Skycoastin Steve

Well at least the best Intamin of all has never derailed or had any major incidents. That coaster of course being at Cedar Point and having blue track. No, seriously! In all seriousness, it's no secret that Intamin has had a bit of a checkered past, but as has already been said, it doesn't necessarily reflect negatively on their ride quality. As is stated so eloquently by the fantastic film Forrest Gump, $hit happens. Even on rides that are seemingly maintained correctly along with guidelines, these are pretty complex and LARGE machines. Stuff will go wrong from time to time.

^I would have thought the poor guy getting crushed on Big Thunder would have been a pretty questionable case of "did he REALLY die off property???" But we digress.......

I'm going to get momentum going for Der Fallinfast. I highly doubt they'll have a naming competition, but dammit, that should be the name!!!! Memo to anyone from Busch management who reads this site: NAME IT DER FALLINFAST!!!!

^Well they let several trains full of riders on Voyage go in one of the worst thunderstorms I've ever seen in my life last year just before closing on the Saturday of Holiwood Nights. I only know that because I rode that beast in the 90% darkness, torrential downpour, and strobe light lightning that was ensuing at 8:30 that night. Most. Epic. Ride. Ever.

^Well, if you really want to get technical, nobody has died "on Disney property." -Steve "At least according to Disney they haven't..." Burant

That really loud voice that comes on the speakers and says, "Arms down, HEAD BACK, and hold on!" isn't there for the novelty. :duh:

That just looks heinous. In a good way.

^From what I've gathered, I think the B&M super NASA computer controls the trims, but I have no idea what it uses to determine how hard to engage the trims from cycle to cycle. The ride I had this morning was absolutely trimless, but it was a little windy so that may have had something to do with it. It definitely has really really good cycles and some lackluster cycles, but I still think it's a quality coaster for sure. I know I had rides on Goliath at SFOG last year that truly sucked, but my rides on it this year were awesome, so I think it's just a B&M hyper thing, not just an Intimidator or Silver Star thing. :shrug:

^I rode in the 2nd row today and my butt wasn't even remotely hitting the seat on any of the hills.

^I gotta say the lower portion of that "looped" part of the lap bar is what contacts your hip, and then the outer part is where you hold on.

^^I just think with Voyage everyone has a different tolerance and/or threshold for roughness on a coaster. Me personally, shuffling and potholes KILL me, but just the getting tossed around that happens on Voyage is as fun as it gets (weird, I know). I think Voyage's problem probably had more to do with PTC's trains just not being able to track as well as needed on that layout. Add that to the fact that the Timberliners are probably inevitably going to end up on every GG coaster sooner or later (much like Millennium Flyers on GCIs). ^I think you perfectly summed up my feelings on Voyage, word for word.

I'm not sure which Intimidator at Carowinds some of you guys are riding, but I've been on it 24 times now and not a single time have I not had REALLY good airtime. As is the case with most B&M hypers, it gets trimmed some, but I don't think it does to the point where it neuters the ride. And the 2nd drop/turn has some pretty good positive G's to it, as does the pull out from the 1st drop. Sure, I305 is still better, but Intimidator is far, far, far from a bad ride.

I'm going to jump wayyyyy out on a limb here and say that they've got the whole bolt situation figured out.

Wow, it's really getting built quickly. Now if only I could find a way to get myself up that way this summer........

^You do make a valid point with B&M's recent inverts. I wasn't wholly impressed by Patriot, although Silver Bullet was a huge surprise in a good way. I'm not sure why nobody's contracted Intamin to make a traditional invert in the US, maybe it just always came down to a cheap SLC or a "you know what you're getting when you pay for it" B&M. I'd love to see B&M go back to the more compact, intense layouts (Talon and Afterburn immediately come to mind, and also Batmans even though I'm not a fan of those). As far as Volcano goes, according to RCDB, there was an impulse coaster built in Japan in 1998, although I don't know if it opened before or after Volcano. However, they were both more than likely conceptualized, manufactured, and built around the same time, so it really doesn't make much difference which opened first. Definitely groundbreaking stuff, but part of me always wishes the post-launch part of Volcano had a little more excitement to it. I just think no matter who builds it, KI desperately needs a quality invert, as it's their one glaring omission from their lineup. They also don't have an Intamin, so who knows!

So even if Intamin had nothing to do with it, you're still comparing manufacturers? Holiday Park has had this coaster for 9 years, and Intamin's liability for the ride has LONG since past. It's practically the same thing with Xcelerator, only KBF has had that for 8 years. Is it Ron Toomer's (or Arrow's) fault that Magnum slipped through the breaks and "crashed" in 2007? Was it Schwarzkopf's fault when Mindbender killed three people? The answer to all those is a resounding "no." Once the park gets a coaster in operation, it's THEIR responsibility to maintain the ride.

Since they don't have a full-circuit inverted, I'd like to see an updated take on Volcano at KI (or any other park, for that matter!). While I agree that they definitely need a REAL invert, I don't know if Intamin would be the way to go. B&M's track record is certainly a lot better than Intamin's in the invert department (both quality and quantity), so if KI did decide to go the invert route, I would hope it to be a B&M. Volcano, as good as it is, has also obviously had its mechanical issues, so I'm not sure KI would want to replace one lemon coaster with another. Just my opinion.

My only guess is something wasn't maintained in the wheel assembly/axle area, and given that ride's extreme forces (mostly on the upstops, I would presume), an unmaintained wheel assembly would certainly result in an incident like this. That guess is really only based on other derailing incidents in the past, as they all seem to have the common denominator of poor train maintenance. Thankfully everyone made it out relatively unharmed.

^Fanboys are actually worse than people who blindly bash whole park chains even though they've probably been to only 1 or 2 of their parks. In my experience, I've had extreme positives and negatives with basically every park chain, and in some cases, parks themselves. For example, Kings Dominion had one of the most horrid opening weekends I've ever seen, but basically every other time I've gone I've had a great time. In general, I'm not a huge Six Flags fan, but I've had amazing days at several of their parks (St. Louis, Fiesta Texas, Magic Mountain immediately come to mind). It's when people start making ridiculous statements like "That's why I hate how CF's ride ops have headset microphones cause they say stupid crap in them." What's the difference if they're saying stupid crap in a headset or the microphone in the operator's booth? One operator saying stupid crap over a microphone at one ride at one CF park turned into a bitchfest on the whole park chain. How does that even happen? And don't get me started on the trash can thing, although I think most of the jokes are tongue in cheek. The only thing I ever really ask anyone who complains about trash cans is would you rather have fewer trash cans and litter everywhere? Anyway, rant got off topic. I think most people who have ridden SOB don't enjoy it all (I HATED it), but there really is a "sheep" factor among the younger enthusiasts of TPR.

They have! It's called Intimidator 305. I guess that might be a giga-lite? You have a point.

Here's a better question. Will Intamin make a unique mega-lite layout or will they all be the same?

^Good example with Knott's. I happened to think it was a very nice park, that GhostRider was nowhere even remotely close to as rough as advertised, and Silver Bullet was fantastic. But don't look for any support on that statement around these parts. In fact, don't look for anything positive to be said about any Cedar Fair property or ride around these parts.

^If I had to speculate, I would say it wouldn't be that loud. At least it doesn't look like it would be that loud.

^While I realize it's really premature to jump to any kind of conclusions, I hope this isn't something that shines poorly on Holiday Park's maintenance crew. After the snapped cable (don't know what the issue was with that, either), GeForce has had a rough go of it the last year or so. For their sake, I hope this hasn't been a couple huge missteps on the maintenance staff's part.

So what will it be called? Das Drop? Der Fallinfast?