ZeroGravity55

Track has arrived!

^ I haven't seen anything that looks out the ordinary on the construction cam yet. It's orange, so it should stick out like a sore thumb. Keep an eye on Twitter. Paula might tweet about it when it shows up. That's if it isn't already there somewhere.

This hasn't been brought up on here, but the TPR group had a Q&A with four people from the park (Paula was one of them) who knew about Thunderbird from the beginning. Some of the folks in the group were kind enough to tweet some of the answers they got and Robb was kind enough to retweet them. Robb actually tweeted the answer I found most fascinating, Thunderbird was originally designed to be a regular B&M inverted coaster in the late 2000's. The design for Thunderbird was adapted from the this original design. Also, Robb tweeted that the LSM launch was being supplied by Intrasys, not B&M (if I interrupted that correctly). It was also said that HW didn't just want a normal wing coaster, they wanted the cutting edge with launch and well-themed launch room. Okay, now this is where my speculation comes in. Leah Koch had said that her father, Will Koch had planned on building the original concept for this ride in 2009-2010, but he dropped those plans and moved on to something else. That is right around the time that B&M would have been developing the wing rider concept. I'm guessing that B&M sold him on this concept and he wanted to move forward with this rather than the inverted coaster. So basically what I'm saying is that if B&M hadn't been developing the wing rider concept, HW would have a B&M invert in the park for 4-5 years now. That is just my speculation. Say what you want about wing rider vs invert and which one you rather have (I think I already know the majority answer), but I think this a testament to Will Koch for always looking to have the best cutting edge technology/rides in his park.

I don't think the guy who posted the article on here was saying don't get offended by it, he was saying don't get offended that he was making light of the article below HW's. Nothing to do with HW at all.

^ Add that with periodic sound effects of thunder throughout the ride, I say Thunderbird's theming would be complete!

^ Depends when you visit. I'll say this, if you don't mind dealing with school kids, and cold water. The first weekdays the waterpark and dry park are open together are easily the best time to visit the park in terms of light crowds and multiple rides. Even Thunderbird shouldn't be that bad, especially if they choose to run two trains, which is something they should do at all times, IMO. I get it when they run only one train on the woodies early in the season, it saves the track work. But on Thunderbird, no excuse IMO. Especially with only 20 people on each train. Edit: So I saw that the TPR group was in their ERT session on The Voyage. So I jumped over to the Splash Cam for a minute and couldn't help but notice the heat lighting in the background. Could it be, Thunderbird? Remember, it's all part of the theming

Here's my suggestion, next year, I'm guessing everybody who visits will be hitting Thunderbird first thing in the morning (doesn't matter how far back it is). I suggest taking that opportunity to hit The Raven, Legend, and Voyage first. If you hold out to about 12-1 p.m., most of the guests will converge to the waterpark. Use this opportunity, to get as many rides on Thunderbird as you may like. Then enter the waterpark after you're done. Ride all of the slides you would like and save Mammoth and Wildebeest for when the waterpark is about to close. The line shouldn't be bad by then at all. After you leave the waterpark, you should be able to hit all the woodies multiple times. I suspect that Thunderbird will still have the longest line at the end of the day. I'm considering buying a season pass next year, since the park is offering the payment plan. I'm just trying to figure out if I'll be able to visit enough to make it worth the money I will be paying. If I do so, I should be able to come up with a very good plan to attack the park,this being the first one I will try. I've been following the TPR trip to Holiday World on Twitter today. I'm glad to see they've all been enjoying their visit! I always like to hear from people who don't get to visit HW too much. It's always nice to read their thoughts about the park.

^ lol can't really help what the paper decides to print and put on the front page. I have an idea of how they can sort of avoid Hyena Falls being right in the way and keep the Thanksgiving section and Splashin' Safari separate. I drew up a picture. It would involve removing all the concrete from PP. They're probably gonna have to do that anyways. The only thing they would keep would be the walkway tunnel to get to PP from Splashin' Safari. They would use this pathway to get to Thunderbird.

