Dr. M

Continuing to prove they're the most awesome park in the world, they recently posted: "The bumper boats and boat tag will operate in 2014. The bumper boats are approaching the end of their operational life. We had to remove the roof and it would be very expensive to replace. The engines are nearing the end of their functionality. It's an expensive ride to operate given gasoline prices and the cost of keeping the engines running. The ride has seen decreasing ridership over the last decade. In determining whether to replace the current engines and roof, we had to consider whether the number of riders would justify the expense. Unfortunately, we determined it wouldn't be a wise financial decision." They didn't need to defend themselves, but they did anyway. 'Cause they care about their guests. But I did get a big kick out of this comment: "Would it be possible to just have riders put thier feet thru the innertube and bump into each other in the drained pool while making motor boat noises?"

From what I heard, the concept Paramount approached Premier (might of been the other way around, not sure) was to have the back of the cars "drift" when it went around a corner, or basically the car part of the chassis would swing out to the side. The tech apparently wasn't ready so they decided to not include it in the final coaster. Premier did end up making a concept that was shown at IAAPA 2010. Apparently the coaster was sold to a park in Abu Dhabi, but have yet to see it appear. http://www.themeparkreview.com/parks/photo.php?pageid=189&linkid=9775&pageno=5 Maybe someone reminded them that front wheel drive cars don't really drift... I seem to remember from my days watching Top Gear that this isn't really true, I remember them being able to drift just about any car they wanted. Not that I know much about it or anything.

Also what I think people sometimes forget is that rides like Flying Turns come from an era when amusement parks wanted cutting-edge rides that gave the biggest thrills given the technology at the time. Kind of like today! New rides eventually become old rides, that future generations will then become nostalgic about. It's great that Knoebels has preservation of history as part of their business model, but it's 100% unreasonable to expect them to make that their ONLY business model. People of all types and tastes visit Knoebels, and like any good amusement park Knoebels will make an effort to accommodate them. Personally, I don't believe new ever has to come at the expense of the old, and clearly Knoebels agrees. If they had the space and the funds, if they wanted to build an RMC, a B&M invert (a good one ), even a hyper coaster, I wouldn't complain at all. Just because they're small now doesn't mean they have to stay small. Look at SDC, they've built many bigger rides while keeping their "small park charm". (And I bet old people complained loudly every step of the way.)

How could it change the park for the worse? All the old rides will still be there. Knoebels has always been a mix of the old and new. They had Whirlwind, they have modern flats like Power Surge and Fandango, really this is nothing new. The only thing Knoebels can be relied on to do is whatever it feels like doing, whatever it thinks would be best for the park. Anyway I'm convinced we're looking at the final rendering. The flat section of the track has those tire booster thingies (that's the technical term), but no launch mechanism, it's there so they can have that track that wraps around the lift hill, the barrel roll through the loop is being called an immelman for some reason, and the banked turnaround is being called an "airtime hill". I hope that mean-looking helix at the end packs a lot of Gs. Also, does anyone else think that loop is looking oddly spherical? I mean like an almost perfect circle? Question: I've never ridden a Eurofighter before, is this layout pretty par for the course for that style of ride? Is there anything particularly unique about it? And one final thought: Fahrenheit looks gigantic at Hershey, and it's only twenty-three feet taller than this ride. This ride is going to look MASSIVE at Knoebels. EDIT: Ok one more final thought. Only at Knoebels would you have so many people complaining on facebook over the loss of freaking bumper boats for the sake of a new coaster. Do these people think Knoebels is a museum? Would they rather they just not build anything new ever again?

Airtime hills! I wonder if the plural there is accurate. It is only 1985 feet of track after all. But again here's hoping these hills have a little more airtime than Fahrenheit's, which really has hardly any. I'm getting more and more excited for this. Even if it turns out completely average, it'll be at Knoebels so it'll be awesome. Plus, it opens up the door for them getting future major not-in-house coaster installations, I really hope this works out well for them. BTW that rendering can't be the final layout, can it? Because I'm not seeing an immelman, or any straight bunny hops, and also it's got the launch section before the first hill... Unless of course by "immelman" they meant "barrel roll", since I am seeing that, and they have the straight section of track so they can have that track that wraps around the lift hill and threads the loop, which is awesome by the way.

^They're heating elements to keep the track from icing over. [/misinformation]

Well, that was a great lesson in how not to announce a major addition. But anyway, big looping coaster near the front of the park with no OTSR, I approve! I'm still hoping for a launch, though obviously it doesn't seem likely at this point. Mini Fahrenheit will give me more excuse not to wait in the sweltering sun for the actual Fahrenheit. I'm hoping, due to the smaller size, the inversions will have a bit more "kick" to them than Fahrenheit's as well. Everything at Knoebel's has a bit more "kick" to it.

But what am I supposed to do with all these plans for a Key West-themed amusement park?

I doubt many were sorry to see Whirlwind go, I certainly wasn't. A Skyrocket type coaster would be awesome though.

?

I totally meant to mention this in my post, it would probably be the winner except to me it doesn't really count, since you're not upsidedown at the bottom, you're lying on your back, which is not the same thing. It's arbitrary of course, kind of like how RCDB never considered Eejanaika to have the largest number of inversions. I think Furious Baco might just take it.... Your body does go upside down on a pretzel loop at this point: [attachment=0]pretzel loop upside down.png[/attachment] Image credit: rcdb.com Yes but that's not the point at which you're going the fastest, so if we were going with a strict definition of "upside down" (just for the purposes of this discussion) it probably wouldn't win.

