CoryPa77

I went back and found an old article I had from when it opened. It did have a single lap bar it's first year, and then in 1993 they switched to individual lap bars and added head rests. I'm sure they added the headrests to try and tame the whiplash, probably to buy them enough time before the big re-design in 1994. Either way, these are some great pictures!

I know they changed the trains on the Rattler in 1993 and added head rests and I was thinking individual lap bars. Are there any pics or does anyone know if it actually had a single position (buzz bar?) bar when it first opened in 1992? That would have been even more incredible, going down that first drop with those types of restraints. I rode it in 1993 and remember it wanting to smash my head into the front of the car at the bottom of the hill unless I kept my head back against the head rest.

Does this officially make The Voyage the longest single lift wooden coaster in the world and also El Toro the tallest wooden coaster in the world?

I know some people say the only thing interesting to them would be to go into the "big building" (VAB), but the Saturn V rocket (moon rocket) is incredible to see I think. The rocket is 350 feet tall and to think a 35 story structure lifted off, 40 years ago, to the moon is just amazing to me. Not to mention, the Shuttle is the probably the most advanced piece of engineering hardware ever built. Although, I'll admit, if you're not into engineering, space, or science, the tour's probably not going to be worth it for you. Still, considering some reports say engineering and science make up 80% of the country's GDP, NASA's had a huge hand in defining this country the last 40 years. Hey, Ron Toomer used to work for the space program before designing coasters too!

I have to really wonder what kind of air you will get on the first large camelback. The first sequence is not that different from Millennium Force: 300' drop, 160ish foot overbank turn, long low to the ground speed section, then 183' camelback hill. The 182' camelback hill on Millennium Force is pretty disappointing air-time wise (at least in my opinion), so I wonder how a similar sized hill is going to ride on this coaster? Of course, the MF 3rd hill radius over the top is pretty huge - so that could definitely have something to do with it as well. Anyway, I don't care about it being similar to Behemoth, I'm still planning on going up there to ride it next summer. Someone asked about all modern B&M's having trims, but one I can think of that doesn't have trims is Manta at Sea World. Of course it does have the mid-course block, but no trims throughout the rest of the ride. I think the single biggest cost driver of paying for a B&M is the track. From what I've always been told, their track costs more per linear foot to manufacture than any other steel coaster company. Supports are going to cost similar no matter who builds it. That could be a big reason that this ride doesn't have any more track on it than a normal B&M hyper... Throw in another helix, or add a few more hills and this thing could have easily got up in the mid-$30 million range.

My understanding is that many people feel these are some of the best children (or adults in some cases) books in many, many years. I think the books have the potential to be read for generations of kids to come, so I don't believe it's on the level of a Jurassic Park - I think it's way past that. Haven't some schools even started having kids read these books as assignments? To me this is like a modern day, Tom Sawyer. I've been over there about 7-8 times since it opened last summer and the place is always extremely packed, especially the Potterland area. I'm not really much of a Potter fan so, for me, it doesn't add a lot. Although the Butter Beer is great!

0g is weightless, where -1g would be 1x your body weight in the upward direction (assuming you're vertical coordinate system has positive in the down direction) and -2g would be 2x your weight being lifted up. Basically, hanging upside down would create the same effect as going over a -1g hill on a roller coaster.

I used to work there back in high school and I worked for some of the Berni family that owned a lot of the park, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if Ron Berni was involved with this "new" KK somehow. Anyway, I was told by one of them in 1997 or 1998 that they had been working on bringing a Flying Dutchman to the park, but basically Premier/SF had cancelled it when they bought the park. I was told then that Kings Island was going to get the same ride instead, but apparently Vekoma couldn't have it ready for the 1999 season and with SOB coming in 2000 - they sent the Flying Dutchman to Great America and stuck in the cookie cutter Face Off for 1999 at KI. It is kind of funny that it all has come full circle and KI might actually have the one that was going to go to KK originally. I'm not exactly sure where Dominator would have went at KK, I've actually heard a number of things like the parking lot that was out in front of Chang's first turn would be given over to the park from the Fair Board for use. I'm not sure it was going to be Dominator's exact layout, but it was going to be a floorless.

California Screamin' is Intamin's longest launched coaster, by a pretty wide margin too.

Robb - have you seen the camera connection kit that Apple sells for the iPad? It allows you to use USB or a memory card to load photos onto the iPad. It's $30. http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC531ZM/A Also, have you thought about streaming videos via HTML5 vs Flash on the website? A HUGE amount of sites now stream HTML5 content for iPad/iPhone users. You're obviously pretty tech savy, so you probably have looked into this, but Apple has setup some links talking about more it: http://www.apple.com/html5/ And also: http://www.apple.com/ipad/ready-for-ipad/ Certain websites like ESPN and CNN that use HTML5 have beautiful video that plays right in their webpages.

I don't think Space Mountain is really that rough, just jerky. The transitions could be a little better on it, but I hear they might have tweaked some of them... I'd still love to see CA's version down here.

