MrSum1_55

Coaster enthusiasts love forces, but coasters with inversions are generally the least forceful rides for their size. Also, rarely does a coaster with inversions offer anything unique. Oz'Iris, considered to be very innovative, actually has no inversions that have not been done before; it just presents them in a new order. However, enthusiasts do tend to like coasters with multiple launches, because many of them are long rides, able to incorporate airtime in them that even matches some of the largest hypers. So, these are two reasons Full Throttle is the most disappointing announcement of 2013. Actually, there is also a third reason: the marketing. Full Throttle. Enough said.

Exactly. Almost every park on the East Coast big or small, sans the Florida parks, has a coaster with more airtime than every coaster at SFMM. In fact, the two best coasters for airtime in California happen to be at Disney and Seaworld, two chains not particularly known for their coasters.

It does annoy me some when people make posts proving incorrect that SFMM has no airtime, because that is pretty much going against a claim that no one ever made. Just about everyone knows that Pocky and Goliath have airtime on them. However, IMO, both of these rides have exactly the same problem, being that they start out with descent air in the first half, and have little to no airtime in the second half. Still, the coaster with the most airtime in the park is a wood coaster most of the park's audience no longer cares about, and most parks, even many small parks, have a coaster with more airtime than that coaster.

Even comparing SFMM to other US/Canada parks is still pathetic. CGA has done an excellent job building Gold Striker, and much of the work was done before the season even ended. As I recall, Leviathan and Skyrush were almost finished before LL:DOD even started to go vertical. The reason why European parks are better is probably for the same reason European food is generally better than the US. Take a European pizza, for instance. In America, we dump loads of cheese and sauce onto a pizza, but Europeans tend to mix just the right amount of cheese and sauce for the perfect pizza combination. Sure, I will not be as full if I order a pizza in Europe, but the far superior taste makes me feel more like I got my money's worth. Now, look at this in the same way enthusiasts look at parks. I would rather have a complete park experience than a glut of coasters, but SFMM is clearly not catering to that audience. They are metaphorically caring to the fat Americans who want mounts of cheese on their pizza, and come for the coasters. The audience just does not care if they take too long to build a ride, just, as long as they have the most coasters, everyone is happy. SFMM is going to do few things in the future that will satisfy full on theme park fans, and not necessarily because the critics are overly picky, but because they will, for at least a few, probably many for years, not cater to our specific audience. *I am American

I voted for CE, mainly because I like to see footage of what the entire theme park looks like, not just the coasters. Also, not to mention that the CE videos usually have more TPR humor in them.

I guess I will have to say everyone is entitled to their own opinion on this one. My main problem with the B&M hypers is that, excluding Raging Bull, every single one feels like the same exact thing. Sure, there are some minor differences between them, and some have more airtime than others, but I think it is no coincidence that they are all grouped together on Mitch's poll. I would probably like B&M hypers better if they changed up the layouts a bit more. I prefer Intamins not just for the stronger airtime, but for the fact that each one, excluding clones, offers a different layout from the last.

The reason why Soak City was bought out is probably clear: Busch water a water park on territory, but that would not have made sense with the competition. Therefore, they simply bought out what would had been the competition, so they could, in the easiest way, have a park of their own.

^^Let's see, RMC only has ONE coaster open now, so you must REALLY hate NTAG. For 2013, mine is Full Throttle. Yes, I am in the 'Anything is better than Full Throttle' crowd, but my reasoning is that this is not what the park needed. The park could use either a family-friendly coaster, or a non-gimmicky thrill ride, and Full Throttle does not satisfy either category. It just had so much potential to be SFMM's return to building star attractions, but it is not.

A bunch of crappy steel coasters get destroyed by a hurricane: Everyone freaks out Good wood coaster gets the axe: No one cares.

I can blame it on the use of PTC's. Since Timberliners are a rescent invention, no one has any idea yet how long it takes for timberliners to tear up a coaster, but it is probably not too far off from most GCI's. PTC's even manage to mangle the tracks on smaller wood coasters. Because of them, Lake Compunce's Wildcat has required some major renovations, and even Blue Streak was running terribly rough when I visited in 2011.

I disagree about the Outlaw Run opinion, but it should be pointed out that this thread was started before most of the 2012 coasters were even open.

Pleasant: Firehawk: Expectation: I rough ride with painful reastraints Reality: A very smooth experience, even smoother than some B&M's. Sadly, the other Vekoma flyers do not seem to run as well as this one. Verbolten: Expectation: A tame family coaster Reality: An all around great experience, with nice theming, thrilling moments, and just a purely good time for the whole family GIB: Expectation: I headbanging, sickening experience Reality: A not-too-rough ride with some scary moments hanging from the towers Unpleasant: Flight of Fear (both of them) Expectation: A fun indoor steel looper Reality: They are both quite rough. The KI version is so overbraked it feels like you are going to roll back on several of the turns. The KD version suffers from having too many lights. They both have quite a few lights, but at least the KI version has colored lights to fit the theme. The KD version has a giant bright light in the middle, killing the theme. Mystery Mine: Expectation: A fun, smooth, intense Eurofighter Reality: The layout is very strange, but, mostly not in a good way, IMO. The first drop really surprised me, but the rest of the first half was quite rough and uneventful. The second half, though, was somehow muct smoother, and, of course, more eventful.

