A.J.
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Posts posted by A.J.
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That signature attraction addition will usually bring in a huge season for any park, but the long term success of that park depends on how the park can continue to provide excellent guest service and continue to upgrade it's infrastructure to support large crowds brought in by new rides. In other words, the saying, "If you build it, they will come" is one of the most annoying things anyone can say to me in this industry, because that quote is usually made on the basis of a large coaster or something on similar scale is the sole key to any long term growth for a park. Go ahead and build those towering coasters, but make sure your park is ready or you will pay the consequences.
Six Flags Ohio and Six Flags America both come to mind here. They spent a crazy amount of cash in the late 90s and early 2000s putting in several coasters at a time, and then - drought. The buzz died off and, well, the rest is history.
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Very simple.
Just go to RCDB and you'll know it.
Not so simple - How about the St. Louis Ninja OR...the Crazy [sex Drug] Roller Coaster in China? Those two were started by Arrow and finished by Vekoma. Sounds like your worst nightmare, yeah?
Al all seriousness though, I would say that you look at the trains first. If the trains are Arrow trains, look at the supports. If there aren't any lattice supports, you've got yourself a Vekoma.
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One year at Hersheypark - I think it was 2010 - I rode Lightning Racer multiple times in the pouring rain. It was brilliant.
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I think you'd be "ok" counting it again!
Twenty-four times.
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It's getting easier to tell what rides are Vekomas now because they're starting to use a new track design.
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Another question - in NoLimits 2, are we able to extract information about points, control points and rolls (EDIT: Heartline too)? I've been trying to do this in NoLimits so I can produce a bezier curve in Maya or Rhino so I can create my own custom track spine and it hasn't been working correctly because I can't seem to translate the roll.
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Wild Chipmunk at Lakeside, if you could even call it a station.
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^Dave said it best: there is no one thing that will ensure a parks success and allow it to continue to grow. It all depends on the market and managements ability to understand that market.
To add to this, the stuff that makes a park grow in Pennsylvania will be different from the stuff that makes a park grow in Missouri.
I also agree with Dave. Stuff for enthusiasts should merely be the cherry on top of a massive milkshake. Besides, if you're as much of an enthusiast as you say you are, you'd be able to have fun at any park in the world regardless of whether or not they are "nice to the enthusiasts".
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As for an actual ride modification, I would love to see an S&S space shot with seats that flip. I feel like they were experimenting with that at some point, or at least tilting seats, but I don't think 360 degree rotation has ever been done.
In the early 2000s they slapped 45-degree tilting seats on Volcanic Impact at Fantasy Island in the UK. I'm pretty sure that the seats stopped actually tilting several years ago.
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Eh, I always extend my legs out on inverted coasters anyway...
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but in at Pittsburgh, out from Philly SOUNDS like a good plan, since we can rent the car in Pittsburgh and return it in Philly too!
thanks to everyone for the suggestions so far. I was considering two days at Knoebel's but wasn't sure if there was enough there that we'd want to spend two full days. . .but if the park is beautiful at night, we'd definitely stay until closing.
In that case, I would go Kennywood > Knoebels > Hersheypark with whichever other parks in between. Philadelphia is an easy drive from the Harrisburg/Hershey area, just hop on I-76 or US-30/202 and away you go.
Regarding Knoebels at night - you could spend the say driving there and show up in the evening, ride some stuff at night, and then spend a full day there the next day. Knoebels' pay-one-price offers a discounted sundown plan after 5:00 PM. Hersheypark also has (like Larry mentioned) a Preview Plan where you can be admitted into the park for free after a certain time (dependent on the day) if you have a ticket for admission the next day.
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We don't see many new Top Spins being built anymore, we just see 'em being removed all over the place.
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You can get from one side of Pennsylvania to the other in about four hours of "normal" highway driving. But obviously the places you want to go aren't in a line.
One route that I would consider is as follows - fly into Williamsport Regional (IPT) and drive to Knoebels (~45min on I-180, I-80, PA-54 and PA-487). After a day or two there, drive to Hersheypark (~1 hr 15min on PA-54, PA-901, I-81 and PA-743) and spend your days there. Then drive to Kennywood (~3 hr 30 min on US-322, I-70/76), spend your day there and fly out of Pittsburgh International (PIT).
On that particular route, you could detour up I-99 one day and hit up the two parks in Altoona, Delgrosso's and Lakemont, before going to Pittsburgh on US-22.
OR...you could fly into Allentown (ABE) and go to Dorney Park. From there, you go Knoebels > Hersheypark > Kennywood.
OR OR...you could fly into Pittsburgh first and do the route in reverse.
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The Gardaland Aggiornamenti fansite has posted this (EDIT: False) elevation view of the new Dive Machine on their Facebook page.
I'm not sure I like this. At the first glance it looked like more track was made up of the station/lift/brakes than actual gravity-driven track. It isn't, but it still looks incredibly short.
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Only problem is that none of those are in the U.S.
Well, that isn't necessarily B&M's problem, now, is it? They don't tell the parks what coasters to purchase, the park tells B&M what they want - and right now the United States is in the age of Wing Coasters. I'm sure it will pass eventually.
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Kentucky Rumbler
I would disagree with that. It's good to see small parks get medium-sized coasters every once in a while.
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I may be in the minority here, but I don't think that Jack Rabbit or Thunderbolt should count here.
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^And according to popular consensus, you'll probably be disappointed.
Says who? Popular consensus is not always the same as my opinion. If that were true, El Toro would be my #1 wooden coaster, which it isn't.
As a big fan of Silver Bullet (probably considered one of the "tamest" B&M's from what I hear), I don't need extreme forces to make a ride fun. It is a variety of the elements on the ride, surroundings, among others.That's why I like Talon so much. It flies over the queue, swoops over the entrance while people look on in fear, "kicks" the people watching from behind the fence near Wildwater Kingdom - and it does it all so gracefully.
Keep in mind that my favorite inverted coaster is Alpengeist though.
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I think it's a great idea to use Super Wirbel's corkscrew for theming. The coaster track that makes up Thorpe Park's entrance looks really good.
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You could also use Blender. It's free and super-powerful but a little unintuitive (in my opinion). There are lots of open-source extensions available for Blender, including one for OBJ export. http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Import-Export/Wavefront_OBJ
Don't expect object creation to be super-easy. The free version of Sketchup only goes so far.
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Do Maverick and Outlaw Run have a lot of positive G force like Batman? No. Do a lot of people rank it higher than most or all B&Ms? Yes. The problem is about the creativity and uniqueness. It seems like B&M stopped creating new things from a long time ago already.
Have you not seen Heide Park's new coaster, Flying Over the Rainforest, Hair Raiser, Sky Scrapper/Ripper, Oziris or the Gardaland Raptor? Those layouts are absurdly creative and I want to ride every one of them.
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I don't dislike any B&M coasters at all. In fact, the thing that I like about the "new-school" B&Ms is that they're incredibly re-rideable.
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It's for a computer project A.J. In the project you have to pretend you have a business and stuff and I'm doing like a coaster manufacturer company thing so....does that answer your question?
Yes, it does.
Best Ride and Coaster Names
in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
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You spelled it wrong. Three "o"s.