KDCOASTERFAN

I wouldn't count on seeing these on Goliath seeing as how it was a G-tech design & the days of the "coaster wars" with SFMM recieving a coaster every other year are over.

It's the beginning of the end I tell you,this sort of reminds me of the whole raging wolf bobs derailment last year & how the park did nothing to fix it simply because even then they knew that they were closing permanently after the end of the season.

What's the real difference in the rider's view? Either way you still have the rear seat of the car in front of your car restricting it. I tend to think that one reason B&M have come up with this design is for ease of loading/checking trains,it must be a bit harder to check the middle two seats on the standard B&M hyper or looper train because of having to manuver between the two outside seats. For an example of this just take a look at the flying dutchman trains,the ops have a heck of a time leaning over to check the middle two seats on each row.I would figure though that B&M makes the new trains optional on their rides & leaves it up to the park to decide when the ride is being manufactured.

I guess they'll be calling it Diamondback. Since WOF already has a hyper,and Dominator was relocated from the mid-west to the mid-atlantic region I could see WOF quite possibly recieving a floorless to fill in the gap.

I found it to be kinda "meh" for my liking but I did record it on DVR anyway. I swear the discovery networks are really going downhill in recent years,we no longer get our memorial day coaster shows simply because they're more concerned with the fad of reality tv shows that've been al the rage in recent years.

You mean in 2010 don't you? Carowinds is getting GL's boomerang in 09. Let's see how long it'll be before someone complains about the drop angle not being 74 degrees & saying the park lied about it like the folks on the CWL sites did with Behemoth this year....everyone always finds something they don't like about a new ride.be it the name or the overall layout or the color scheme.

That sums up my opinion of this company as well. Sure it'd be great if they built big stuff all the time, but doing that is not sustainable and will cause the company to fail. The whole I won't go unless they build something new is kind of sad. Is only new stuff worthy of riding? I go back to SFNE just about every year. The new stuff is nice, but my favorite rides in the park are 8 years old and 69 years old and could care less if the newer stuff was there. I would rather a park save up and build something great. True but your park has actually recieved a fairly steady supply of rides over that 8 year period while some parks have not in over half a decade.

Giovanola no longer makes coasters,now if it is an Intamin at least it should have a much better layout than superman at SFA,as well as standard restraints without the pain inducing shin guards/ankle braces that were installed after the 2004 SFNE accident. Back on topic here: I ohh so don't like the colors for this ride,it looks too similar to firehawk.Sure the supports are a lighter shade of tan/gray but the track color is exactly the same.

As much as I'd like to see SFA sold to a reputable owner like Parc management or CF it won't happen & here's why. SFI knows that,should they sell SFA to a company that would,heaven forbid invest some cap ex into fixing the park up & adding new rides on a regular basis it would pose some significant competition for SFGRADV(the next closest SF park) & they sure as heck don't want that. Instead they prefer to keep the park running in a just barely operable condition to make money & since SFGRADV has the higher population base of the two to draw from they figure why bother investing in the MD. park at all when the NJ park will see more of an ROI? Didn't Shapiro kinda scale back his whole "family" approach last year when people at SFGRAM balked at having a kids area added instead of any adult/thrill rides?That's why he went on the offensive this season by adding the two THBS clones along with the woodie for SFSTL instead of more WW & Thomas the tank engine themed kiddie areas as he originally intended to do.

True but the hyper won't be coming until 2010,and from what I hear will be an Intamin rather than a B&M.

I can pretty much assure you that SFI will NOT be spending major amounts of cap ex $$ on ANY B&M's,let alone something as expensive as a dive machine model.

Yeah but they conveniently "damaged" it during deconstruction & transport.After adding only one lousy waterslide for 2008 there was a reason that I didn't renew my season pass because that one attraction,which I'm not even the slightest bit interested in simply couldn't justify the $60.00 expense of a season pass. Now if they were to add maybe a decent flat or two(doesn't neccesarily HAVE to be be a coaster) & change many of their assinine policies then maybe I'll give the park another chance but until that happens I'm simply not going to waste the time & money going there.

Who knows? Dominator went down a couple of times on my trip back on the 26th but at least they got it opened again.

Grizzly's sign has been MIA for years now,I wish they'd bring it back.