On a B&M dive machine, each row is higher than the next. There is not one heartline for the whole train. The key is the CG of the entire train. In engineering, a designer always wants to know CG of things cause that is what the object naturally wants to rotate about.

Yeah, SFKK only bought 2 trains for Chang. When it was announced it was supposed to have 3, but they decided against it at some point during construction.

I have heard that Prowler was the originally the contract for CGA's coaster, they just switched it to WOF. I don't know if they'll do another contract in the future or not, just saying what I was told.

Not sure the heartline matters as much as some think. The dive machines have tiered seating so each row has a different heartline and they are perfectly smooth. If anything they are looking at some composite CG for the whole train to base the curves around.

That's because the old management had an aggressive 10 year plan that included Chang and "supposedly" another B&M for either '99 or 2000, but Premier bought the park and then moved the 2nd B&M contract to Ohio and basically didn't bother invest anything else into the park after that. Six Flags management was looking out around the outskirts of Louisville about '01 or so (there was even an article about them looking near the Ky Speedway back then) to relocate the park and I think that's why they didn't want to invest much into the current park, but I don't think it was financially feasible for them after 9/11 and poor attendance.

Twisted Twins (Sisters at the time) opened in 1998 which was the same year they changed the name to Six Flags. Six Flags didn't even buy the park, the company that owned KK bought Six Flags and re-branded the park. It was the old management that installed Twisted Twins.

It's not up to the fair board at all. In fact, KK didn't even open at park of the Kentucky State Fair in 1995 cause they wanted to be independent, but the park realized how much money they lost as a result so they've never done that again. SFKK operates separately from the Fair Board, they just lease that land from them. In fact, I'm not sure if the fair board makes very much, from the SFKK rides. Kentucky Kingdom opened in 1987 as an amusement park and it had nothing to do with the State Fair other than being a midway for two weeks that summer. It was only the front section of the current park and did horrible so it closed after only one season. In 1989, an investor came along named Ed Hart who partnered with a few other people (Howard Berni, Ron Berni of Americana) and re-opened the park in 1990 except they acquired land across the road to expand on. They opened Thunder Run over there and slowly started adding attractions to the other side of the road. By the time Premier bought the park (and later came Six Flags Inc) they had already installed Chang, Twisted Twins, T2, Hellevator, Mile High Falls, etc... So, in actuality, Six Flags hasn't done a whole heck of a lot for that place!

Dominator is similar in size, if not bigger and they moved it. Although, Chang would be one of the bigger coasters ever moved if it's true. Honestly, the water park was just about the main draw to SFKK so this could be a smart move for them. Six Flags had highly considered relocating the entire park back in 2000, so I think they've always disliked the location, but maybe making it a water park would work. Plus, people at another SF get a large "new" B&M at a low cost to SF. Chang would probably cost $15-$16 million today, but much lower to move it. Who knows if they couldn't even try converting it to a floorless coaster? Also, Chang is designed to run three trains, but they only bought two for it. It could also have an additional car on each train if needed, so it could be a pretty high capacity ride if they wanted. The only problem is it seems to take a while to load the stand-ups. I don't think Mantis has three trains anymore.

I agree that Dominator is unique cause it was designed to fit a custom site, but I'm not positive it was Ohio all along. Back around 1998 the rumor was that it was going to SFKK from a deal that the old KK management had signed after Chang. Word is that after Premier bought SF and decided to convert Ohio into a "super park" they took the floorless design from SFKK (tweaked slightly) and threw it into the Ohio park. Supposedly that has something to do with the odd runout from the station to the lift hill that you don't see on any other B&Ms. I've heard similar stories about Villain coming from SFoG too, but I'm not sure about that. Anyway, I've always thought Dominator was my favorite floorless. The drop off of it is great in the back row, the first loop has hang time and it's not just loop after loop like all the other ones.

3rd hill and ending only apparently... Still not too bad.

By the way, just because Manta is slower than a B&M hyper doesn't mean that it puts less force on the track. I think all the other flyers have trims at least in some locations on the ride. edit- Nevermind, I asked him and he said he didn't put them in, but they're going to be there in 2 spots! Oh well!

I think it looks great. It's a good combination of hills and turns for me and I like that the block is pretty late in the ride. Speaking of brakes, I didn't notice any trims on the POV throughout the layout. Sure they could add them later, but it should at least open un-trimmed! The guy that does these animations uses the 3D cad files for the ride and it's always pretty much 100% dead on. Look at Diamondback and Behemoth for example, they accurately showed where the trims would be placed. Manta doesn't have any trims except for the block, so maybe B&M is finally getting back to their old self and not putting trims (or I believe they call them "check brakes") on every hill.

This pretty much sums it up for me as well... People who say "wait until you ride it" need to think about why it is they're excited for this ride? One reason is because of their knowledge of past Intamin coasters. You're basing it on what you already know. Well, I'm doing the same thing, I know that I've been on other Intamin's with this type of restraint and I've always had my head bashed side to side into them. I will still go and ride it next summer, it's just a shame that KD wouldn't have went with lap bars.

Keith uses the actual 3D CAD files for the ride, what you see in the animation is what you get with the ride.