GigaG

If this is true, and if it might be scrapped or stored indefinitely, we really need to petition some park to buy this. I can't imagine why this wouldn't be a good permanant coaster. It's compact, intimidating, and very intense.

Is that ice cream the European equivalent of the McDonald's Happy Meal mascot?

http://www.nbc24.com/news/story?id=1075886 Ohio will not inspect Skyhawk- SANDUSKY, OHIO -- The state of Ohio's amusement ride inspectors won't be conducting an official investigation into an accident that injured two people when a cable snapped on a swing ride at Cedar Point over the weekend. The state investigates accidents only when someone is admitted to a hospital or stays overnight. Cedar Point says the Skyhawk ride will remain closed until the park's investigation into the cause is completed. Two people were hurt around 10 p.m. Saturday when a cable disconnected on the ride that swings up to 125 feet in the air. A cable on one of the swing ride's carriages disconnected. The cable came into contact with two guests, according to the park. One was treated and released at the scene. The other guest was taken to a Sandusky Hospital as a precaution and has been released. The ride was shut down immediately following the incident. A Department of Agriculture spokeswoman says state ride inspectors will be at the park later this week to meet with Cedar Point officials and the ride's manufacturer. The inspectors also will need to sign off on the ride before it can reopen. "Safety is our top priority," Cedar Point said in a statement. "Skyhawk will remain closed until our investigation is complete and the ride can open safely." The park says Skyhawk was temporarily closed in 2013 for an unrelated situation. (The Associated Press contributed to this article.) I thought somebody went to the hospital... maybe I'm just misreading things.

Just for today as it's a Sunday and in turn is pretty busy. I was drawing more attention to the existence of Dejavu passes this long after its removal from the park. I know. I actually meant the "Wow." to be in response to that. It's pretty weird, but I guess they need to use them up.

Wow. I didn't know that boarding passes had been going on THAT long. By the way, is line jumping THAT big of a problem that you need boarding passes at SFGAm and not other parks? And if you, for example, are just a little out of order, would they kick you out?

I did see a video of Rush at Thorpe Park (a similar ride, probably smaller) have a chunk of metal fall off, but that seems unrelated to this. This is the tallest Screamin' Swing, but is not that much larger than Valleyfair's Xtreme Swing, which looks practically identical. Skyhawk has a sign on top, which is about the only visual difference. On another note, is it just me or has Skyhawk been neutered over the past few years? It seems like it does less swings to peak altitude, and it also seems that it might take a bit longer to get to peak altitude.

I believe that last year or maybe the year before (probably not) there was a cable accident during test runs (with the opposite swing that had a snap here) resulting in the ride being closed for much of the year and only running one swing for the rest.

CP Rundown's Facebook got this from the Theme Park Maniacs page- Theme Park Maniacs also posted this picture, showing that the snap was not a "drive" cable, but one of the cables near the swing arm-

Clamshells are weird. They feel insecure. I fit into 2 clicks (minimum) comfortably and 3 clicks relatively stapled. I might be able to make it to the 4th click, but that is VERY uncomfortable. Or maybe I'm confusing that with B&M OTSRs, into which I can super-staple myself with some help. As for the "hunk of padding", it is also thicker on El Toro. Maybe it has to do with with Bizarro being converted into U-bars of a sort. It was, right?

Simple - which restraints are friendly or unfriendly for overweight people in your opinion? For the record, I've only been walk-of-shamed twice, on CGA's Woodstock Express and Cedar Point's Wicked Twister. I fit on El Toro (50/50 chance or so that I have to be stapled by a ride op) and MF/TTD (sometimes need a bit of help with my seatbelt, but nothing horrible.) Friendly- -Morgan hyper restraints - I am a relatively large person, but in some seats on Steel Force I can lower the bar completely (to the last ratchet.) -Arrow individual lap bars - Well, these are pretty accommodating, but Magnum XL-200's seatbelts are now shorter (although ride ops say there is plans to re-lengthen belts.) -Arrow OTSRs - Buckle the belt and you're good to go! -Buzz bars - Need I say more? They are a bit narrow between the bar and the seat, but I don't see many situations in which they couldn't be pushed down. Unfriendly- -Intamin T-bars - Mainly the seat belts on this variety are short. Combined with several accidents which have been blamed on rider size, this restraint has gotten less and less accomodating. -El Toro's U-bars - These restraints come up higher than the T-bar, hitting your stomach higher up than the T-bar and sometimes requiring one of the few staplings which I'll visually react in shock to. The ride's seatbelts are fine, but the sensors are notoriously strict. I could swear that the real thing is worse than the test seat (which is the opposite of most rides that I've seen, where the test seat is somewhat smaller.) -Intamin's old OTSRs - Combined with the right seatbelt and buckle position (Possessed at Dorney, new belts on V2 at SFDK), these restraints are not that bad. Combined with horrible belts (KI's Drop Tower, where I can barely buckle the belt) or downright atrocious belts (Wicked freaking Twister...), these restraints are the least accomodating restraints that I've experienced. My only walk of shame on a non-kiddie coaster was Wicked Twister, as I've stated. Questions - I've never been on an RMC hybrid, and I've never gotten a clear answer - how are NTAG's and IRat's restraints? Better or worse than El Toro? And also, how are Goliath/Outlaw Run/Steel Medusa's? I've heard they are better than El Toro's but I still want answers. Finally, is Lightning Run better or worse than Toro's bars?