^^^Names get recycled & reused by multiple parks all the time...just think of how many "cyclone" coasters are out there worldwide. They're probably going to use a snake theme & name for the ride but for all we know it could be named Maverick,Behemoth or (drumroll please) Dominator.Regardless of the name it's the ride quality that actually counts....I don't know about you but when I'm riding a coaster I'm too busy enjoying the experience to concern myself with the name of the ride in question.

Yikes!!! I wonder what could've happened to cause two sections of track to no longer be "joined" properly?

Wasn't a similar box delivered to KI when SOB was under construction?

What with the lack of new rides being added & t he removal of rides left & right with no replacements I'm afraid that the park will suffer the same fate as GL. When you really think about it SFAW could've been saved,unlike GL it was pulling a decent attendance level but what the place needed was new attractions to give people a reason to return,of course SFI's excuse was that they were out of land for expansion....well duh!! however any good operator knows that you can always remove old,outdated rides & replace them with new ones & this is something that SFI seemed unwilling to do for that place & sadly now it's gone.

Avalanche had some problems a few years ago & they had to t ake it apart to replace something & back then we all assumed that it was being removed. Iron eagle & the enterprise were removed due to being maintenance nightmares...heck the only problem with the enterprise was a burned out motor that sadly couldn't be replaced. Now with the way things have been going for this park lately I wouldn't be too suprised if it becomes like GL or SFAW within the next couple of years what with all of the recent ride removals they've done lately.

Berserker was jam packed back on saturday so it's no suprise that having Dominator over there has increased rider throughput & interest. A good location for Americana would be in the grove in between drop zone & wave swinger,there should be enough room for them to shoehorn it in so as to be able to provide for greaqt views & photo ops of the park.

I don't see any B&M hypers at KD or CGA yet does anyone else?From what I hear KD's rumored hyper for 2010 may very well be an Intamin rather than a B&M.

The DJ booth is over by the first set of switchbacks over to the left....lord knows he was pumping out tunes like crazy saturday afternoon. I still think Americana will fit in nicely in it's chosen location....how can we be absolutely certain that all three rides are even going over there when there's potential room for Americana & spider elsewhere in the grove,or maybe even old virginia or I-street?

The only thing wrong with shockwave IMO is that horrid color scheme,please someone change it back to the good old black & yellow of days gone by. I don't know how it's running this year as I skipped it due to the crowds & time constraints but the last few seasons have delivered some good rides in 4-1.

That's ok with me as I'll be at KD tomorrow. Here's a question for you although it's more of a mechanical/engineering one related to trains rather than structural/track design.How in the heck does the ratcheting restraint system(especially on OTSR's function & what exact components are used in what ways to accomplish that? I understand how it works, having worked at Afterburn. Unfortunately it is very hard to describe without any visual aids whatsoever. Here goes, At the end of the OTSR on a B&M inverted roller coaster there is an axle that runs behind the headrest connecting the two sides of the OTSR. Connected to that axle is a star shaped wheel as demonstrated by my awful 5 second drawing in Fig. 1 Along that same axle, but able to spin freely of the axle is the unlocking mechanism Fig. 2 This surrounds the star wheel and is turned in order to unlock the restraints. Finally, there are the "pins" for lack of a better word. These are the parts that actually lock the restraint Fig. 3 They are held in the lock position by a spring until the unlocking mechanism pushes them to the side. Fig. 4 shows the locked restraints, with the arrows showing the movements to unlock the restraints. I hope this helps you to understand how the ratcheting OSTR works, and i would like to remind you that this is probably not 100% accurate, but as close as i can get by simply observing one on Afterburn. If you have any questions feel free to ask. Do keep in mind that there are two "star wheels" and eight "pins" Thanks for providing the visual references,it made it much easier to understand the basics of how the system works. Here's a question for Norman:What coaster concepts are currently in development? We've already seen the stand up,invert,floorless,flyer & dive machine so what more can coaster designers do in terms of new ride vehicle concepts? I do believe that the focus should shift however to making rides more exciting with the current concepts on the market rather than just building gimmicky prototypes that are only fun the first few times you ride them until the novelty of the new seating design or riding position wears off. One more question(for now) :What prompted B&M to use the deja vu style seating on their new hypers such as Behemoth as opposed to the traditional 4 abreast seating seen on their previous hyper coasters?

Get to Dominator first thing as the queue tends to fill up quickly & even at max capacity the wait can still be a long one,especially for the front row.