Tour2ma

- List of parks would be great to speed input. - Can't find the Kemah Boardwalk Bullet anywhere. - I like that the Hawker's poll's separated lists for wood and steel reduced the ordering decisions... of course today the lines are blurred more. I will probably uncheck a number of the lesser coasters I've ridden just so I don't have to deal with ordering them... and I've only ridden about 150. Does anyone really care where the Seabreeze Jack Rabbit and the Waldameer Comet rank relative to each other? Down the road including some Defunct classics would be great to see how they stand the test of time. For example my #1 will always be the Euclid Beach Flying Turns. But where Son of Beast or the Puritas Springs Cyclone poll would be interesting... assuming you have enough old codgers around here taking the poll.

Don't read them all, but those I do all seem to have at least one item of interest.

Half-price??? I know for the HW ERT sessions you have to be a member of a coaster org to get in at all. Is there a standing half-price admission at HW for members of ACE, etc.? EDIT: NM... just saw the interim posts on IN and Paramount parks... As for economical ACE alternatives, consider a $12 premium membership at coasterfanatics.com. Ted just launched this club and it is on the HW list. I'm not sure about BB's.

LOL... no TPR gear here to wear... shite or otherwise... I plan to arrive at HW around 18:00 on Friday. After Saturday ERT will head to BB area for Sunday's Rumblefest. Based upon the animation of the KY Rumbler, I was on the fence on the worth of the BB leg of the trip, but the TPR video showed a lot more coaster is there than I expected...

EBP's final helix was awesome and its "crowd brake" wasn't that rough, especially considering that you hit it at the ride's top speed. True the cars bounced off of it a bit, but that just reinforced the impression of how out-of-control the ride was. EBP had one dip, at most 2' deep, right after its intitial turn coming off of the lift hill... its one and only lift hill. While I understand the safety considerations and the third lift hill is no biggie, it saddens me to see the middle one. The major reason the modern bobsleds fall short of the classic FT's is everytime you get up a good head of steam you hit a brake station. I at least hope the lifts are all as fast as EBP's which was amazingly quick.

Finally a fellow EBP vet... As I posted before, this will not be the EBP FT's, but it's still gonna be a hoot. And yes, it'll be too intense for some. As for the "air" inquiry above... No negative G's, but there are reduced positives in the transisitons mixed with bursts of 1+ in the corners.

Thanks for the post, RCoasterny. I question Fetterman's statements about the relative sizes of the EBP and Riverside FT's. It appears the EBP FT's were about twice as tall as Riverside's, so even with a steeper lift hill angle, EBP's FT would have nearly the same depth. But, if nothing else, at least we have the offical acronym... _______________________________ Tour(here's hoping KFT does not stand for "Knoebel's Flying Turkey")2ma

LOL... Well the brakes did work back then, too, but no, they weren't the headsnapping grabbers on many of today's coasters. Also braking here is accomplished by squeezing the sides of the train. If you go back to the close up of the car you can see the "brake pads" low on the sides. Pretty sure that the long finish run is to let the trains settle out and run straight into the brake run. EBP's settled out in a spiral with the top rail squeezing the train down to the bottom of the track. I think there's a tunnel leading the trains to the lift hill. Probably some minor swings to and fro LIKE A MACK BOBSLED.... Rob, All I can say is that I've ridden BPB's Avalame, SFOT's La Vi-boring and a couple others. The Mack's are definitely the better ride of the two. While in the pic you posted, Avalanche looks good, the ride just did not deliver. It was just getting to FT's level when it hit the brakes. Put it another way.. while my CF ride list ratings have the EBP FT's atop my list with a 10, Ava got a 3. While my memories of EBP are fond, and Knoebel's does not look to be that level, I still have to sign off as... Tour(bet-you-a-beer-you're-a-big-fan-after-one-ride)2ma

Well the model is pretty darn accurrate. Here's a shot of the Riverview FT's when it was still at the '33 World's Fair in Chicago. Riverview bought it and moved it to their park. While it's still not my FT's, it doesn't look too bad actually... Click the pic to go to the host webpage.

Thanks... Those are not the FT's of my youth... ___________________ Tour(hopingthemodelsarenotthataccurate)2ma

Again only my minds eye here, but EBP's was a good two mice wide and three deep. Height was in the mid-80's.... and it took all of 36 seconds... Can you scan the Riverside photos in the book you've mentioned?

I can only relate the EBP FT's, but while not a large footprint as compared to a coaster, it was much bigger than the average Mouse. I'd guess on the order of six or so...

Well the FT's aren't being hyped because there's no attention grabbing stat like Toro's steepest first hill (woodie). And with most of the public only having reasonably lame modern Bobsled rides to relate to.... Anyway, the good news is that the updates are now active... http://www.knoebels.com/update.htm And word is that the Riverside FT's is the basis for the Knoebel's design. Let the hype begin...

Let's practice by convincing them to give some updates on this project...

^IMO, no, but only because it's in a coaster related context... Here's the best photo I've found of the FT in action. ____________________________________________________________ EDIT: Actually I did not "find it", Ted, AKA "coasterfanatic" did, as well as the photo of the car a few posts up. The car pic was on a Euclid HS class reunion site. The FT's in action pic is at Coaster1Robert's Page.

How Loud? and.. How close to my ear?

... and they aren't even in the same area code... Is the achive footage on-line? If so, link please. All I have found are still photos. I rode the Euclid Beach FT's many times as a kid and it is still atop my ride list. If you like out-of-control twisters, you will love the FT's. I mean how much more out-of-control can you get than no rails? Of course I am assuming that Knoebel's will "do it right", which should be a pretty good bet. But I'd also bet we're looking at 2007 here given the absence of any design info, let alone construction updates. Hope I am wrong here though. The only negative I see is ride capacity, especially if they use the EB style, 3-car trains as seen in my avatar. At only two per car (Wild Mouse style) the Coney Island 5-cars would obviously help some. Still I'd expect that it would be hard to get above 600/ hr or so given modern safety considerations... There were no mid-course, safety block, brake segments in the EB version. Here is a post over at CF I made in a similar thread last November. http://www.coasterfanatics.com/sec_forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=646&KW=flyin+turns&PN=0&TPN=2 And here is a nice pic of a FT car.... note the caster wheels....

Assuming it's a good ride, occassionally I laugh, but I'm more prone to whooping and hollering.

Sounds pretty good to me. Thanks for the heads up...

Well I did it the old fashioned way. called SFOT Cust service and did it over the phone. In area, the grand total would have been ~$68. After the outside-the-area discount, it totaled out at just under $50. With the savings I might be able to buy a hotdog and a beer...

Pricing is all competition based, not attraction based. If they have a large region all to themselves, you're gonna pay.

Normally I'd agree, but.... they pissed me off. AW was my home park, so this year it's SFOT by default. Web registration offered a discount since I was out of the immediate area of SFOT, but won't honor it at checkout. So I'm looking for another route... Anyway they also have a place to enter Promo Codes, so there should be some around.

It's time to sign up for a pass, so if you have a code you would not mind sharing and you can share, I'd appreciate it... Post or PM... Your choice... Thanks in advance.

First Coaster: SFAW's Texas Cyclone (R.I.P.) mid-May-ish Last Coaster: SFGAm's Raging Bull mid-June-ish Highlight was the month+ long road trip that sandwiched the above around my daughter's wedding on Long Island Sound. 2006 is looking even better...

324 completed ballots posted. Looks like that may be it. Considering Favorite Steel was in a virtual tie for #1 in the wood poll, I'm surprised that the steel poll drew 250 fewer ballots. I think the steel was harder to complete, but not that much harder.