Cygnus12

I honestly don't get the hate on El Diablo being a carnival ride, after all... Deja Vu = carnival ride Swashbuckler = carnival ride Tango = carnival ride Twister = carnival ride Fender Benders = carnival ride Buccaneer = carnival ride SkyScreamer = taller version of a carnival ride Giant Wheel = taller version of a carnival ride Them marketing it as a roller coaster? Sure, I can see the backlash at that, but El Diablo isn't bad addition to the park's non-coaster lineup.

Sometimes the skill of the operator can result in a good Zipper ride, but more often than not they're not allowed to toggle the conveyor movement because it wears out the switch faster. If you sit tight, you'll get a good ride by luck mostly, so the best thing to do is to rock the pod. When you're heading into a turnaround, try to rock it so that the pod is rolling into the turn. You might get multiple flips out of it, but you'll always get at least one, insanely forceful flip. Going around the turn with the pod pointed inward is also great; the resulting airtime makes El Toro feel like a kiddie ride.

shouldn't this carnival ride already be installed by now? its already Jan 2nd, next we will get some huge snowstorm, and come opening day, the park will blame the winter for not having the ride open. this park really needs to get moving. To be fair, this isn't a true carnival version of this ride. LD is certainly going to be a permanent mount and is more bulky and slightly taller than the versions seen at fairs. Also, a trailer mounted Ring of Fire can be setup in like 6 hours, now that's efficiency!

Come on, Scream Machine isn't NEARLY as rough as Rolling Thunder. RT is like riding down a cobblestone road on a skateboard! lol I'm bummed that GASM is coming down myself, I always thought it was the most intense coaster at the park. The front row had some ridiculous Gs while going through the loops! You kind of had to ride it correctly though, leaning into turns and holding the upper part of the harness to stabilize yourself more.

Here's a cool site I found: http://www.kermissimulaties.nl/. It's a site full of flatride simulators that you can mess around with; kind of like No Limits Fairground. Just go to the "Database" page to find the list of rides with download links. One thing is that all of the directions to run them are in German or Dutch, so you might need to translate them to figure out what keys do what.

Here's my top five flats with videos of each! 1. Breakdance (video of a small Breakdance 3 model with some riders standing up!) 2. Zipper (here's a video of a very fast Zipper ride in Austrailia.) 3. Top Scan (nice short video of it) 4. Top Spin (The quintessential Top Spin video.) 5. Himalaya (here's a video...not like you haven't seen one before lol)

I think that Vekoma sitdown coasters seem to be smoother than Arrows. Boomerangs that don't use the original trains seem to be smooth as glass actually. SLC's however are just awful! The SLC's alone made me choose Vekoma as the rougher of the two.

I always like the guy who runs the Polar Express Himalaya ride in Coney Island, he has some pretty good lines. For example, instead of saying that the ride is going to go backwards next, he'll say something like "Don't move, don't get up, don't you dare get out; I'm gonna slow you down, take you around, take you backwards baby, part two is coming up!" And whenever he slows the ride down he'll go "eaaaasy Polar, easy Polar, eezay!" It's like he's trying to calm it down or something. lol

I've been using the name Cygnus12 forever at many different sites. It simply goes back to when I was really into astronomy and I decided to use the constellation Cygnus as a screenname. And the 12? No reason at all...sounds better than 1 or 2 maybe. lol

I went to a modest amount of parks: Keansburg Amusement Park Morey's Piers Six Flags Great Adventure 2x (with more trips to come!) Coney Island parks/amusements Ocean City, NJ parks Hersheypark * and planning on taking a trip to Dorney in October. I also went to about 8 carnivals...a lot less than I hoped to go to; I think I went to around 14 one year!

