Shavethewhales

^Yes, there's enough time to build something, which is why I said I hope the Lake Monster project has been still in the works, but there is not enough time to completely design something from scratch from a company that just came into existence today. My point was that whatever Darien Lake has planned for 2015 has already been planned far in advance and the idea that Skyline Attractions is involved is highly unlikely.

I'm still assuming a launch coaster, but I for one still get excited to see new B&M projects announced. Maybe I'm not spoiled enough with them yet to think they're boring like the west coast people. You've got to admit that Banshee looks pretty exciting right? The reviews for that one have been good from what I've seen - not every B&M is going to be like Silver Bullet, and they do adjust to what individual parks want just like everyone else. Plus the capacity and reliability are great for an up-and-coming park like HW. A launched with a pre-show would be even better for the atmosphere and overall quality of the park though, IMO.

These projects take longer than a few months to slap together. If the Lake Monster concept ever got greenlit and is planned for next year, then it is already designed or mostly designed and about to be issued for construction within the next few months. With multi-million dollar projects there's surely a lot to prepare for with details such as permitting, hiring a proper erection crew, and even park operations such as accounting, so the actual deal with the vendor would have to start long in advance. I think RMC was pretty obviously their choice when they hinted at the project last year. I'm still holding out hope that the Lake Monster project will come through, but nothing has since been hinted about it, and DL obviously has a lot of problems to sort out still before they dive into another huge expenditure. It sounds like a lot of the management changes DL announced earlier this year aren't coming through... sounds like there's trouble brewing behind the scenes to me. It's worrisome that an HFEC-controlled park is doing so poorly at managing a major intamin coaster and living up to their publicly announced promises.

So to be clear: Skyline Attractions is a vendor/marketing company along the lines of Ride Entertainment Group, and their subsidiary Skyline Design will do R&D, but not necessarily manufacturing? Seems like a wide net to throw, hard to understand from an outside perspective where they are going with this. I'm sure you'd have to know how parks are actually doing their shopping these days to really understand why they are pursuing this. Seems like manufacturers are letting middle men do all of there marketing these days rather than trying to develop personal relationships with clients. I'm sure that's helpful for them when one of their rides ends up being faulty. There is certainly lots of room left for innovation in this industry though. It's not just about basic hardware anymore - I think there's a lot of thirst out there behind the scenes for immersive experiences, mixed attractions, and custom attractions. I hope companies like Skyline will help smaller attractions develop such as the Adventure Pointe development in Texas.

^^There certainly is, but from what little I know of the situation, I would peg AA as one of the most likely shoppers to pick up a bunch of Hard Rock stuff. If you're needing to pick up a lot of equipment at once right now, there's only so many places to look. That doesn't mean they bought all the coasters though, but whatever flats they could get would be great for them. The mine train would be nice for this park as well - haven't heard if that is rumored to go somewhere else yet or not.

I don't want to come off as a back-seat moderator here, but I feel this is a bad time and place to be trying to go behind the park's back and dig up info. We have a representative from the park right here with us, and the park is going well out of its way to create a fun and elaborate teaser campaign for the enjoyment of enthusiasts and park-watchers. We are a mere 24 days from the announcement and if one was to uncover everything now, I think it would just make the community look bad. There's a thin line somewhere between intense research and speculation and just flat-out undermining the park's PR work. I know at some point soon we'll probably figure it out just from the footers and prep work, but that's different in my book than exploiting a legal filing or web slip-up. I still feel really bad about how the Outlaw Run announcement got botched, even though that was pretty much entirely the park's fault for thinking they could merely not link directly to the announcement page and no one would find it.

^The GM's name is indeed Brad Thomas. I've been hearing a number of things about coaster projects at SDC over the last few years. As you can imagine, they work with quite a few ideas that may not ever get off the ground. It would not surprise me at all if they are checking out Gatekeeper and thinking about adding a wing coaster to SDC sometime within the next 5 years. Wild Eagle is still a hit, HFEC likes to repeat hits at other properties, and the concept is still novel to the SDC crowd. I had heard long ago that they checked out the Mystery Mine concept pretty extensively, but appear to have abandoned those pursuits. I dunno though, I kind of think they'll go a different direction ultimately depending on how Branson tourism fares over the next year or two. Their plans are always in flux, and HFEC favors development in Pigeon Forge right now since it is doing so much better than Branson. I haven't heard of any of this year's numbers yet, but Branson has had a stagnation problem since the recession. I think they'll focus on moving the property towards being more of a resort at some point in the next five years rather than focusing on a coaster addition, but that's just my thought. I would be looking for ways to distance myself from the ups and downs of Branson if I were them.

