KBNA777

My wife and my brother in law waited 3 hours for Goliath the year it first opened. Myself, I waited for what seem like three hours for Firehawk, but it was probably only 1.5-2.0. It was not worth the wait. Waited over an hour and a half for The Voyage on a supper busy day at HW.

Well supposedly Memorial Day is not crowded at parks, but Dollywood sucked. Watch for crowds on thursday as a lot of people are taking the rest of the week of after the 4th. Over half my office is gone (50+ people)

I was scared to death of not getting to ride TTD or Millenium Force at Cear Point this year. There website makes some weird assumptions as to what size to ride. I believe they say 240 lbs or 40 inch waste, well I way more than 240, but I have a like 34 for a waste. Anyway, I had no problems what so ever ridiing any ride at Cedar Point, but it was tough to lock that stupid seat belt down on those rides.

You make a great point that most people here forget. It absolutely sucks having to deal with the general public. Work in fast food or retail has to be just as annoying if not less than what they have to go through all day. No one has ever had a job where they are happy all the time, if you say you have you are full of crap. It's just people on here looking for a way to bash the Six Flags parks. Having been to Cedar Point, Worlds of Fun, Kings Island, SFStL, and Dollywood this year, only Dollywood had truly happy looking people. The worst park was either Cedar Point or Kings Island. But I won’t go and bash Cedar Fair for this; it's a crappy job that someone has to do for us to have fun. This was an accident that was terrible in the way that she lost both ankles, but it happens. If these things where truly safe all the time you would not have that "not responsible for injury" crap on the tickets. I know it sounds harsh but the mood of most of the threads deteriorates into hate and it kind of drags the discussion down.

Pretty much everything at KI, except Top Gun, Face Off, and whatever the hell Beastie is called now. Any and all Arrow looping coasters, but Tennessee Tornado. Mantis, the stupid ride opp made me stand completely straight up and it killed my shoulders the whole ride.

I believe I could be wrong but all the discomfort and pain is due to the way the boggies are constructed. There is enough of a gap between the top and bottom wheels to fit the track and then some. So and you are going up a loop you are on the top wheels, but as you approach the top of the loop the car will transition to the other set of wheels. While this may be a small distance it is still transfered to the body through the car assembly. Vekoma is not that bad, they just made some bad design choices with there wheels. Face-Off was awesome and I enjoyed the whole ride and did not feel that it was rough, but Firehawk sucks. You can watch when the cars spin the top or the bottom wheels and you can really feel it. Remember this, at least it ain't Arrow, those guys for the most part put pain in my rollercoaster existance.

Best: Mystery Mine at Dollywood. The que at least moves you around instead of doing the walk back and forth on the same land. It also had lots of misters and fans working, at least when I went. Worst: Firehawk, its hidden so it looks like a walk-on, and the actual que is a just terrible with some dopey ride op telling you to wait because they can't count. Any Batman the ride que, does it really have to be soooo long and pointless. At St. Louis it takes longer to walk the stupid park then walk the rest of the que, ride the ride, and discuss the funky smell in the station.

Is it just me or does the restraints on the Vekoma ride add to the slow loading times. We went on Friday of last week (one train death que in the hot hot sun), and when we finally got to the station and loaded the restraint system just seemed jacked up. I am used to Superman at SFOG where the restraints are easy to get in and out of, but these seemed ridiculous. My brother-in-law and I were timing it and it was taking 7 minutes from entering the station until the train left. That's just nuts. Side note: Why is the que so hidden, un-shaded, and wihtout fans?

^^ Probably to keep the launch to a "reasonable" force. If the spikes were lets say 300 feet tall, the launch power would have to be higher meaning longer launch strip.

The possible bad experience is a valid reason, but you are thinking too much like critics and not enough like families. For those of use who are enamored with rollerc oasters our experience revolves around that, but families require more than just that. It was/is a huge transition that Shapiro is trying to undertake, think about if Disney dropped all that stuff they do and went after nothing but hardcore roller coaster fans. It was all a growing, well shrinking, pains. That's off topic, but the amount of disposable income for most families dropped last year, and amusement parks are disposable income driven. If gas was below $2.00 and inflation of necessary good like food did not rise as much as it did last year, the numbers would have been better. It's all trying to fight the 800 lb gorilla that is Disney Land and trying to grab the huge market share they have. It will take time and a lot of effort, and maybe selling of another park like SFStL to Anheuser (sp?) Bush, for them to make themselves competitive with them, and siphon off some of the attendance.