I think it is actually the reverse cause and effect. Hypers are expensive rides. Therefore, a park has to be pretty successful to be able to afford one in the first place. If a park can afford a $20-$30 million investment, chances are, they will not be closing anythime soon.

I think this year might be one of my favorite, if not my favorite IAAPA year so far. I am just very thankful my proslide question about capacity was not only asked, but also praised by Rick Hunter.

^Fixed

Also, Sidewinder has a 42" minimum, and 48" with adult. So, a kid coulld be able to ride a spinning coaster with quick direction changes and turns that bank up to almost 90 degrees, but he wouldn't be able to ride a giant kiddie coaster that has extra seatbelts? Also, do Mack spinners generally have seatbelts as well? It can be quite annoying how Cedar Fair overkills many rides with extra seatbelts, which really murder the capacity to rides like Sidewinder and Ghostrider. Actually, now that I think about it, I have only ridden one coaster that has PTC trains with individual lap bars outside of a Cedar Fair park, and that is Twister at Knoebels. To the individual lap bar PTC trains not have seatbelts outside of Cedar Fair parks? It might save on insurance, but Six Flags parks can operate many older rides in their original form just fine. *WITH ONE TERRIBLE EXCEPTION!

Just to reclarify some of the points already made, Jaguar is a family ride. The main problem with it is the height restriction, which Cedar Fair can be blamed for. At the time of its construction, Knott's was a family owned park, and the largest attraction was Montezuma's Revenge. The newest coaster was Boomerang. On another note, with Knott's lately taking the route of building rides of similar scope to their competetion, maybe they could add a mine train to the ghost town. A 785m clone would be a nice addition. If they cannot clear the room for that, then they could go with a custom layout that can be built over walkways. It has always seemed to me that Knott's should have a mine train coaster, and I would really like to see that. Plus, a mine train would be one of few rides they could build entirely over the ghost town, and still have it look nice. Unless they painted the track some obscure shade of orange (which they already did with TWO coasters in that area), that would be a really nice looking addition. It may be a bit expensive, but it would be a fun investment that could offer something of similar quality to a nearby park.

Actually, the stop does not help capacity as much as it would seem. This is due to the fact that the trains go backwards along the same track, plus rollbacks need to be accounted for. The end result is the fact that the only block that matters is the one at the end of the ride. The soonest a train after the first one sent out could dispatch is when the previous train is going down the last drop. So, tree train ops would save only about 10 seconds per train. The improvement is only by about a hundred people per hour. SFMM, on some rides, could be increasing the capacity by several hundred people an hour by adding extra trains, but, since they do not do this, I am pretty sure I can give up hope of this thing ever running three trains.

Personally, I would rather have a total Ghostrider renovation than a new giga coaster.

Exactly. This park is not a small park, and, even if you do still consider it to be a small park, that will probably change within the next few years. And, there may be some hope for a giant new attraction, considering they have no competition. I was actually a bit surprised the SLC area could support a park this large in the first place. Having no competition helps! Although, I am more hoping for a large new attraction so this park would not continue to be overlooked than I would be for the attraction itself. What I mean by this is the fact that this park is probably one of the most overlooked in the U.S. It probably deserves the award for the "largest park no one has ever heard of." I actually know a quite a few full fledged enthusiasts who have been completely unaware this place even exists. I really hope they build an attraction large enough to make more news in the coaster world, although you would think more people would be aware of a park that has a tower launch coaster.

Proslide: With waterslides, capacity is often a major issue. Have you considered any solutions to low capacity slides, in the way that a rocket design can have multiple tubes on the course at once?

S&S: Your latest launch coasters have come to resemble more hyper coasters. Do you have any plans to make them evolve to hypers in the future?

Since Intamin is one of few companies out there to design both wood and steel coasters, has it ever been considered to add inversions to wood coasters, but use steel tracks for the inversions? (Like SoB did)

Have you ever considered putting ejector hills into your hypers? Or, are parks just requesting rides with only floater air?

The two shortest multi-launchers are currently Manta and Verbolten, and both are over 2,800 feet long. Well, technically, Volcano, at 2700 feet is the shortest multi-launcher, but that is not considered to be in the same league as rides like Cheetah Hunt or Maverick. Even so, it is boarder line sad thatFull Theottle will probably be even shorter than the currently shortest multi launcher, which is so short people often forget that it technically has a double launch. It is just difficult now to be optimistic in the state SFMM is now. I do not think there is a single park in the world with more than 10 coasters that lacks a world class attraction, except for SFMM. Full Throttle shows that they are not willing to change this anytime soon. Management is not being lazy. In fact, I would praise them for being creative. Few parks have truly been able to come up with so many records while spending so little.