KDCOASTERFAN

I was just checking out the Dominator construction thread on www.kdconnection.com & from what I heard the lift of Dominator has been topped off. They havn't finished installing the catwalks yet but at least track work for the lift is done.

SFI is doing WHATEVER it takes to avoid giving SFA a new coaster,which they deserve more than SFMM & I'm just sick of it.

^I wonder about that as well but my guess is that it was printed before the decision to remove HSXLC was finally made.

www.Newsplusnotes.com now has photos of the 2008 brochure for KD up & I must say that the proposed colors for Dominator's trains look pretty darn good IMHO.

Well all things considered VF did get a nice GCI woodie for 2007 that should help to bring in the crowds for a while,so long as they maintain it well.As for MIA getting Thunderhawk I think it's a good fit for a park that size & the public will flock to it....sure SLC's can give crappy rides but if they're maintained well they can also be smooth & enjoyable. It looks like they may have to move or scrap the toonpike,if you look at the supports that are already in place for the lift they're coming awfully close to the toonpike backdrop.Also I've heard that Berserker may be in the process of being removed to make way for Dominator which brings me to an interesting thought:now suppose they were to move Berserker over to HSXLC's pad? I think it would fit there rather well & would give that section of the park a much needed thrill ride.Remember Carowinds recently did the same thing last season with their Frenzoid ride by relocating it to a different section of the park & renaming it.

In 2007 that was just atrial run & if it went well then they're gonna add mandatory lockers to all coasters in the park...same thing will apply at SFOT in 2008,which is why they're only doing it on 3 coasters there at the moment. Ever since Snyder took over SFI he's been ALL about what makes money FOR him.So far we've seen outragous parking fees chainwide,additional fees for "premium parking" near the gate & now these mandatory lockers as just another means to an end for Snyder to line his pockets & it's yet another reason why their strategy thus far has failed to turn things around for the chain.

It's just another way for them to make money & has NOTHING to do with security at all.They instituted the same policy on wild one & superman last season at SFA & it's one more reason why I won't pay them money for a season pass this year.

Wasn't there speculation at the time of the LL accident that the girl was intoxicated & sat down in the seat AFTER the staff had already checked,and cleared the train for dispatch? Had she been sobor she would've seen as she approached the car that the restraint was down already.

I for one never really liked the ride from the beginning.....heck they would've been better off getting the flyer as originally planned before they gave it to SFA because CF would've tried to get it to run at full capacity. Dominator's going to be an excellent addition to the park,it's long(the longest floorless ever built) & has a decent layout when compared to the short,crappy launchers that paramount kept throwing into the park.

Are you sure about that? Does this one person that checks the seats work the 'controls' at the base of the tower, or walk into the actual control booth and work controls? Most, if not all, Intamin second gen towers have a control at the bottom in which one of the workers checking the restraints has to push. Then, there's a worker in an actual booth that has overall control of the ride, but has to wait until both he and the restraint checker have pushed the button in unison before the ride can be dispatched. Every Intamin tower (post first gen) and coaster I've seen requires at least two people to run, unless the ride is switched into manual mode. And no park would allow a ride op to run a ride in manual mode while people are on it, let alone on a regular basis. Yes I'm quite sure as I've seen the ride & been on it enough times to know.After each cycle the op would walk around to each car,load & check the next group for that car & press the section ready button & finally walk back to the control booth,insert the operational key & press the two dispatch buttons on the panel to start the ride cycle.

The drop towers can be lowered at any time, but only from the dispatch booths, along with the e-stop. The people on the ground watching the cars go up can only dispatch the ride and lock/unlock the gates. If the cable snapped when they were only 20 feet up, there's no reason a ride op in the dispatch booth or at the base of the tower shouldn't have stopped the ride, that's for damn sure. For 1 tower to be open, there are to be 3 pairs of eyes at to see completely around the tower at all times. Someone wasn't doing their job and watching the tower, and this girls legs are gone because of it. For some reason from reading the excerpts it seems like the cable snapped somewhere near the top of the tower, and fell down to the car. That could cause some injurys alone, the cable is heavy and can get very sharp. And then since nobody was paying attention to stop the ride and drop the car, I'm sure as it got to the top and started to fall it got snagged on the tower, and yanked and scraped the riders body parts. And of course, a girls legs are now gone. Six Flags will definitely be the ones paying for this, and they're writing these stories to milk them for all they've got. What a horrible sight. That's not how SFA does things,on average they'll only have ONE operator working controls/checking seats etc. so they can't see around the tower perimeter as a result. Now perhaps what needs to be done is to design an auto release systtem that will drop the cars in case of a cable break in the future.

Thanks,I think I'll go ahead & set my DVR to tape it.

You wouldn't want that POS had you ever gotten a chance to ride it.I'm happy as a pig in slop that it's going bye bye & no,it's not being relocated...except to a scrapyard somewhere.

Nahh it's that fact that SFI was stupid enoug hto buy three of the rides & not take care of them properly from the beginning.Anyone notice that out of the three flyers vekoma designed the only one still having major downtime is the sole remaining SF ride?