The "mi"... He spelled something wrong in some teaser earlier.

I really hope so, too. Look, no offense, Six Flags, but you've never really been that great at taking care of wooden roller coasters. Why do you think Rattler and all those other older SF woodies needed a re-do? Look what happened the last time you guys cloned a "classic" ride. Two of those Cyclones are now gone (one was ranked one of the worst roller coasters in the world), one is actually decent, and the other one still could use a complete RMC re-tracking. I'm just hoping that if this is true, they learn from those mistakes. Terminator was not running so well last year and that ride is only 5 years old. --Robb "Just not sure a traditional wood coaster is the right fit for Six Flags...sorry!" Alvey I'm guessing the one that needs a complete retracking is GA Cyclone and the decent one is Viper?

The brake fins in the animation look like Krake to me. The new vertical fins.

Here's what I would do - launch to 20mph, half stretched corkscrew/roll, main launch while inverted, and then roll out into the main layout. A rollback would slow to 20mph whIle inverted and then stop in the pre-launch. Sideways launch could be similar - small launch, banked turn to 90 degree angle, main launch, main layout.

Same. Skull Mountain was running one train and, to add insult to injury, one car was blocked off just for Flash Pass.

I love Georgia Cyclone. It's among my favorite "old-style woodes" (not insane RMC designs or prefabs.)

Wonder if she misspoke about the flywheel or if the animation wasn't accurate? I think I've heard from others that Anubis and Sky Rocket use flywheels to store energy for a launch. That is probably what this is.

Flywheels can store energy for an electric (LIM/LSM launch.) The animation looked like LIM/LSM launch.

^Hmm... SFMM restoring their rides... maybe Revolution is next... ... I wish...

I hope the trees were not cut down just to pacify the GP. I would have inspected the trees. Can't SFMM bring in somebody to inspect trees near paths and coasters every month or every other week or so? Thrill Capital Insider's Facebook says that X2's audio is back on, by the way.

So about "Thighcrush"... are the restraints actually fat-friendly? If I fit on El Toro, could I fit on Skyrush? You say the restraints staple you by the thighs, so I imagine it is fairly accommodating? You are saying that the ride may have even been designed to be a bit more accomodating. By the way, how is Skyrush in terms of breakdowns? I know it has restraint issues with comfort, but is it reliable? I just want to know a bit more about the reliability of new Intamins.

Right which would have made sense... running one train when you have 3 never makes sense no matter what time of year it is. Does the ride ever run 3 trains or do they never run more than 2 even in October and the middle of the summer? I've never seen anything other than Green Lantern run more than 2 trains at one time, which really makes sense because most of the ride ops at SFMM aren't efficient enough to handle a 3+ train operation. The ones that are usually are working on X2 which itself cant handle more than 2 trains. I have actually seen SFMM stacking a one train operation on two different coasters before - Gold Rusher and Riddlers. If you're wondering how you can stack one train, its when theres only one train in operation but it sits in the brake run unnecessarily because the ride op just isnt paying attention and fails to even notice that the train is waiting to be dispatched into the station. SFMM does seem to for the most part put its fastest operators on the most popular attractions. X2 almost always seems to have the best ops (which is part of the reason the line dies in the afternoon), followed by Goliath, YOLO (I was impressed at how fast they were working when it was on one train ops earlier this season), and sometimes Tatsu. Tatsu is weird, sometimes their ops are really good and sometimes really horrible. They don't seem to use the second station when they should, but thats not the ops' decision, Im sure that decision comes from management. Riddler typically has the worst ops, along with Gold Rusher and Scream. Green Lantern is pretty slow, but I believe a lot of that is just due to the ride configuration. I don't see why X2 can't handle 3 trains. It has a brake run, an "unloading platform" that goes unused but presumably is another block, considering the train frequently does stop there (and if I recall, sometimes for no reason when the station is clear - must be the "not paying attention and no letting trains in"), and a station. The block setup would be similar to Millenium Force.

It has been for a while, but the new thing is that instead of being half out of the station towards the cobra roll, it is actually inside the station now.

This is the park that runs 1-train operations on every single coaster there just because they're lazy. Yes, they ARE that bad. I've rarely seen 1 train except for maintenance on my trips. Although, last year, besides Scream (maintenance), we briefly saw Colossus running 1 train (and slow loading to go with it) and suspected Riddler was when it had a huge line. Most rides run 2 trains. Of course, Scream can run 3, and I doubt that maintenance would HAVE to be done for 2 trains at once. SFGAdv runs 3 trains on Bizarro... they stack, but at least they run 3!

Let me BUMP this thread with something... something that I don't know where to put... so I'll put it here. Just more theme park paranoia about lawsuits. This is an old article, but is worth reading- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8472394/Butlins-bans-bumping-on-the-bumper-cars.html