Physical

Dorney does get packed /sometimes/ It's just not consistent. Seems most of our attendance comes when a bunch of buses come down from New York or up from Philly. Once the water park closes, everybody floods over to the dry side. I've seen a 2.5 hour wait for Steel Force with all the switchbacks filled and the queue spilling out to the entrance of Dino's Alive. It's rare, but it /does/ happen. Just my 2 cents.

Hydra's "jojo" roll out of the station, no doubt about it. Every night the Hydra crew goes under it to retrieve the dozens of lost cellphones/wallets/you name it.

Agreed. The first few hills offer surprising airtime, and then the ride just goes bat$hit crazy with airtime, laterals and speed. Not onlt does it continue its intensity, it actual gets more forceful and out of control the entire journey. Just an insane ride. For intensity per second, TTD and KK top my list. The most pure adrenaline rushes out there IMO. However, it's just a very quick dose. The kick I get from KK is pretty insane. 0-128 in 4.5 seconds is nuts, but, I305 8 times back to back without leaving my seat turned me in to a giggling madman. That pure unadulterated adrenaline high will never be matched.

Thanks for reminding me this thread existed! Demon Drop's main (and only) panel.

Storm Runner is actually the only accelerator coaster I enjoyed in a seat other than the front. The back has some /serious/ ejector airtime over the top hat, sustained all the way until the very bottom. Then you're out of your seat through the entire flying snake dive, then again in the final twister section before the brakes. Only downside is the horse collar restraint is actively trying to decapitate you throughout the experience.

I'm really hoping the buzz bars stay, but I believe Thunderhawk is the only woodie in any Cedar Fair park that doesn't have ratcheting lap bars. I wouldn't be surprised if the buzz bars go, I'll just be extremely sad.

I love the view from the front of inverts and flyers, but I've found the back seat to be much more intense in general despite the terrible view. Rode Superman Ultimate Flight in the back row for the first time on Sunday at Holiday in the Park and was blown away at how forceful the entire ride was, instead of just the pretzel loop. I've been trying to get at least 2 rides in on every coaster I get on now, once in the front, once in the back (lines permitting of course) I've been finding a load of coasters that I thought would be better in the front are actually much more forceful/intense in the back, or vice-versa.

I'd be perfectly OK with that but the screenshot Johnlloyd posted refutes that.

Which seat do you prefer on your favorite coasters? How about the coasters at your home park? For me, front seat rides would be Fury 325, Steel Force, Green Lantern (SFGAdv) Kingda Ka, Possessed, Phoenix. Back seat rides: Talon, Skyrush, Superman: Ultimate Flight, Afterburn, El Toro, Nitro.

Probably a three way tie between I305/Skyrush/Afterburn in the back seat. (That batwing is non stop positive forces the whole way through the element)

I am so impressed with what SF has done for this event. Honestly once the lights came on, I couldn't even believe I was in a six flags park. Operations were impressive, considering how slow they were all summer (in my experience) Nitro was slow in the afternoon, then warmed up as the night went on. Around 5:45ish Train B had an issue with the restraints on row 1 not clearing even though they were all down fully (even after booting everybody off) after maintenance took a look at it, they transferred it off and switched to single train operations. Batman truly was hauling, never seen it run that fast. Nitro and Skull Mountain were running 2 trains, everything else was single train (except Dark Knight, but I'm not sure how many cars they normally run on that, or how many they were running tonight) Overall, I am /seriously/ impressed, even after reading this thread I couldn't bring myself to get hyped for this event, I figured it'd be another Six Flags cash grab. I am very pleased to state that is not the case. If you haven't made your way out to Jackson for this event yet, get your butt out there! This event really is something else.

Making the trip out today for HiTP, will report back with crowds and probably go on and on about how good the lights are like everybody else has I'd imagine the crowds are going to get worse leading up to Christmas, hopefully it's not super busy today considering Thanksgiving was this week.

Demon Drop would like a word with you

I'm a pizza delivery guy on the off season, so I know all the good spots on the local roads for both airtime, and good positives. Nothing quite like popping up over a hill then hitting the pullout and getting some good positive forces.

This isn't for Intamin/Larson drop towers, but I know for S&S towers, if you e-stop the ride, a small bleed valve opens at the top of the tower, and the car lowers /very/ slowly. I'm saying like over the course of 15 minutes. Having worked on a 1st gen Intamin freefall I can confirm that evacs are very easy (and pretty rare) Usually maintenance is able to move the ride in maintenance mode.

Technically speaking, Dorney is my home park (it's only 10 minutes away) but I also consider Knoebels to be my true home park, just because I like /that/ much more. Totally worth the 1.5 hour drive. So if you consider technicalities, then yes, my home park is my favorate

ah I misunderstood what you meant. Yeah I'd imagine that's no fun.

It's far from my favorite coaster, but I'll mention it anyway. On Intimidator at Carowinds, remove the trim brakes on the airtime hills! I found it was trimmed to death, and had the potential to be one incredible airtime machine, if it weren't for those dang trims!

I would assume you only have the motor engaged to drive the platform up the lift, if it's anything like the floors on floorless coasters (basically big ol' hunks of metal that you manually put in place one row at a time) then you just move it in to place with the motor, turn it off, and set up the railings/level the platform.

Would it lower that row slightly on each turn of the key? Or was it more like releasing the harnesses where after a certain amount of force is applied it lowers by itself, just slowly?

Phoenix - Bank the final turn before the airtime finale slightly more, maybe by like 5-10 degrees. Nothing too major. El Toro - More airtime hills! Fury 325 - Remove the trim on the airtime hill before the helix. Intimidator 305 - Remove the trim on the 2nd airtime hill Skyrush - Add some form of padding to the restraint. Keep the lap bars, but make them softer somehow. Would without a doubt increase the enjoy-ability of an already incredible ride.

Having worked on a few coasters, no I wasn't worried. All the coasters I've worked on, the "green light" so to speak (When the restraint is considered "down") isn't the first locking position, it's usually the 3rd or 4th. Leaving a margin of error in case the restraint pops up one tick. With Toro it's a hydraulically locking restraint, I trust those a great deal, as the only way they've moved on me is if they've gone down (never up) during the ride. If the operations panel says all the restraints are down, the restraint isn't "barely" down, it's down enough to be secure.

And hook up the drive tires to the hydraulic accumulators on Ka!

Has anybody worked on a flying coaster (B&M or Vekoma) that needed an evac from the lift or brake run? If so, how's it even done? I know there's floors that move up the lift, but as for actually getting guests off, how's it done? Is there some kind of restraint key that'll swing the cars down to their inverted position?