To hell with that, give me good old predictable detectable radiation. Every time I hear that siren at Mallinckrodt I almost wet myself.

For what it is worth, chlorine can create huge medical problems. Chlorine gas is not something to mess with it scars and burns your lungs. There is no process chemical that is more dangerous to more people. It was used in World War I as a biological weapon. The IDLH (immediately dangerous to life and health) for chlorine gas is not going to be achieved in such a place, but that does not mean someone there isn't hyper sensitive to the stuff. We have people at work that if the Hydrofluoric acid is opened will get skin irritations. I work with nuclear stuff all day (uranium, thorium, americium, plutonium, etc.) and chlorine scares the ever living crap out of me. To sum up my rather long and boring post, there might be some legitimacy to the reports, especially because it was chlorine.

Add Goliath at SFoG to that list. Not to nit pick, but how can magnetic breaks be fail safe, are they not electricaly induced magnets? If they are natural magnets I stand corrected.

For what it is worth, when my wife, my brother in law, and I got ours at the park (SFStL) it was the same price, 44.99. This was durring Frighttober fest, or whatever.

If you can get into MIT, by all means go, but only if you can afford it. Georgia Tech is an excellent engineering school, but MIT carries that "IT" quality. Now Georgia Tech vs. say Texas A&M (my school), take the one that costs the least. What companies are looking for now are jack of all trades kind of guys. This is not roller coaster exactly, but anyway one of the most important things that you can do is learn to write technicaly. That is the most important job skill you can have at this time in the job market. Also remember that 4.0 is not the best, 3.75 shows diversity somewhat. Also make sure you can talk publicly, and show some friendliness. Hope this helps.

Don't learn SolidEdge, it is a waste of time and effort on anyone's part. They just have a force modeling program in there. ProE, AutoCAD Inventor, and SolidWorks are about the same. Just remember they will use there own specialized software adapted to creating a roller coaster. Well at least to do all the stuff specific to a roller coaster, but if you learn the basics of a 3D CAD software, you will be prepared for the future.

To analyze forces on the train and such they would use a modified version of an FEA analysis. If you have ever used SolidEdge, SolidWorks, Pro Engineer, etc. the stresses can be calculated using these programs. They calculate dynamic forces at all points, as ever point on the surface is related somehow. At the begining of the track initial conditions are set (speed, stress on each surface in each direction x,y,z, and so on), and the coaster is placed into motion so to speak. At the first time step, all new conditions are calculated based on those initial conditions and what equations of motion are available. The important thing to note is that each piece gets a new set of conditions, like the seat or the connection between the seat and the train. The math can get very complicated, but most of these points do not actualy change so while it may seem daunting (sp?) the computer program can perform these calculations failry quickly. if this is clear as mud as I am sure it will be, I will try and figure out your questions.

^ In Dante's Inferno, it is cold. So that would actually work.

The most important person in my life, my wife. Sometimes I go with my brother in law, but he is too big of a theme park nerd. Not in the bad way like those idiots from ACE, he just tries to ride waayyyyyyyyy too much.

This is what it is going to be. Mr. Freeze the thaw. See it has been in "cold storage" for the year, and now it is un-thawed. Side note, they need to repaint the ride here in StL

Why Hard Rock? Because it was available. It's not like they are going to take it and burn all the rock stuff and change the layout of the facilities. You have to remember they are not buying it to lose money or close the places, they did not buy Six Flags. They are/were smart enough to make the money on the casinos and are now going to expand on them.

I know it has been mentioned several times but The Boss at SFStL is one of the best wooden coasters I have been on. It is a great two part ride, with the first being the drops and the last being the helix, which is separated by a good margin of time and real estate. Also the Georgia Cyclone and Mindbender, although mindbender is not that unliked.

You must not be into the skateboard scene to not know how Rob is. The other guy is just his body gaurd. Think of it this way if MTV offered you a bunch of money to be an idiot on TV, would you do it?

Being from the Midwest/Southeast, SFoG is by far the best overall ride park in the area. It is just a terrible terrible layout, it takes too much effort to get to Mindbender and Batman (I am a lazy lazy man), and then it takes a lot of work to get back to the ride that never opperates, along with Ninja and those rides. Its almost as bad (layout wise) as SFStL, which is just terrible in layout, as there is no easy way to get to the Boss, and it is silly that Ninja and Batman are together and the rest are just sparse. This is all of the Six Flags I can remember (I have been to MM and the one is San Antonio as a child)

Just selling stuff off from 2006. They had it at Season Pass day at SFOG. Don't read too close into such things. If it were 75% off, then maybe you should run scared.