BigBad

What's their second RMC? Seriously, though, how is Blazing Fury an RMC? I'm reading that it was built in 1978.

It looks like the new Vekoma coasters like Lech in Poland.

Oh my, that would have put it at 241 feet tall with a drop of 232 feet! That's bigger than Nitro!

I've also heard -1.7G over the Rolling Thunder hill, but the strongest negative force I've ever heard of on a roller coaster is Skyrush's second hill (not counting the first drop), where you cross under the first hill. That's supposed to spike at -2G.

Favorite 1. Hersheypark is my favorite park, and I haven't even ever been there with a skip the line pass. The coaster collection is excellent. Skyrush is unbelievable and is one of only a couple of coasters I've ridden that does something that no other coaster I've ridden does (its sustained and ridiculously strong airtime). Storm Runner has a great launch and some nice inversions. Fahrenheit might be my favorite inverting coaster (at least after Storm Runner), though I'd expect this to change once I have more experience with RMC. I've never ridden Tidal Force, but it looks like it would be the best ride of its kind. I've ridden Coal Cracker a few times, though, and it's a nice ride. 2. Cedar Point has the most unbelievable coaster lineup. Millennium and GateKeeper both are great. I know enthusiasts like to bash GateKeeper, but I like the sensation of flying. I found the quick roll transitions on Maverick to be too much the last time I was there, but I'd be interested in trying again. I think that if I visit next summer and buy FL+, this will retake my top spot, especially if I grow to like Maverick. I can't imagine going there next summer without the FL+, though. 3. Great Adventure is my home park. It doesn't have quite the ridiculous coaster lineup that Cedar Point has, but El Toro is my third-favorite coaster, and Nitro is in my top 10. Batman is fun when I feel like getting dizzy from positive forces. Bizarro has nice pops of airtime in the inversions. Superman has the intense positive Gs in the pretzel loop. Skull Mountain does indeed have an awesome first drop when you sit in the back row. Zumanjaro is a nice drop tower, too. I don't ride Ka very often, but I've managed to get a few rides in this year. The launch and positive Gs are great. 4. Kings Island had my favorite coaster the last time I went, and while Diamondback has been surpassed by Fury, Diamondback still is in second place. Banshee also is a great invert, and it generally was a nice park. The flying coaster here showed me that flying coasters can be pretty fun, even if most would say that B&M flyers are better than Vekoma. 5. Kennywood has tons of childhood memories from when I had family in Pittsburgh, though I haven't been here in 12-14 years. Phantom has great air moments, Jack Rabbit has the double dip, Thunderbolt has big drops into the ravine, and Racer has the high-five turns. I haven't been since Sky Rocket was added, though I'd imagine that it is a nice ride, too. The water rides all were fun for me when I was a kid. Bucket List 1. Dollywood has to be at the top because of Lightning Rod, but there are a couple of other interesting rides there. Others also say that it's generally a really pleasant park, but it's at the top of this list because of Lightning Rod. 2. Magic Mountain has tons of coasters that interest me: X2, Twisted Colossus, Tatsu, and YOLO Throttle. 3. Busch Gardens Williamsburg: I can't believe I've never been, but Apollo has looked fun since I heard of it when I was 9, and some of the other coasters look pretty great, too. 4. Liseberg has Helix and Balder, though I think I won't ever get here. 5. PortAventura has Shambhala and Dragon Kahn, though I don't expect I'll ever get here, either.

There's no doubt in my mind that a goal of this project is to build a coaster that is going to contend for the world's top spot.

People who would notice and recognize the significance of something like the station being WRMC almost certainly already know that the ride will be RMC. This doesn't seem like it's supposed to be a hint as much as it's Cedar Point having fun.

My first ride on Dragster made it clear to me why it's a bit better. We launched up the tower and crested the top. As we pitched down, I had the very natural reaction to grab onto my harness. I reached for where I expected some kind of OTSR to be, which of course wasn't there. I giggled the whole way down.

There certainly was a time when the 2017 opening seemed plausible. But I'd hope that no one still thinks it's opening this year. The video posted a few pages back has Tony Clark remarking that this is a 2018 attraction.

