greenspandan
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Posts posted by greenspandan
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Big Bad Wolf (BGW)
Drachen Fire (BGW)
King Kobra (KD)
Hypersonic XLC (KD)
Screamin' Delta Demon (Opryland)
Wabash Canonball (Opryland)
Rock n Rollercoaster (Opryland)
Flashback (SFMM)
Psyclone (SFMM)
Two Face: The Flip Side (SFA)
Python (SFA)
Hurricane (Myrtle Beach Pavillion) (in a fate worse than death, the trains are now used on Son of Beast )
Mad Mouse (Myrtle Beach Pavillion) (the roughest, most painful mouse coaster of all time)
eh there are probably tons more but those are the highlights.
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a B&M invert would be lovely, but what of B&M's oft-rumored agreement to shun KD at Busch Gardens' behest?
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Am I the only person here that thinks KD would be better off with a Flyer coaster-wise?
eh, i feel like flyers are basically the standups of the 2000's. a gimmick that will be regretted in retrospect.
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remember windjammer @ knott's? ugh.
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1. Intimidator 305
2. Apollo's Chariot
3. Millennium Force
4. El Toro
5. Nitro
6. Thunderbolt
7. Griffon
8. Revenge of the Mummy: The Ride
9. Volcano: The Blast Coaster
10. Flight of Fear
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Why would they add a Windseeker when They have This:
http://www.flatrides.com/Ride%20Index%20Pages/aviator.html
However with the Levithan/Behemoth Thing, I'll buy Anything now.
Because flying ace isn't marketed as a serious thrill ride whereas a windseeker is....using your logic they never should've installed flying ace because they already have a wave swinger not too far away from it's present location.
why'd they build i305? i mean, they already have taxi jam.
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sort of surprised to see so many people listing Volcano -- Hypersonic XLC's launch was far more forceful. higher top speed with a shorter launch (granted it was compressed air, not LIM).
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a B&M giga! holy crap! can't wait to ride it next year!
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on the subject of flats, i miss Apple Turnover the most. that was the first thrill ride / upside down ride i wasn't too chicken to ride, and i rode it over and over and over and over and over.
oh also i noticed on my most recent visit that the kiddie swing ride (shaped like a tree, near the park ranger jeeps that revolve around a giant hat) has been dismantled. that's a shame, i believe it's one of the park's oldest rides. however, i do understand why. my daughter is 3 years old and small for her age, and even she had trouble not dragging her feet on the ground while it was running. i guess it was sagging or the chains were getting stretched out or something, because i don't remember having that problem when i used to ride it so long ago.
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Intimidator 305 at Kings Dominion-I only rode it when it had the brake on the drop, but I just didn't really enjoy the ride. It wasn't rough, but just wasn't rerideable for me because of all the quick transitions throwing you about. It's still good, but I don't think it's one of the best in the world.
obviously not your fault, but you really haven't ridden this ride yet
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MagnumXL 200. i found it rough and uncomfortable. simply being slammed into the restraints is not my idea of airtime -- there's utterly no sense of weightlessness or freefall when it's just yanking you around. also, the banking seemed really jerky and forceful and just incorrectly calculated.
i know it's an important coaster historically, but it's definitely an Arrow through and through.
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You get a bit more airtime in the back. I believe the front gives a more intense ride though...
on most coasters, you get more airtime in the back because the front of the train pulls the back over the apex of the hills. but i305 is moving so fast that the difference in speed over the apex between the front and back car is pretty negligible. i305 is one of the only coasters i've been on where i couldn't really tell much difference between the front and back cars. the view is different, and there's a bit of a difference in airtime for the first drop, but that's about it.
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OK guys, since I am going to Kings Dominion, what can I expect waits to be like on a monday for Intimidator 305 in the front, Volcano, and Dominator? I'm thinking 40 minutes maybe for Intimidator 305 in the front?
on a monday, i305 will be between a walk-on and a 15 minute wait for any car other than the front row. my advice is go for the second row. almost no wait, and the stadium seating of the intamin trains makes it seem like the front row anyway.
hit Volcano first thing, even before i305. the line for i305 will be fast all day, but volcano's gets long later in the day. save dominator for late in the day --- everyone sees that as they walk in and it has one of the longest lines until about 2pm, then it clears out.