^ Nope that is most definitely orange.

So what I think is funny is the fact that we were all focused on the red track in this picture a month ago, and Thunderbird's track was visible, but nobody really mentioned it. We always refereed to is as red/orange track together, not separately.

^^ I agree with this so much. I love to debate people, that is how a lot of my college classes are set up. So when I go into a situation where someone has a differing a opinion than me, I almost look at it as a debate. That is why so many of my posts on here (when someone has a differing a opinion than I do) come with logical thought that seems to make the most sense to me. For example, I predicted that this ride was going to be a B&M flyer with a lying down launch. I was wrong, BIG TIME. I'll be the first to admit it. But when I was making the case for it, it was not what I wanted the park to build, but with all the physical evidence available, it logically made the most sense in my mind. As I go back and look at my posts over the last 2-3 weeks, I can tell I was getting more more frustrated with the quality of the posts on this thread. Honestly some of them lacked common sense. I usually try and keep to myself on those type of things, but I can tell it was bothering me by the sarcasm in my posts. I think at the time, I really wanted to get to the announcement date and I couldn't hold my tongue any longer. I knew as soon as I saw Thunderbird launch out of the station, some people were gonna be really let down by this ride, but for the life of me, I'll never understand why some people think the way they do. I'll never understand why people feel the need to downgrade somebody in a debate. If I ever made somebody feel that way on here, I'm sorry. It was never my intention to do so. With that out of the way, can we enthusiasts actually be enthusiastic and drop the negativity? A family owned park in the middle of no where Indiana just dropped 22 million dollars on a one of kind roller coaster from one of the best known coaster manufacturers in the world. That is something to be enthusiastic about. No matter what you think about how they could of spent the 22 million, they've made a decision that vastly improves the park and fills a need the park as been missing. For those who are disappointed, I'll tell you this. HW is listening (I'm sure Paula has seen most of the complaints). This isn't going to be their last coaster, I'm sure of that. They have 90 acres left to develop and there aren't enough flats or water rides out there to fill it. They'll build another one and maybe, just maybe, it'll peak your interests.

Holiblog post kind of giving behind the scene details on how the park decided on the name, Thunderbird. It also explains the legend in great detail. http://www.holidayworld.com/holiblog/2014/07/25/legend-thunderbird/

^^ Well KK is located in a major city, we all know that. HW is located right next to a major interstate that runs from St. Louis to Louisville and that is basically where they market from east to west. Then I'm guessing from Indianapolis to Nashville is where they market from north to south. HW really counts on their value to bring families in from all around. Right now, I'm guessing KK is counting on the major market of Louisville to supply the majority of their attendance.

So not only is the park not raising prices, but they're also setting up the option to make payments on season passes. If you sign up before August 15th, it is only $15 dollars per month. Awesome! As for the theme, I really hope the park sort of explains the legend buy posting the journal entries throughout the queue, kind of explaining how this all ties into the 66 days at sea with the pilgrims. They would need to explain the back story behind the journal first, this way the farm theming makes sense. I think it would go a long way in helping their guests understand how this all fits into Thanksgiving. Also, I'm glad the park decided to put their own twist on this whole story. As someone who is studying to be a history teacher, this 66 says journey, like many things in history, is not a very pleasant story. I believe Paula alluded to that last night when she was talking about sometimes struggling with what to write for the journal.

So Paula has tweeted that there won't be any prices changes next year!

So going through and looking at all the Wing Riders, Thunderbird, is actually up to par with almost all of them in length, except Gatekeeper and Parrot Coaster. I hope this is not just the animation, but Thunderbird seems to really carry it's speed pretty well throughout the course, compared to the other wing coasters. Watching the POV's of the other wing coasters, they really seem to die out at the end. This is where I'm thinking that these coasters have too many cars per train. Everyone of them except Wild Eagle have more than 6 cars. Wild Eagle seems to die out at the end, but not as bad as some of the other ones. I'm starting to think that the 5 car trains are really going to be an advantage for Thunderbird, as it might allow for more forces than the normal wing rider coaster might have and allow the train to carry it's speed throughout the course. I don't know if there is any difference between less weight or more weight and how that effects the ride experience, but that is just my observation. I'm definitely no physics person.

