neil009

Banshee? One coaster doesn't indicate a trend. Look I don't really have anything against B&M, but we're talking track record here. If you want to build the greatest wooden coaster in the world, you don't go to GCI, if you want to build the greatest steel coaster in the world, you don't go to B&M. You want a company that's ready to make a statement.

I also wanted to add that, consider for a moment the level of hype they're driving up, how hard they worked to reach out to the enthusiast community, and how strongly they're associating this ride with the Voyage. All of our minds went immediately to the possibilities of another action-packed romp through the woods. HW knows this and I think delivering anything less would be a mistake. Just my own thoughts on the matter.

Holiday World cares about building good rides, do they not? The purpose of the Voyage was to be the best wooden coaster ever built. They even took input from coaster enthusiasts. This is their first major coaster project since then. It makes sense that they would want to build another top-tier ride. A Mack water coaster would not be a top-tier ride. I understand the desire to be realistic and try not to get expectations unreasonably high, but the truth is the clues are extremely vague and anything is still possible. I don't think it's unreasonable to hope that whatever the ride is, it will be top-ten worthy. We know from rides like Lightning Run, Helix, and most likely Thunderbolt, that parks are catching on to what really makes for a great ride: a certain level of intensity and a good mix of forces including air time. We know Holiday World has already figured this out. So in my mind, that crosses off water coasters, Verbolten-style family coasters, and almost anything from B&M (unless they're really ready to start making top-tier rides again, which I'm skeptical of).

I don't know if anyone has pointed this out yet but there is clearly something hidden in this picture from day 11. Dead center, it looks to me like a seated figure holding onto something. Possibly a B&M lap pillow?

It's a joke account, some of his videos are actually pretty funny. I got a kick out of this:

His point was that a lame layout was still lame 909 feet in the air. This coaster has the disadvantage of having to go in a circle down the tower, automatically meaning lots of trim brakes. We don't know what the layout looks like, it may end up being great. But, in the event that it's slow and boring, it'll still be slow and boring 500 feet in the air. That's the point of the comparison which I think is valid.

^IMO Skyrush is a back row ride through and through. Not only is the airtime on the first drop insane, but the three big twists (stengel dive, into the last big turnaround, out of the last big turnaround) all pack more punch in the back (particularly the last twist since it's immediately followed by a downhill slope so the back accelates into it). Wing seat versus inner seat makes MORE of a difference regarding intensity than front versus back, but back row still makes a difference. The very front row is a different story because the view and wind in your face makes it pretty intense as well. And you'll have a good ride no matter wherre you sit. But given a choice, I would choose the back every time. Not for the airtime hills, which are equally bonkers across the train since it loses basically no speed going over them, but for the twists.

Remember to ask for the back row of Skyrush. Someone will be there assigning seats but I've never been told no when I asked.

A lot of the areas of the park are actually pretty good with shade, only the midways surrounding the water park are bad. Whatever you do, get there at opening and head straight for Fahrenheit. Get two or three rides on it before the line fills in, then don't even worry about it the rest of the day. You do not want to be anywhere near that line if it's sunny out.

I can understand not knowing exactly how much stress a certain element puts on the train until you build it and test it. I do not understand not knowing how far away a support beam will be from the track until you build it and whoops, not enough space. I wasn't under the impression anything to do with coaster construction nowadays is "eye-balled".

If you go to SFGAdv on a weekend during June July or August, you're pretty much asking for it no matter what. You'll be miserable unless you buy a flash pass and even then, hope you like insanely large numbers of sweaty, vaguely irritated people.

I agree actually, the distance from the rest of the park gives the ride this spooky "monolithic" quality that's really awesome and lasts right up until the point when you crest the top and suddenly you're staring at parking lot.

They said in the press release it would hit "terminal velocity", does that mean if they built one 100 feet taller it wouldn't go any faster? Or were they just misusing the term?

Personally I disagree. I don't particularly understand why people are so caught up on the length of the ride. El Toro has five really killer elements: first drop, two big airtime hills, rolling thunder drop, and the finale figure 8. This ride in all likelihood has six: first drop, overbank, airtime hill, dive loop, zero g stall, twist and shout. Since it's RMC each of those are likely to pack a punch, but if any one of them doesn't deliver, it still has as many good moments as Toro, minus the forceless over-engineered turnaround. Why is this not enough "substance" to make for a complete, mind-blowingly amazing new ride?

I love all the squealing you can hear from the train, reminds me of El Toro.

Has anybody here seen the POV for Wildfire? It's all the same elements they've used before, the zero g stall, the sideways bunny hop thing, heartline rolls. Only their third coaster from scratch and they're already recycling stuff from their "bag of tricks", just like B&M, just like every coaster manufacturer. Does that make them "cookie cutter"? Who cares how innovative they are as long as they make good rides?

I imagine this thing is going to make me about $80 poorer.

I don't mean to jinx anything but it almost looks like they'll have to trim it somewhere... the speed over those airtime hills, especially the second slightly shorter one, is insane. Is the testing all finished at this point?

I can't believe the amount of flak this park is getting on Facebook. Opening day of the first season after being closed for how many years, and people are tearing them to shreds over the operations, I mean how unkind can you get. And now this stupid thing over the track swaying. I would kill to have a ride like Lightning Run near me, these people should be grateful for what they have.

there better f*cking be swords.

I don't want to start a debate about what is or isn't a stengal dive, but am I the only one who thinks that element on Skyrush never rides quite the way it looks? It certainly feels quite different from the ones on Maverick. The twist is strong, but what I miss is the "diving" aspect, I find the change in elevation to be barely noticeable. Also, I just remembered I took this picture while I was there. Don't know if anyone would find this interesting or not, but this is Fahrenheit at the exit of the first corkscrew where, from the path, it looks like there couldn't possibly be enough clearance for the train to pass without hitting the Norwegian loop. It's like an optical illusion. You think it would be the ultimate head chopper but on the ride you barely even notice it.

I was talking about this with someone who told me something like as speed increases, drag increases exponentially. So at a certain point along the drop, drag would kick in and you'd lose that dead-weight feeling (the acceleration due to gravity), and it'll start to feel like parachuting like on the Intamin gyro drops. So if that's true then unless they had perfectly calibrated motors along the tower to accelerate the car downwards to compensate for drag, a large tower would just never have quite the same kick as the smaller towers, where you keep going faster and faster and faster and then BRAKES.

I'm no physicist but I don't believe what you experience on an ARM tower is "ejector" airtime. There's no force pushing you up into the restraints. I believe it's the suddenness of the drop, how quickly you go from seated normally to completely weightless, that gives the ride its intensity and separates it from other drop towers. The seat drops out from under you and you experience true freefall for the entire length of the drop, and ever since we were sleeping in trees, swinging from branch to branch looking for food, we've known what that feels like. We're hardwired to react to it, and that's why rides that drop you faster or slower (due to drag from the car) than true freefall don't have the same effect. You are out of your seat the entire drop, that's true, and it's not like you're gently lifted out of your seat like on B&M hypers, so I guess you could consider that "ejector airtime", but it's not due to negative force.

IMO the difference in roughness between the last row and the second to last row is much greater than the difference in "force". The best ride is definitely second to last. You would need to ride it many, many times to notice the microscopic difference in airtime, but you only need to ride it once to notice the difference in roughness.

A lot of the B&M inverts that are still perfectly smooth are significantly shorter than Banshee, while Alpengeist, which is comparable in height, is quite rattly. Was there ever a time when Alpengeist was smooth? I'm wondering if maybe there is something specific to large inverts that makes them prone to rattling, rather than it being some kind of engineering oversight on B&M's part.