My park would be located by the ocean somewhere and would include: Coasters: Primier manufactured custom layout LIM coaster GCI woody that rounds the park Schwakopf Jet Star A kiddie coaster Flats: Huss Breakdance with lighting, fog, loud music, etc Funtime Star Flyer Top Spin 2 with water sprayers Mondial Top Scan 120+ foot ferris wheel Log Flume (long custom made flume) Huss Rainbow Musik Express with strobes, siren, etc Dark ride Tilt-a-Whirl Bumper Cars and a bunch of kiddie rides. The park would also have a waterpark somewhere next to it.

Rolling Thunder at GAdv...right side...back seat...prepare for bump induced airtime or "bumptime" if you will.

Back seat...the last airtime hill back there is x20. If you didn't have a lapbar, you'd be launched to Mexico City I think.

Yeah, it's almost completely gone for me as well; although I get it during launches which is sort of strange. Everything else though, including the likes of El Toro, Fahreinheit or even a drop tower won't do it anymore.

Worst: Great Bear at Hersheypark...although the rest of the ride is GREAT! Best: Great White (staying with the 'great' names) at Morey's Piers is pretty good with a dive under the pier before the brakes. Laser at Dorney was pretty good too with a high G helix right into the brakes.

I love watching all those on-ride/off-ride Breakdance videos on YT, it's got to be one of the most filmed flats of all time! The old Breakdance at Astroland in Coney Island used to run for 5+ minutes at full speed as well, however the ride ops never really switched up the speed too much like on this one. Plus, the one in the video is one of those 6x4, deluxo Breakdance 2 models that seem to run twice as fast as the BD1 models!

The drop tower is a Fabbri 'Jungle Drop.' And I agree, Cobra was absolutely awesome! I don't think the Viper looks as good with the harnesses and the cars that barely swing out at all. BTW, here's a Cobra video that I found on YT; it's so retro-tastic! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdtOa839Sms

Errgg...I hate seeing an old Arrow go. I've only been to BGE once back in 1991 or so when I was like 6 and I was too scared to go on Big Bad Wolf. Now that I actually do want to ride it, I probably won't ever get to ride it! Whatever they put in I hope they at least choose a similar theme or name since Big Bad Wolf was such an awesome theme for the coaster. lol

Great TR! Booster looks great but I have my eye on Decadance; I love a good Breakdance ride! Eclipse looks pretty good too...hell everything looks good. There actually are some good traveling rides here but you just never see them all together like at European fairs.

Well I know why they were put in (and are waiting for someone to sue because they got hurt by the barbed wires ) but I'm just wondering when they were put in. I really haven't been on the ride in years, like the fact that you now enter the station from the back is new to me. lol

^ lol I'm sure Six Flags would have loved that entry! BTW, does anyone know if they always have the barbed wire fencing around the areas where the coaster comes closest to the ground? I never seem to remember all that.