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greyouts aren't dangerous. you get the same effect if you stand up too fast. on i305, you experience about 5 seconds of greyout through the first turn, before the airtime on the second hill sends the blood back to where it's supposed to be. for comparison, if you greyout due to standing up too fast, it probably takes a little longer than that to fully recover. it's really not a health risk at all. relax and enjoy one of the most intense rides operating today!
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this is amazing.
that ride looks absolutely NUTS. deranged. in no way safe, sane, or legal.
needless to say, i would kill to ride it someday!
second: it is amazing to hear from all these old-time carnies and carnival goers who remember the thing fondly. this is a truly great thread right here.
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of those choices, i'd definitely pick sunday. fridays are just as crowded as sundays, i believe.
going to KD (or any park, really) on a saturday is just unbearable for me.
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the first drop in the back seat of Intimidator 305 is absolute heaven.
it's basically MF's first drop, only steeper and with more of an airtime pop at the top (which is sustained all the way down).
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Apollo's Chariot wins in the category of sustained weightlessness. it just barely edges out a handful of other perfectly-engineered B&M hypers, most of which give amazing floater air.
Intimidator 305 wins in the category of "holy crap this coaster is trying to ditch me" category. not only does it actively toss you out of your seat, it'll sometimes changes direction out from under you, as if it is trying to shake you off.
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Well, I consider airtime when you float out of the seat, so maybe your a$$ is numb? If it's not numb, are you at all fat, like too heavy to be lifted outta the seat? Just thinking out load, I really should never do that.
actually, a fat person would experience more air time, if we are using the butt-out-of-seat definition. the degree to which a person is lifted off their seat is the delta between the coaster's direction of movement and the rider's. so while a train crests a hill and changes direction downwards, a fat rider's additional mass would imbue them with additional momentum in the original direction, vectoring away from the train, whereas a rider with less mass would not be thrown out of their seat with as much force.
personally, i think that's the shallower of the two definitions of "airtime", though. for me the root thrill of airtime is the butterflies one experiences in the pit of their stomach during freefall, and that is not caused by the butt -- it's caused by the balance mechanisms in the inner ear.
most likely, the OP here has simply become desensitized to that sensation. i hope it never happens to me!
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both Big Bad Wolf and Hypersonic XLC came as huge shocks to me. I always thought of BBW as one of BGW's signiature park-defining rides, and Hypersonic XLC was such an extreme, cutting edge, high-profile and relatively new ride. i mean, i am sure as a member of the GP i am not privy to all the factors that went into those decisions, so i'm not judging them, just saying that those closures both shocked me.
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Kennywood's Thunderbolt has a pretty awesome ending. its biggest drop is actually its last, if i recall correctly. very unusual.
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i agree that the first half is great. after the MCBR it all falls apart, but really it's that weird "butterfly" element that's to blame. the corkscrew is actually fine. the corkscrew feels awkward nowadays because the MCBR brings the train to an almost complete stop, so it crawwwwwls through those final two loops. with more speed, the G's on those loops were a lot smoother. look at older videos of the ride, and they look pretty good.
Kings Dominion (KD) Discussion Thread
in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Posted
i remember when anaconda was being built. i went to the park with a friend, and at the time all that was there was the lift hill and the two ensuing loops. we rode Rebel Yell to get a better look, and i can still remember my friend yelling "holy crap, look, it goes UNDER the lake!"
i also remember riding it when it first opened. it must have been a saturday, because the line extended all the way through the congo back almost to Avalanche's exit. i also remember the ride being advertised as having "6 loops" and even as a kid, i thought this was BS once i saw that two of the "loops" were that lame butterfly element, and weren't even close to being legit inversions.
originally, the MCBR did not slow the train nearly as much as it does today, and i think this actually made the ride a wee bit smoother. don't get me wrong -- it was still a rough Arrow looper, but seems to me like slowing it down to a near-stop causes even more sideways banging around as it navigates those sloppy turns.
i've said it before, but if they removed those two crappy turns after the MCBR (and loosened up the brakes on the MCBR as well), anaconda would be one of the best Arrows around.