Apollo von Sol

Storm Chaser at Kentucky Kingdom was the first.

Personally, I love the lead car monster. it's very retro 70's looking for me and is something different than every other amusement park that barely bother to do anything with lead cars. it also reminds me of the movie, Gremlins as well.

It's still in the same general area as a rendering, they just may have decided to make it a circle instead of half moon. It doesn't look like it enroaches into the general ride line. Perhaps its a seperate entry for Fast Pass or a feature spot for people to take photos at.

Correct, I can see it in this rendering, The tall stone pillars for the fence supports can be seen at the base of the first drop so I'm assuming they're using the same stone work for the fence to be consistent with their theme as well.

Are there any new informations? Using Google Chrome "View Page Source" feature, heres what I found on that page code; And the pictures;

Just curious, does anyone know why there are an two level scaffolding set up near the second immelmann loop? (Bottom right on the webcam). It seems to imply some work that needs to be done near or on the track for an extended period of time (rather than a 2-3 day job). At first I thought maybe it would be for sensor placement on the track but they wouldn't need scaffolding for that kind of work right?

I think I actually would be afraid of the ending if I survived the plunge. That definitely does not look like enough room to stop before hitting the end!

Looks like they got the engineers looking at the first section of the brake run with survey tools. I wonder if they're checking out the wave irregularities in the track.

Agreed. The first time I watched this it appeared slow because I was watching the whole train go through the course. The second time I watched it, I focused on the backrow people and they just flew through the whole course with the train pulling them over the humps, it looks a lot faster when you focus on one row of the train. This coaster looks just amazing!

I love these letters! When you're finished with them I'll use them definitely! Keep up the great work on these! I love it.

Great pictures! That midway really changed with Valravn dominating the skyline. It easily takes away attention from Raptor. Are Millennium Force cars kept outside exposed to the elements during the offseason? If so, why do they do that, why not keep it on the tracks under the station in that case?

From your commentary that the ride will have three sections, forward, backwards, and spinning, does this mean the ride will not be free spinning coaster similar to a spinning wild mouse but have a motor on the coaster to enable it to spin?

Sorry to go a bit off topic here, I love air races too, but this one shown, unless my eyes are deceiving me, shows a 4 seat passenger car. Is this one the first to offer a 4 passenger car, I've never seen one with this set up before.

I read that in the Knott's thread. RMC only bidded to do the engineering work, and not include a RMC style track. They lost out to GCI because their bid was only for the engineering work and not the actual construction work since they are already stretched out for this year. GCI bid included both, engineering and construction, therefore they won.

It already leaked on page 812 of this thread which includes much more picture than the one you just showed.

Just an thought. If we're going with the assumption the next coaster will be a "gate coaster" could it be possible that the "gate coaster" would be near the NEW entrance? I'm talking about the waterpark entry that Valleyfair is going to build on or near the Excalibur site. So far everyone is assuming it'll be built by the main gate, but who's to say Valleyfair wouldn't make the second new gate one of it's main gate or an gate of a similar size, especially with the size of the proposed parking lot, and there would be room for the coaster using the Excalibur footprint in the back of the park, especially if Valleyfair plans to expand the back of the park after all as well. Just my 2 cents in this conversation of an "gate coaster".

Because the return section is right next to the pond, if they did the coaster forward run, by the time they get to the return run from the hammerhead, the forward coaster run tracks will be blocking the installation of the return run, it's not like they can lift the return run track over the forwards track due to the fact it'll be too high to lift over as well as they cannot position a crane on the other side due to the pond. You can notice that they're placing the return run track before they install the forward track to the hammerhead precisely for this reason. As well I'm sure they want to install the track alongside the banks once instead of twice as they would have to if they didn't do the return run with the forward run.

It did, I can recall back then in the days (10+ years ago) that it did run in forward and reverse mode at Camp Snoopy. I rode on it while in reverse mode when I was young.

^ That stack of wood is also present in the first (left) picture as well along with the green box thing. It doesn't really show anything new. To me, I don't see any new work or wood at all. I'm pretty sure if someone was working on re tracking it, we all would know by now by seeing more construction vehicles and a stock pile of materials.

Are those the TPR reporters in the background midway in the video?

I'm guessing they want to get RAIK trackwork done underneath Taron since the crane lines and riggings would interfere with a full testing operation. I'm also guessing they're using this down time to set up Taron LIM system and electronic sensor system as well.

This model is seriously amazing! The details on this is just simply stunning! Keep up the wonderful work you been doing on this and I cannot wait to see the end result!

I believe there was a similar question earlier in the thread but I would like to bring it up again, "How does the current Valravn design differ from early schematic designs?" I would love to hear about some of the options that they considered for Valravn and discarded. Another question I would have is "How long did it take for Cedar Fair to decide on an Dive Coaster to actually purchasing an dive coaster?" I'm curious on how long it took Cedar Fair to consider all the options and settle on a coaster type to actually ordering one.