I took a solo trip yesterday so that I could do whatever I pleased and stop for as many photos as I saw fit (almost 150 pictures in all, most are junk though.) I got to the park at around 2:00pm and found that the lot wasn't too full (yay!) As I walked in, a song with the lyrics "It's gonna be a good day" (or something similar) played over the speakers; foreshadowing maybe? I headed in, took a stroll towards El Toro, which sported a line extending out of the far queue maze, so I passed. Whee! Next I headed over near Bizarro, happily taking in the fact that the birdge route was now open again. Not much to see; I was hoping to see a test train run through or Lex Luther himself or something but nope...just saw the Mr. Six with the Funstruction sign. Yeah construction is fun...1 flag for you Mr. Six. I walked through Frontier Adventures next and saw that the flume was open, wow! I didn't ride though as a steady stream of people using the sprayers were present. skloosh! I walked through the Lakefront (it's still called that, right?), into Movietown and got in line for Nitro, which was a stairway wait. As always, I went right for the back row. Nitro seemed a little faster this time around, but I have to assume that was just me. Nitro sails over a camelback Next I eyed Dark Knight but decided to scope out Xploratorium instead (passing up a coaster for con...funstruction.) YOU AGAIN!? After getting my fill of fun construction, I got in line for Batman and was trapped by a stairway wait...gah! Nitro's stairway wait is totally acceptable; Batman's, in that smelly, humid tube, is not at all. I waited about 15 minutes and a puke cleanup in all; again a backseat ride. Batman was fun as always; the Gs on this thing seemed to have elevated over the years which makes it even better! Batman's grey out loop. After Batman I walked, walked, walked over to the Boardwalk. First I watched Twister's pitiful cycle which seems to have gotten even worse this year. The ride did like 1 flip, and the brakes loudly screeched when applied. Someone...please...re-program that thing. "is that really made of wood?" -stupid kid Scream Machine was up next; the wait was a total "air gate wait." A combination of people fearing it's roughness and the fact that the ride ops churn trains out like crazy typically makes for a nice quick wait on GASM. Once again I took a backseat ride, but paid for it this time around as I failed to remember that the last car on the white train fishtails and bounces along the track at a furious rate. No amount of defensive riding tactics can counter white train, car 7's wrath. I still had fun though, it's tough not to have fun on GASM with its wild vertical/lateral Gs, stupid fast first half, and hangtime filled second. The quintessential Scream Machine shot. While assending the lift on GASM, I noticed that there was no line for Superman: Ultimate Flight. That could either mean two things I thought: 1. the ride is broken, or 2. Hell had frozen over. Turned out that it was 3, it just didn't have a line for once in its 7 year history. I took this opportunity to take a spin after not riding for 3 years or so. I'll admit, I talk smack about the ride alot, but I did have fun. I stared towards the ground for most of the ride; oddly facinated with the ground speeding by below me. Zoopermon Kingda Ka was next, which had a 20 minute wait or so. Once again I backseated, and was trounced by its vibration; I thought GASM was bad! Still, it adds a certain intensity to the ride. Fast! After trying to get on it earlier in the day, I came back to El Toro was next which now had a line that started in the middle of the far switchback. It was about a 15 minute wait and this time I got it right by choosing the backseat (well, second to last.) The Bull was really running nice yesterday. As I exited I noticed that the line had dwindled to a station wait, so I got right back into line! El Toro and the stagnent creek Sky Ride had no line, so I hopped on On the skyride; there's something bizzaro in the background. I milled around for a while, re-riding things, before getting on the Parachutes. As fate would have it, I enetered the line the correct way only to be line jumped by like 12 people crossing over the grass...pfft. They were running two sets of chutes and seeing that the far ones had no line, I went over there. Of course I was shot down by a manager in a gaudy robin's egg blue button down that the side had just closed. Thanks, manager-man! I waited about 10 minutes to ride the chutes as the line swelled behind me despite that fact that the ride op was cranking out chutes like a madman. Looking up! After the chutes I milled around for some more, taking another Toro ride and hopping aboard the Teacups and spinning the crap out of my respective cup. I left at around 8:00pm with the song Don't Stop Belevin' playng over the speakers...if that has an sort of significance at all. Hey The Soprano's ended their series with it, I guess my TR can end with it just as well! All in all it was a nice day with pretty light crowds.

Here's a few that I think turned out pretty well (possibly after some color enhancements ) The old Astroland Breakdance on full spin cycle. The Sky Ride at SFGAdv. A Chance Yo-Yo at a small fair in the middle of the NJ farmlands. Either this Orbiter spun at 150RPM or the strobes were on.

Yeah, whatever happened with that bird flu that everyone was so hot about these past years. The way they were covering it here in the US, I was expecting to see birds randomly falling from the sky, crashing into car windshields and exploding into viscous, green virus juice or something. Now that I say that, I'll probably get Bird Fly and Swine Flu at the same time. Nice knowing you all!

Nice TR! I remember stopping by at Belmont last summer while touring California; it's certainly a neat little park and the Giant Dipper was a great old coaster!