Jim S.

bob256: I love night photography! I wish I had had my camera and a tripod with me for the two trips I made for dark Phoenix rides after Phunfest this year. The first time, it was last-quarter moon so as I was walking back to the parking area, which in this case was the campground, as I walked next to Twister I could look up and see stars through the structure. The second time, it was first-quarter moon and the moon was rising over the Phoenix lift hill as seen from the courtyard! Primogen18: From everything I've read, not much has been done on structure. All the work has gone into the already-framed sections of trough.

Google doesn't have hi-res images for Knoebels, but here's a circa-1993 picture from Microsoft's free version of Terraserver: http://terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=10&X=1866&Y=22631&Z=18&W=3 You can barely see Phoenix (station, above-ground tunnel, covered brake run, and part of the first turn-around), and I assume the obvious steel coaster is Whirlwind but I've never seen it in person.

Knoebels has an op at the top of the bigger drop. (No I didn't set out to do that.) I suspect they do sleep through it sometimes, because it hasn't stopped people from sticking their gum all over the trough up there (the most inexplicable tradition I've ever seen.)

In my experience there's a little more airtime in the third seat than the first, but the real ejector experience is to be found in the very last seat. So much so that you have to be careful how you land. (For people who haven't been there, Phoenix has the classic very high, single-position lap bars.) The only time I haven't had a rough landing in the back was here at my first Phunfest. It wasn't that Phoenix wasn't running fast -- it was -- but for some reason every ride I had was smoother than every other day I've been there, and there was a lot more floating feeling between the expected pops. In fact, there were times I could swear I couldn't hear the top wheels on the track.