How could the park over-hype a ride that wasn't even announced yet? It's not like they said, this is going to be the best thing ever. They gave us clues to figure out the ride, so it wasn't like they were trying to keep us from finding out. They encouraged us to try and figure it out, while remaining very tight lipped at the same time. If anything, we coaster enthusiasts only have are selves to blame for over-hyping anything. We were the ones foaming at the mouth at every journal entry and every word the park said.

^ To be fair, he never changed his mind about what he wanted and this was the first post he made about his opinion on Thunderbird. I'm not trying to troll you or anything, because my prediction was wrong as well, but you really set your expectations pretty high as soon as you started guessing, hyper with inversions.

^ Yes they're going to have to fill that gap in between. That is a pretty far walk and gap from The Mayflower to Thunderbird. My guess, they start with reusing PP 's old station. From there, they'll probably work their way up the hill. The park could definitely use some more flat rides.

That being said, Paula did mention on the podcast tonight that they paid for a new power substation to be installed across the street from the park & thought it was interesting that none of the enthusiasts noticed it with as anal as they were being with investigating the footers. Interesting. It is quite possible that the flywheel/LSMs need to be supplied with a different voltage than the rest of the park, which could be the function of this substation. I have doubts that the grid can support Thunderbird's launch every single time without the use of the flywheel. She said the power substation was specifically installed for the flywheel.

Now that I'm off work, I'll give my full thoughts on Thunderbird. First off, OneoftheWills, kudos man. Not only did you call the name, but I believe you called the wing coaster over month ago. For those complaining of force, ride choice, and length, come on. We've known for quite a while now that wing coasters do not provide the intense experience some of us are looking for. Unfortunately, we're a small portion of the million plus guests that visit the park every year. This ride will be a hit and will bring people in by the masses to HW. As for length and capacity, 5 cars per train seems kinda low, but you have to remember, there is no lift, and the ride is barely a minute long. Capacity won't be as bad as what you think. Now length wise, could it have been a little longer? Maybe, but who cares? I rather have it be short and sweet than have the thing slowly crawl through another 500-1000 feet. As I said earlier, I'll pass my judgement when I ride Thunderbird. Am I gonna go in thinking I'm getting Batman like forces? No. Am I gonna go in expecting the best steel coaster ever? No. These wing riders seem to be the perfect fit for these middle of the road parks who want to provide thrills, but also keep it family oriented (Dollywood and Holiday World). I couldn't be happier that my home park is building one. For those people who are saying HW over-hyped this thing. I'm sorry, I didn't realize they could over-hype the biggest single ride expansion in the parks 68 year history I have to say, this looks to be the most elaborately themed ride HW has ever done, and I hope that this trend continues. Finally, I love the tribute to Will Koch. I'm sure he's looking down right with a huge smile on his face. I'm glad the park is taking his dream, and making it a reality. This could not have been his only dream, I'm sure there are many more. I look forward to the park making those become a reality as well.

Lol I was wrong, but this is awesome! Even better than I was initially expecting, but I won't pass my full judgement until I get to ride it.

^ Yeah the time zone in that part of Indiana is all kinds of messed up. You can be staying in a hotel 20-30 mins from the park and be in the eastern time zone, while HW is on the central time zone.

^^ Love the 1984 reference!

Actually, speculation started way back in late April, when I'm pretty sure somebody from HW leaked something to Screamscape about tree clearings being made by The Voyage and then threw out the term, "steel coaster". The reason I say someone from HW leaked it is because it was less than a week later that the free coaster enthusiast event was announced, saying "you don't want to miss this walk in the woods." That really got the speculation going. At the event, they announced the 66 days at seas campaign/website and here we are today, with probably the best planed out ride announcement in the history of the amusement industry. Okay that last statement may have been a bit biased