^Yeah, isn't it awful? (I was partly being facetious, I can be mildly disappointed and also still be pleased with whatever they picked, it is possible.) Actually, the idea that they had to go searching for something, and wasn't something that everyone already knew about, could mean its something we've never seen before. It can go both ways! Or that they went to three states to see examples of whatever it is - that's what led people to RMC in the first place (Texas, Missouri, and Illinois). This is what I thought at first, but it's true that they just said they visited at least three states, not that the ride they picked was specifically in each one. The "impulse" thing really threw me off since it doesn't seem to jive with the "three states" thing no matter how you slice it. Very mysterious, as intended I'm sure.

Build a big new roller coaster, people will ride it. Period. Compare Gatekeeper's opening season to Skyrush's, taking overall park attendance into account, and I doubt you'll see much of a difference. It's like defending a movie like Transformers 2 by pointing out how well it did at the box office. When discussing the quality of the movie , it's utterly irrelevant.

I was actually thinking (hoping) that the reason they started the hype this early was because they knew they wouldn't be able to keep it a secret for very long once construction began. All someone has to do is drive by and snap a few pictures...

The anticipation is agonizing. Whatever it is, it better be a roller coaster, it better be full-circuit, and it better have a custom layout. If all these things are true, I promise not to be disappointed, even if it is some kind of impulse water coaster. I don't think it's going to be a launched woodie, in fact I doubt it's going to be a prototype at all, seeing as they were described as having "found" it (i.e. something that already existed). HOWEVER. If it is a launched woodie, then I am changing my permanent address to Knoebels' campground. Another impossible idea for you: the world's second wing rider... though the woods... how awesome would that be?

I totally meant to mention this in my post, it would probably be the winner except to me it doesn't really count, since you're not upsidedown at the bottom, you're lying on your back, which is not the same thing. It's arbitrary of course, kind of like how RCDB never considered Eejanaika to have the largest number of inversions. I think Furious Baco might just take it....

It's really hard to tell from the angle of the first pic, but I can tell you for certain I've never been on a coaster seat that felt anywhere near as "bucket shaped" as Gate Keeper's (and I'd ridden Raptor that day as well). If you look closely, I think you'll see the difference is actually fairly pronounced. Look at how sharp an angle their knees come up at. Look at the smaller kid, doesn't he look fairly "bunched up" to you? I wouldn't be surprised if he needed help climbing into the seat. Unless I'm remembering wrong, the fact that the wing coasters don't need drop-away floors in the station also helps to prove my point.

All aboard the B&M hate train... Y'know, all of this complaining just re-affirms how important B&M is to the industry. I'm not sure I follow. To me it just reaffirms how they make many coasters that some people don't particularly like. There is such a thing as bandwagon-hopping, but there's also such a thing as genuine dislike, due to taste, which is ok because everyone's tastes are different.

Another thing that slightly bothers me about the trains: The angle of the seats is way more reclined, also like on the wing coasters. That's one of the things that bothered me about GateKeeper, I felt more "embedded" in the train and it took me a little more out of the experience. Instead of feeling perched on my seat, I felt sunken into it, which also added to the "smothery-ness" of the restraints. Compare to Batman's trains: Whether or not you think it's an improvement, it certainly does change the ride experience. I wonder what the thinking was behind that particular design decision, like why do they think that would be better? Of course, it might not adversely affect an inverted coaster as much, we'll have to wait and see. As far as just sitting in them, not moving, as long as the restraints don't get too tight, that certainly does look like the most comfortable roller coaster seat one could imagine.

Why are people so convinced Holiday World wants to make the Voyage smoother? Isn't it still extremely popular? Isn't it possible they're fine with it the way it is? Just asking. Like I said before, it's been a longtime dream of mine to get to ride it, but that is to ride it as the pinnacle of TRADITIONAL wooden coaster design, not modern topper track design. I could honestly care less how rough it is. We'll see if that remains true after I ride it, of course.

Trailblazer at Hershey. "Hey, I think we finally broke ten MPH! What fun!" Superman ROS at SFA. "Two gigantic helices right in a row! What fun!"

You know the Muppets have a 3D show at Disney already, right? I mean not a "ride" exactly, but definitely an attraction.

About this "launched flying coaster" thing... launched coasters have head rests, to give your back and neck full support against the force of the launch. If you were lying down head-first, there would be nothing to support your neck. Imagine someone pushing down really hard on the top of your head, that's what it would feel like. I don't think the people suggesting this are really thinking very hard about the forces involved. And that's not even taking into account the fact that flying coasters, especially B&M flyers, suck ass. I mean seriously. I actually had thought of this too. An airtime hill where both the entry and exit were beyond vertical. I call it: light bulb hill, due to its shape You could call it an Omega, after the greek letter, also somewhat describes the look of the element and sounds way better too. I posted about this same idea awhile back, even posted a picture of the Omega symbol to try and describe it. But I've given it some thought since then and I doubt it could work. The fastest points would obviously be the entrance and exit of the element, so they would need to be super long and drawn-out to keep the forces manageable. But the longer the entrance, the taller the element, the more speed you lose to gravity, meaning the train would be slowed down so much by the time it reaches the top there would hardly be any air time to speak of. So I refined the idea and came up with an "inverted loop". Simple really, a loop with a half inline twist right before and right after, so you enter it upside down and then ride the outside of the loop all the way around instead of the inside. I don't see why such a thing couldn't be engineered to give consistent positive Gs all the way around, just like B&M's loops give perfectly consistent negative Gs. I'm sure somebody's already done this in No Limits.

My rides on it have been inconsistent, but I find the front much better for smoothness/airtime than the back. It has the potential to be a very, very good ride.

Maybe it was a typo and they really just meant they were impulsive.