I'm not sure what to make of this. The coasterlab guy is a talented modeler/drafter, but he is certainly not an engineer. It sounds like Golden Horse simply wants to use his models to market their rides, but I can't imagine them trying to actually create one. That 16-inversion ride could actually hurt someone if built to typical golden horse standards. I'll be highly interested to see if this gets off the ground. That's unfortunately a common Chinese sentiment. Honestly though, they have everything they need to develop their own rides, they simply lack the creativity and thus take the cheap route of trying to carbon-copy others.

I'm a little late in posting these, as this trip was last weekend. I wasn't really planning on visiting Frontier City this year since there's really not much of a draw for coaster enthusiasts, but with the new set of flyers that the park suddenly purchased and installed at the start of the season and the announcement on facebook that the old rotor ride had been refurbished and put back in operation, I decided it was time to see what was new since my last visit a couple years ago. Ever since CNL bought this park from Six Flags, Frontier City has been slowly reinvigorating itself. After almost two decades of neglect, almost everything in the park has had to be overhauled/repaired/repainted/generally fixed up. The park has also had to renew its image to the people of OKC, who used to view it as only a sad, dilapidated amusement park. It's hard to explain to outsiders just how much work has been done to re-shape this property. While it's still a small, locally-oriented park, it now has a local following and a lot more season pass holders than it used to. Premier took over management from PARC in 2011, and I think they're doing an even better job of re-inventing Frontier City. First thing I saw when I got into the parking lot was a set of three huge lines to get in. This was definitely the first major change to the park since my last visit a few years ago - it's been a long time since FC has had major crowds like this so while I was a bit perturbed at the huge line I was also kind of happy at the sight of it. After waiting for about 15mins at the end of the line which snaked way into the parking lot, an employee finally showed up and told everyone that this wasn't even the line to purchase tickets, so I had to leave that line, march all the way up to the gate to buy tickets at the counter, and then go back to the end of the line. Not a great way to start the day, and I hope as the park sees more success they handle things like this better. The cause of the lines turned out to be a set of metal detectors, which is the first time I've seen them used here. Perhaps they only brought them out because of the concert. I didn't realize until I got to the park that some act named 'Zendaya' was having a concert that night. Not recognizing the name, I didn't think it was a big deal, but apparently Zendaya is a Disney star and her show really brought in a huge number of young girls and families into the park. I actually stayed around for awhile just to get a glimpse of the concert and see what it was all about, and man, that was probably the biggest crowd of people I've ever seen at Frontier City. The crowd filled FC's huge concert area. Premier parks is doing a great job at bringing in these concerts - I think that is a huge factor right now in the park's resurgence. There's not much to say about Frontier City's rides. None of them really stand out. Silver Bullet (Schwarzkopf Looping Star) and Diamondback (Arrow Shuttle Loop) are nice nostalgic rides, but neither are really outstanding. The Wildcat, a "relocated" NAD coaster from a defunct park in Missouri is a piece of crap. The ride was salvaged as part of a misguided conservation effort led by ACE, but the process of making it fit into the space at Frontier City left us with a very obviously messed up coaster. The parabolic hills have been oddly re-profiled, and everything after the turnaround is just a mess of pointless straight track and slight turns in order to get it to fit into the smaller space. You slam into the brakes a few hundred feet away from the station due to the odd placement of a lame old water feature that hasn't operated in decades. Just a waste of a coaster. I used to think it was OK back when it was smoother. The outbound portion can be nice even though there's no airtime just because of the classic feel and the tree canopy it dives under. This time though the train was rattling around the track so badly I was legitimately worried something was going to break. It is now easily the worst coaster I have ever been on, and my greatest hope for the park is that they'll replace it with a GCII soon. There's also a HUSS enterprise, a fairly nice rapids ride, a log flume that always has insanely long lines due to only having like four boats in operation, the new flyers, a recently-reopened classic rotor, a fairly bare-bones shooting dark ride, and a nice Vekoma family invert. They're at the point now where everything seems to be fixed up and all they need to focus on going forward is a marquee ride to recapture people's attention. One last major thing to note is the park's new emphasis on shows. I attended four shows at the park on this visit, which I think was really awesome. I really like taking a break from the rides and seeing shows at parks, but usually only the shows at SDC are any good. First I saw a magic show which was OK - a little rusty in the showmanship, but the tricks were nice enough. Then there was a musical performance which was basically just people lip-syncing show tunes. Then I saw the live action stunt show, which was pretty entertaining even if the acting was rusty and the script was terrible. Finally, I found out that the park now has it's own Saloon with saloon girls and a periodic show - very much like SDC's but on a much smaller scale. The show was, again, a little rusty, but cool to see none the less. There was even a little medicine man show happening on a little pathway near Steel Lasso. I believe that show is actually a Frontier City tradition dating