DirkFunk

The only ride I was as harsh to in recent memory other than Gale Force was Verruckt. At least it can't kill anyone if it's being rebuilt for the 3rd time.

There's a lot of stories about Marineland and it's owner, and many are very lurid (the Deer have a classic one associated with them). A lot of people will, at first glance, assume most are trumped up or ridiculous. Some he's been cleared of in court, though that doesn't necessarily mean he didn't "do" anything. However, the one thing that can absolutely be confirmed and is irrefutable is that SeaWorld sued him to get back Ikaika, an orca who now resides at Sea World San Diego, citing poor treatment for medical conditions, aggression, small pools, bad training methods, etc etc etc. And Marineland lost that case.

I remember joking with a friend of mine that the Williams Grove Cyclone's wildest moment was on a straight piece of flat track. He just shook his head at me. "You know that's because there was a broken crossmember they never fixed, right?" Literally the piece of wood running between the rails had snapped in half and was bending under the extreme weight of the train, causing the train to violently bounce. I just thought it was "character" - turns out the ride could have derailed in comical fashion and caused serious injury or death. That was an instructive moment where I realized how little it was I knew and how much faith I was putting into chain smoking, hard living ex-car mechanics and HVAC guys to keep me from dying.

It's like this: Are you comfortable with going to a zoo/aquatic facility that SeaWorld had to sue in order to get animals back from citing mistreatment? If "yes," go. If "no," don't.

SeaWorld's legal problems include investigations by the US Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission, and they obviously received penalties already from OSHA. Different legal problems when it comes to allegedly misleading the public, but that is a thing right now and they've already gotten the old SeaWorld Orlando president to flip as an informant. In any case, this is pretty much unprecedented what is happening to Schlitterbahn. Not just that there is a criminal trial coming but also the kind of player involved. This should be a wake up call, and the entire industry should separate itself as much as humanly possible from what occurred and from Schlitterbahn's management. I don't know that it'll happen, but that's what needs to occur. Personally, I'm not that OK with accidents happening if they keep being the fault of the manufacturer or the park (which is overwhelmingly the case now for probably 15-20 years as it relates to rider death). They're amusement rides, not BASE jumping. The risk profile is supposed to be astronomically low.

How do you know with any certainty that where you're going instead doesn't do the same thing? That's exactly the problem for the entire industry. If you told me 3 years ago that Schlitterbahn and KMG would both be in such hot water that Republican states would be banning their rides and arresting their executives, I'd never have believed you. And yet here we are.

It's not a defense of them, good lord. How many times do I have to say the same thing over and over? Forget about just Schlitterbahn for a second: incidents like this and the KMG accident at the Ohio State Fair last year give the Ed Markeys of the country endless ammunition to have federal amusement ride regulation enacted. Because if these guys - argurably the best in their industry regardless of what you might think (and recognized BY THE WATER PARK INDUSTRY as such) - can't be trusted not to build something that is a death trap and cover up the fact that it is, who can be trusted?

I'm not talking about experience; I'm talking about expertise. I can have experience doing something and not actually know what I'm doing. Conversely I can never have done something before but have expertise because of similar relevant things I've done and learned from. The definition of "expertise" is "expert skill or knowledge in a particular field." Someone who has never done anything in a particular field does not, by definition, have any expertise whatsoever. This is precisely why Schlitterbahn's previous rides were able to pass without engineering scrutiny with relation to the slides (structures were a different story) previously. They had a solid track record having built many, many water coasters and were uniquely qualified having invented the attractions and keeping data records to make the necessary adjustments. Go back to the threads on this ride's development and you won't see a single soul suggesting they were incapable, even as the lack of engineering background was on full display both on television and in print (Grantland did a great water parks piece highlighting Henry) around the same time.

It isn't a thing you can disagree with. It is objective fact. Who was the engineer that built the Molina & Sons kiddie coaster a pack of fat enthusiasts is credit whoring on, for example? Where did Carl Miler go to college? The guy who designed Skycoaster is an engineer......an electrical engineer. What's different now is that A) someone is dead B) there are criminal charges C) you're being made aware that the designer wasn't an engineer. What does confer experience is having actually done something, not a piece of paper. Yes, the prosecutor is arguing that as a non-engineer, he lacked sufficient experience to build the ride. The actual reality is that he was likely the most experienced water slide innovator in the world. His CV is inargurable. And as such, let me repeat that this fact makes the callous way the park appears in the prosecutor's case that much worse. Your friends don't necessarily need an engineer (or to even be architects!) either depending on what it is and where. Ever hear of a "home builder license"?

Well this is the stupidest thing I've ever read. It's 100% true. It was true 100 years ago when guys like Mangels got into manufacturing from being mechanics and doing assembly. Its true now with showmen who entered the biz being major forces like Zamperla and ARM. Disney's "Nine Old Men" had not a single engineer in the group.

Is anyone actually doing that? It's been months and months since people were apologizing for them in the aftermath of the initial incident and demanding the calls for their head be taken down a notch because "maybe the kid stood up" and all that nonsense. The lesson here should be that treating ride manufacturers, designers, and park operators as demigods is a dangerous thing to do because ultimately no matter how much of an industry legend they are, that doesn't necessarily prevent them from taking unnecessary risks with us, the paying customers.

Did he realize they needed "actual engineering?" Or did he sell them because they were able to pass muster? Then no one has the proper experience, and in that case the guy who's built the biggest and most inventive slides of pretty much the entire history of the industry is most likely the best to take a crack at it. Otherwise you get into a negative feedback loop anything new is ever done. Was Mack qualified to build a spinning launched coaster? I'm gonna say he had tons and that it is pretty objective as to how one would determine it.

