CoryPa77

For me, if SFGAd only had El Toro and Nitro and CP had all 17 of their coasters - I would still choose SFGAd. There are only a handful of coasters that I would put in my own "elite" class and while CP has plenty of "good" rides, none of them are elite to me. However, El Toro is certainly in that elite class.

Other than having a pretty boring layout, I think one of Mean Streak's biggest problems is that the headrests and seat backs have virtually no padding. All the old Summers/Dinn coasters had those PTC trains with the high headrests and really stiff padding, so that when the train shook, you could really feel it. It's kind of the problem with the G-trains. The first few years I remember the third drop was really good in the back seat and now that's just a ramp. The ending was sometimes really good with no brakes on the block. I haven't been on it in years and I wouldn't expect to see it there much longer.

I'm late posting since we went to Vegas for the remainder of the week, but I have to say that was without a doubt the best ERT session I've ever had. Thanks to everyone who helped set that up, it was totally worth a trip from FL! I guess it was really more like Exclusive Park Time, but EPT doesn't work really...

I can't imagine the pre-drop was to reduce stress on the chain since the dogs on the bottom of the train would simply lift up once the back of the train starts to speed up. Those dogs aren't spring loaded, so there shouldn't be any stress applied to the chain as it crests the top. As for matching the speed with the feeder wheels at the bottom of the lift - that makes sense since you don't want to have the dynamic impact of the train falling back into a link once it slows down to the chain's speed. I think it probably did have something to do with B&M not wanting the front part of the train hanging over the first part of the drop, at least that's the only thing that seems to make sense. Actually, I can think of more B&M's that have had chain breaks than other companies. Chang broke its chain within a week or two of operation and either Raptor or Mantis have broken a few chains as well.

Does anyone on here remember a really horrific accident on some ride called the Hell Hole (I think) at Coney Island back in the 90's? It was like a Gravitron ride or something and I just remembered someone getting their legs cut off, but I never really remember hearing more about it. I just always thought that was an odd name for a ride to begin with though. Anybody find any links? I tried to look, but only found a few things here and there on it.

I just flew into Louisville tonight from Orlando for HWN on Friday... Southwest has non-stop flights to Louisville from Orlando and pretty cheap too. My airfare was under $180. You could even do SFKK if you wanted since it's right across from the airport.

At least by getting a ME degree, if you can't do coasters for a career, there are a LOT of other ones to choose from!

Dan, You want to know where I came up with those numbers? 1) I work at KSC. 2) They specifically said in the press release: Mission Space cost $100 million, that's $40 million more than this, so a pretty big difference. That visitor center charges $40 a person for the most basic tour and most people pay $60 for the better ones. They have virtually no operating costs right now except for the tour busses. Their food is not cheap either.

Hey, go Cards! I'm a Speed Grad (M.E.) also from '03 and '04... I'm glad to see the coaster design tradition is continuing out of there!

I've flown into Detroit, non-stop from Orlando the past two years for $130 and $120 round-trip on Air-Tran. From the Detroit airport to CP it's about 2 hours, and it's never been a bad drive for me. So, in other words, you can go from Orlando to being at the CP parking lot in under 5 hours. Not too bad...

I think Hades has to be the best tunnel I've ever been on, probably by far even. I just wish they wouldn't have replaced the soft PTC padding with the hard G-train style padding. It makes that tunnel run pretty uncomfortable, or the whole ride for that matter. When was the padding replaced anyway? I know in the pictures I've seen from '05 it still had the original pads.

Personally, I think the University of Louisville has a good engineering program and I'm sure some other posters here would agree... However, it doesn't really matter where you go to school for engineering degrees especially as long as it's ABET accredited. That's about the only requirement I've seen companies look for when searching for engineers. I work for a large corporation, and in my office there are engineers from pretty much all over the place. So, I think the most important thing is that you go to an accredited school, get involved, and try to learn practical engineering techniques as opposed to being just "book smart" (and get decent grades too obviously).

I'd rather them put MF trains on Gwazi and do some track work. I still think this will add to the overall experience, but I don't think you'll even notice in the back two rows. I also wonder if they can just modify the existing train or will they need to get all new trains from B&M. I've heard before that each (traditional) B&M train is way up in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, so that would be pretty expensive to get new ones.

This is something totally new to KSC and I think it's costing around $55 - $60 million. They won't really release any details, but they're building a HUGE building for the ride. Don't know why they would be building a "Space Shuttle" ride when the Shuttle is going out of service in 2010.

Right now there is an in-season poll going on for new wooden coasters this year on Mitch's website. You can only vote if you voted last year, but it at least gives you a good idea of what to expect come Nov. Overall, the AT awards are pretty decent when you only consider American coasters, but they really are off when it comes to international rides. Right now, it's pretty neck and neck with Balder and Voyage. You can see the current results here though: www.ushsho.com/currentrankingswoodrollercoasterpoll2006inseason.htm

Here's a good article on Keith: www.funworldmagazine.com/2006/mar/features/living_dream/livingdream.html

Tennessee Tornado has some good hang-time in the back seat if I remember right. Dominator also has awesome hang-time in it's vertical too. I like one extreme or the other in loops really. I enjoy the powerful loops on Mindbender at SFOG (when it's running good), or the hang-time in other loops. I just don't like loops that put just enough force to keep you in your seat, but nothing else.

Millennium Force easily... Rode it AAA weekend in 2000 before it even opened to the GP so I hadn't heard any reviews yet and I just expected it to blow me away. Especially after all the hype I had heard about the SFDL Superman. The airtime just isn't there. I have grown to like it a little more over the years, but it could have been so much more.

About 8-10 years ago, ACENews published what CCI had come up with for the layout. It had a really nice looking double down for the second and third drops into the ravine.

I did hear from some people that it ran a little sluggish this past weekend compared to the media day/opening rides. Who knows if that's true, or why? Maybe the weather or grease had some effect in that? Either way, it should be in top form for HoliWoodNights! Personally, I thought it would be a top 5 ride and it was easily number 1 for me. For each their own I suppose?

How funny... Wonder what their thoughts of The Voyage are? Jeff and Mike seem to be enjoying it.