The airtime vector and the lateral G vector should be fairly independent of each other. There can be some force straight up into the restraint, which is just air like we'd expect from RMC, and then there can be a distinct force to the side. Since the track is banked, the sideways force has more to do with how the track changes in the vertical direction. I don't have a good feel for how that hill is shaped, but it's certainly possible to engineer it so that there is a strong force up into the restraint like you'd get from an RMC air hill, yet the sideways forces are balanced, and this can be done at any banking angle. My lone experience with RMC is Wicked Cyclone, where they did not follow this plan and have strong lateral forces on the outward-banked moments, but I've heard from others that Outlaw Run has an outward banked moment where it feels like a standard ejector hill, but you see the ground to your side instead of below you.

Just get both. Wait for the Six Flags Flash Sale around Labor Day and you can get a membership for basically nothing. There's no reason to pick between the two with the way Six Flags whores themselves out during the Flash Sale. Unless you plan on skipping Six Flags next year, I'd follow Bill's advice. Your local park might have a less expensive ticket than Great Adventure has, but my season pass cost me about the same as a one-day Great Adventure pass plus parking, and my season pass has parking at all Six Flags parks. Anyway, the Mean Streak photos look amazing!

Haven't most of the conversions happened in about the time there would be to have Georgia Cyclone ready for next season? The one's that are extra long are Texas Giant, Mean Streak, and Hurler, but what about Joker, Storm Chaser, Colossus, Rattler, and Medusa?

I think it could happen. Cedar Point did the Mantis conversion and a 223ft B&M in consecutive years.

I feel like the Dragons could get re-branded as a quidditch match (kind of like airborne lacrosse on broomsticks). There would be no need to remove them, just redo the theme. I liked the big dragon statue out front when I visited many years ago, but it doesn't have to be themed to dragons. (Is that statue still there, even?) (So yes, I guess I'm saying that it should duel again, too.) I find it hard to believe that two fun B&Ms can't be popular.

It's because Lightning Rod is the main attraction, and for those of us who live 12 hours away by car and aren't going to visit but once a decade, we want the star to be there. There's nothing wrong with my stance of holding off on my Dollywood trip until Lightning Rod runs consistently.

In context, I should have known that it was a water slide coaster, but my mind went to something like Divertical.

I think that this is an issue of looking dressed. I would be permitted, I assume, to wear long trunks like shorts, but that's because they look like shorts. If I wore a speedo, even with a shirt, I wouldn't look dressed and would be asked to put on regular clothes.

So the MCBR drops into a curve under the first big hill, everyone agree? This won't duel like Twisted Colossus or Lightning Racer, but that kind of element would be a pretty fun self-duel that really does look like it would be timed to have the trains near each other right there.

Steel (and overall): Kingda Ka Wood: El Toro

I think the lap bar could have been wider like the B&M clamshells are. Then the pressure would be less. The weren't doing it consistently the last time I was there, but it's so nice when they do.

Nice pattern detection! I hope so. Then we can watch the fireworks in this thread.

I support this ERT idea, though I do wonder if they'd be willing to run Skyrush at full speed. Why'd they slow it down? If it was to keep riders from being convinced they'd be thrown out of the train, they failed.

That's because it IS fast and totally crazy, even in its seemingly slower mode. (I really wish I'd gotten a ride on it when the cable lift kept its speed until the train dropped under its own power, though. What an experience that must've been in the back row!)

Has anyone noticed Skyrush running a bit slower than usual this year? Did they slow the cable lift over the top even more than in the past? It still has that second big pop of airtime, but it didn't feel quite as insane as it has in previous years. Even so, I rode ten times. Hershey's always a fun day, and Skyrush is a big part why. The cross-under and final air hill are still as crazy as ever, too.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know by the time SOB was torn down, the coaster's wood was already rotting in some places. I believe RCCA used a subpar quality wood, ontop of Paramount dropping RCCA and finishing the coaster themselves. Nobody would have wanted anything to do with the ride by the second time it closed. I've heard it speculated that the construction quality was too poor to think that RMC would want to deal with it, even if the wood hadn't rotted by the time RMC got into RMCing bad wooden coasters. I think we're all excited by the possibilities of an RMC as big as Son of Beast would have been, but that's kind of what we're getting with a hyper-scale Mean Streak conversion. (I guess it wouldn't be so bad to have two such coasters, though. Oh, well, Banshee is a pretty fun ride.)