I'm honestly shocked you've never heard of Stan Checketts. But my point is that being an "engineer" is not historically at any point a requirement for manufacturing big rides that we all love. He has an idea what he's doing. He had a greater idea than anyone else around. Henry was a inaugural inductee to the World Waterpark Association Hall of Fame and a legend in aquatics, degree or not. That doesn't excuse what he did at all; in fact it makes it even worse. However the idea that only now is Schlitterbahn sketchy....I mean, c'mon. This is the ultimate Monday Morning Quarterbacking. It's embarassing.

Stan Checketts isn't an engineer either. And honestly, if some of the stuff he designed and tested ever went into actual production like the Sonic Boom, maybe we wouldn't have discussions about what a genius he was. The point here is this: There isn't anyone more experienced in the world at building slides of this sort than Jeff Henry. The problem is that Jeff Henry's interest in Jeff Henry superceded that of the safety of the guests in this instance and there weren't enough people on his team to tell him no any more. Focusing on his "lack of experience" gets into a whataboutism loop that is only going to make you wonder about your safety as a whole in the industry. Maybe we should have that discussion? I don't know.

The confidence of this is kind of low for me on this considering one of the guys who designed this thing literally had no engineering degree let alone a GED. Plus to make things even better, he's a co-owner of the entire company (Jeff Henry). I just don't know where to begin with this. Everything from the design planning, construction, maintenance, and management of the incident were a complete failure and makes make not want to trust the company as a whole, all together. Watching the wagons get circled as people call Jeff Henry (possibly one of, if not the most experienced water slide designer ever) "inexperienced" when they've been riding his creations for a couple decades is almost too hilarious to me. Everyone wants to believe that this is something other than what it is, which is a industry mainstay and legend being totally exposed. Sometimes parks take chances with us, the guest. Even The Walt Disney Corporation did it in my lifetime, which is how some guy wound up impaled on Big Thunder Mountain.

I have news for you about almost everything at Schlitterbahn including who designed the first Master Blaster (and licensed the tech out). Also: Additional news about everything S&S was building from 1994-2002. As it relates to this initial arrest: He will probably do a plea deal and end up dragging others down with him. And honestly, I don't feel too bad about it. Someone got killed over this.

Short answer: no Long answer: By distributing money over a 12 month period rather than just the three month peak summer run, it insulates the company from risk related to poor weather or events that might cause tourism shock (terrorist events, for example). It also helps the companies in their financial reporting as right now increasing revenue in Q1, 2, and 4 year over year can be seen as offsetting any potential losses in the usually most important quarter (3, July-September). Is the market that stupid? Kinda sorta. Additionally: If I hand you $100, you might want to budget your spending or saving of that $100 over a long time frame. But these are publicly traded corporations. That money shows up on the quarterly ledgers and federal reports. They in turn have to describe what it is to their shareholderst that they will do with the money, whether it's dividends to shareholders, capital expenditures, or paying down existing debt. Six Flags could try to pile up cash on hand, but there would be an investor revolt right now if that happened.

Yup. IIRC the Paratrooper going to Fun Spot Atlanta was at Lakemont too.

Same here. Another part I'm fond of is that if I get a membership, yeah, you're locked into those first 12 months. But if the next year, I decide to hit some SF parks in the first half of the year and know I'm not making my way out to another one again, I can keep the membership, pay about as much as I would for a one day ticket, get my perks, and then cancel.

A new coaster is nice for me I guess, but I'd rather they have concentrated almost entirely on more indoor stuff for that winter season when there's sometimes nothing open but the train and Blazing Fury. I see a couple buildings there, and hopefully that's what the intent is.

While I was off getting wasted in border towns, yeah, I think everyone did a pretty good job with the two fundamentals (spreads out cash flow throughout a 12 month period, less likely to cancel). One other aspect to it is that people are turned off by a single purchase in the three digit range, but will often be totally OK if you offer them the opportunity to finance that price sans interest in payment plans. $9 a month doesn't sound bad to a budget minded consumer compared to $100, even though the 12 month cost is nearly 10% higher.

Taking money from idiots is actually pretty smart, if that's the desire.

My take is this: Six Flags used to suck. They sucked HARD. They still suck at a lot of things; go to Samurai Summit or look how fast their flat rides move. But SEAS is making strides in the direction to make them comparable just as Six Flags is improving, and I flat out can't believe I'm saying that they even merit being in the same breath now. Six Flags did a spectacular job improving operations last year, and the attractions they've been getting are in many ways equivocal to what SEAS is doing, just historically more cost effective (and in the case of the Justice League rides, really fantastic). As far as Lance's statement, Blackstone was always going to flip SEAS because that's what was best for them. They made multiples back in terms of the purchase price. The problem was that AB ever wound up in the position of being taken over, because the parks lost all the infrastructure of AB around them to save money on everything from trial lawyers to marketing and was forced to do it on their own with a pile of debt on their books. They'd have struggled by without Blackfish, but with Blackfish, its been an unmitigated disaster.

All animals offer equivalent risk? Fascinating. If he made repairs to the plane which had both accidents, sold it or had someone else fly for him, didn't provide any information about the accidents to the purchaser/pilot, and the wings fell off, your father probably would have been sued. So that's the actual equivalency. Meanwhile, Mamby did so well, SeaWorld lost $117 million dollars last year, saw dropping attendance again, is apparently set to cut another $25 million in costs, and has been replaced by someone from a bankrupt Chinese real estate company being investigated for corruption. Everything is great.

I ate at it all the time, but I would show up at opening because I knew that they had staffing issues (surprise!) and there would be some hellacious waits for tables.