Well I'm hoping that SFA gets sold off to Parc so that the place will get the attention & improvements it needs.

If they sold SFA(please let Parc buy it) then maybe the park would FINALLY get the cap ex for rides that it deserves.I mena look at DL,they're getting their first coaster in nearly a decade & that certainly wouldn't have happened had the place remained an SF park.

Most likely,speaking of CWL what does everyone think they're gonna rename that POS known as TR:TR?

Funny thing is when I looked on the list it said "12 coasters" so in addition to HSXLC what other coaster might the park be removing? I wonder given the lack of real progress on Dominator's construction could they have cancelled the ride & we get nothing for 2008? Clint Novak over at coastercrew is scheduled to visit the park for in the loop to check up on Dominator construction on monday & from what I've heard the park is still waiting on shipments of track to come in from GL so I guess we'll find out what Dominator's status is then.

I believe you're thinking of Nightwing there as to my knowledge there's no Nighthawk character in the batman series & that's how SFNE got the name for it's flying enterprise after all. If you go to SFA & look at the character cutouts along the Batwing plaza midway you'll see one for Nightwing with a bluish/gray & yellow color scheme to his outfit.

Icehawk would've been more fitting. LOL!!!

Ughh, almost makes me glad that KD never got a top gun themed coaster during the paramount era. I don't get it why they didn't just rename Borg the old reliable thunderhawk or firehawk though....I guess the nest at CF HQ is already full of "Hawks" of all different "species" at this point & they din't want to "give birth" to another one.LOL

I think that they re over expanding the waterpark because it's much cheaper to build a 2 million dollar waterslide than say a 5 million dollar spinning coaster,or even a simple flat ride.If this trend continues I truely see SFA going the way of GL in a few years time. Shapiro is no better than Burke,in fact he's just as bad if not worse because,like Burke he seems to be playing favorites while leaving the other parks....parks like SFA that need improvement in the way of new rides to rot.He seems to favor SFNE the most because he has family that lives up there.Ever notice that,like last year(2007) the three parks that got wiggles world them areas(SFGRAM,SFGRADV & SFNE are the same three parks getting dark knight mouse coasters in 2008? Now I'm hoping & praying that,for SFA's 10th anniversary as an SF park in 2009 we'll get something worthwhile like a new coaster or major addition/expansion to the theme park side but I'm not all that confident that such will happen.Instead I see 09 as an off year and 2010 as just another waterpark expansion or a closure of the ride side. I know it sounds pessamistic to think like that & I really want the park to improve so I can continue going back but I just don't see any real positives in their immediate future right now. SFA has internal issue to deal with before they introduce another big roller coaster into the park and that's why SFA is doing all that this year. Also, you do remember peopel that last year they sepnt 1 million on restoring Skull Mountain. And for next year they play on having ALL rides reliably operational. So NO there is no Geauga Lake thing going on, the park just has other things to focus on year besides adding new big rides. Also, the waterpark gets ALOT of traffic during the summer to it absolutely makes sense to keep expanding it. Well along with their internal issues they really need to focus on some of their external ones like replacing the rides they've removed with something other than green space(Terry Prather,the new GM @ SFA was famous for doing just that at SFNO).I would start by gettin rid of flashpass & the mandatory lockers first. SKM should just be removed as it's still a maintenance nightmare even after all the capital they sunk into it last season in a noble but futile effort to improve it's operations & reliability.

I think that they re over expanding the waterpark because it's much cheaper to build a 2 million dollar waterslide than say a 5 million dollar spinning coaster,or even a simple flat ride.If this trend continues I truely see SFA going the way of GL in a few years time. Shapiro is no better than Burke,in fact he's just as bad if not worse because,like Burke he seems to be playing favorites while leaving the other parks....parks like SFA that need improvement in the way of new rides to rot.He seems to favor SFNE the most because he has family that lives up there.Ever notice that,like last year(2007) the three parks that got wiggles world them areas(SFGRAM,SFGRADV & SFNE are the same three parks getting dark knight mouse coasters in 2008? Now I'm hoping & praying that,for SFA's 10th anniversary as an SF park in 2009 we'll get something worthwhile like a new coaster or major addition/expansion to the theme park side but I'm not all that confident that such will happen.Instead I see 09 as an off year and 2010 as just another waterpark expansion or a closure of the ride side. I know it sounds pessamistic to think like that & I really want the park to improve so I can continue going back but I just don't see any real positives in their immediate future right now.

"Rollercoaster" wasn't filmed at KI.It was filmed on location at Ocean view park,Kings Dominion & SFMM. SFMM's Viper is an Arrow multi-looper,Ninja is an Arrow suspended....there's a major difference between the two rides.

It was never known as "magic mountain",but instead was reffered to & marketed as "Lost world fantasy mountain" as that was the name of that section of the park back then. Great photos,especailly of KD in the early 80's as that's the way the park was when I first visited in 82.