Battlestar Galactica reopens

Battlestar Galactica reopens

The world's tallest duelling roller-coaster the Battlestar Galactica re-opened on Monday after eleven months of being grounded.

The ride, which is the star attraction of Universal Studios Singapore, was forced to shut down just a week into the opening of the theme park.

Routine tests had detected a fault in one of the seat support structure of the ride, leaving one seat detached from its frame.

The fault was attributed to fatigue cracks detected in a welded component of the seat's support structure, the part which attaches the coaster's seat to its frame.

All welded components for the seats have since been replaced with a new machined part.

Justin Ko, a 24-year-old marketing executive, brought his 61-year-old step father, from Australia to the park.

"I brought him here to try it out, because you know he's all the way from Australia and if a 61-year-old man can take it like I told him, anyone can take it really...anybody," he said.

Another visitor, 22-year-old student Lee Leann, said: "We just planned to come today and we found out it was opened. We are quite excited. We are quite lucky, fortunate that it's today."

Universal Studios Singapore said it took nine months to fully complete testing the ride.

This involved thousands of simulated ride cycles using water dummies and coming up with a revised engineering model using computer simulation and actual on-site conditions.

From the model, engineers came up with a revised design for the ride which was then field tested.

A unit was also sent to Germany and put through an accelerated simulation where engineers simulated the entire lifespan of the equipment.

This is to ensure the revised model met the longevity requirement of the ride.

Donald Maclean, Ride & Show Director with Universal Studios Singapore, said: "It took nine months to complete the process because of the level of due diligence that required and also because of the fact that with the park opened 10 hours a day, our window of opportunity for testing is quite limited in the overnight hours.

"We found that there was one of the welds that was overstressed in actual field operations. Sometimes that happens in theme park rides that new and unique so what we did was we removed that weld and have it replaced with a solid steel machined part and we also added a gusset which was able to provide us with a second load path or some redundancy. That way we were able to ensure that the longevity requirements are met."

Still, not everything went smoothly at the Cylon section of the roller coaster as Channel NewsAsia witnessed guests disembarking just before it took off.

At least three engineers were seen inspecting the ride, which was then put though one more round of cycle test, before guests were again allowed onboard.

Channel NewsAsia understands that a guest had pulled out a camera and the ride was stopped as a safety precaution.

As part of its safety procedures, it is the standard operating procedure for technical crew to check everything when the ride is on an emergency brake. The ride is then tested once more without guests and when it comes back, all safety checks are done again, and guests are allowed onboard.

Universal Studios Singapore did not want to reveal visitor numbers for the day.

Some people Channel NewsAsia spoke to have said that they had put off visiting the theme park for as long as Battlestar Galactica was grounded.

John Hallenbeck, Vice-President of Park Operations with Universal Studios Singapore, said: "We've heard quite a bit that people were waiting for Battlestar Galactica to re-open and it is open now, the park is fully opened and everybody has the opportunity to ride the movies and we're very happy it's back up and running.

"In some regards people thought the park was not fully opened which is not true and now that it is I think we'll see visitorship rise."

Coming attractions for the park includes the Madagascar ride, which will open by the middle of this year and Transformers, which will open early next year.

-News courtesy of Channel Newsasia-