender is farther along in their curve than the attacker). To correct this, the attacker climbs straight and simultaneously pulls an inline twist to just over halfway, then starts to bank out of the twist in a curve. Because of the climb and the control a pilot has on the rate of roll, he can turn out of this lag roll on the same curvature as the defender and ends up in direct pursuit.
5. When a defender realizes he is in serious danger of being shot by his attacker, his go-to and last-ditch maneuvers include dipping and swerving all over the place so as to evade the line of fire and make it harder for the attacker to get a clear look. Also he can dive down close to the ground to gain speed and do more weaving. That's what this last section will be before the station.
*extra note: all the red track tubing and red 90 degree connectors used on the coaster, intentionally included even though breaking traditional support color schemes, are in honor of the greatest flying ace of the war, or perhaps all time. Manfred Richthofen, better known as the Red Baron.
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fastman xc
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