way back, but I've never cared to stick around and see what it's about. I'm glad the park is focusing on this style of entertainment and hope they continue to develop it. It's hard to find good actors that will perform in an amusement park like this, but I really think it goes a long way to create an authentic overall park experience vs. just having a bunch of rides that people wait in line all day for. Other notes: [*]Lots of new wood boards around the park, but since they don't stain them or anything, it kind of makes the place look hodge-podge. [*]The employees could use some improvement. Some of them are SO slow and obviously bored looking, sometimes they were overtly rude to guests. Some of the operators of the HUSS enterprise were particularly bad. [*]Graffiti and gum plaque this park. Wish they could do more about it, but a lot of it comes from being a local park that kids get dropped off at. [*]They are definitely taking a lot of cues from Silver Dollar City with respect to thematics, hand-painted signs, and other little things. I noticed they had signs that said "Fire Chief says ya'll can smoke here" in exactly the same fashion as SDC's signs. [*]The park purchased most of an old RV park that borders it's parking lot. While it hasn't been paved yet, they now use it as parking. That's worth noting because lack of space for expanding the parking lot was once a major concern and probably one reason why SF didn't seem to care about the property for a long time. If all that text hasn't bored you to tears yet, here are the photos! I've literally never waited to get into Frontier City before. This is a new, and somewhat welcome sight. I just wish they would learn to manage these types of crowds better in the future. This is the view after you get through the entry building. This is Quickdraw, a pretty basic Sally dark ride that replaced a former classic dark ride in the same space immediately after PARC came into management. I wish they would open this up again. I've never seen this open, but clearly it used to be an attraction and the new roof over it suggests they intend to do something with it. The new flyers. Apparently the park got a last minute deal on this ride, and rushed to install it in April before the park opened for the summer. I don't know where this ride was originally intended, but the parrot decals aren't really working. Hopefully they'll get replaced when the park has a chance this off-season. The park's classic scambler. The Huss Enterprise with the world's slowest loading/unloading cycle and shortest ride cycle. This is the classic rotor that has recently re-opened under the name 'Tumbleweed'. The park used to have an S&S slingshot in this space. I was SBNO for many years, but I think they just tore it down this off-season. Hopefully they intend to use the space again soon. The park had a few of these around - another awesome little detail that one of the new managements added. I thought it was strange that they took out all the games in the plaza next to Wildcat. I'm no fan of games and I thought Frontier City had too many of them, but it's strange that these specifically would be the ones they took out, and they kind of leave a void behind. The ACE plaque. This used to be called the Terrible Twister, but with so many people impacted by tornadoes in Oklahoma every year I doubt they'll even name another ride after them again. The iconic ferris wheel. Props to FC for the callout to Outlaw Run. They re-did all the old coaster history signage in Wildcat's station this year, which is nice. Honestly though, after riding Wildcat it just makes you wish you were at one of those parks. Lift hill porn! Some of the slopes on this coaster are so oddly shallow. I don't think it was built like that, but I could be wrong. New signage, wasn't sure if we had this in the database. The park added this recently, I think it was last year? Also for the database in case we didn't have it. The log flume really is a classic and I really like it, but good luck getting on it without a good two or more hour wait. It's the longest line in the park due an oddly limited number of boats. The new saloon. It's nice inside, but pretty small. The park has a lot of cool signage. I think most of it is left over from the original creators of the park, but the current management has done a good job of preserving it. I think this Chance inverter has been closed for a few years now. It will either be fixed or removed soon, I'm sure. With the way this park has been fixing things so steadily, I wouldn't be surprised if it is operating by the end of this year. However, it is an uncomfortable ride and kind of ill fitting for the park, so I could see them removing it too. You gotta see this in person. Where else can you see animatronic hillbilly singing bears? Another apparent leftover from the original creators: there are lots of these little buildings scattered around the kiddie area. I always thought they were really cool and a lot of fun for kids to climb around in. Ouch. It's hard to miss the massive dilapidated warehouse building in the middle of the park. It once held a galaxi coaster, but is now used for halloween haunts and storage. They left this track piece outside though - shouldn't that have gone with the rest of the coaster? Medicine man. Wild west action stunt show. The vekoma kiddie invert. Arguably the best coaster in the park, had the second longest line after the log flume. The massive crowds to see the Disney star. The music didn't win me over, but its so good to see the park pull of a major successful event like this.

Depth of footings is typically determined by both loading and soil conditions - so it may be different for any given footer depending on the site. It's easy for enthusiasts to put way too much analysis into a picture of formwork just based on what other projects it looks like. While it's certainly true that various designs use similarly shaped or spaced footings, you never really know what the designers are doing until you see the plans or steel going up. I'm not drawing any conclusions yet.

It sounds like ride foundations may be being poured in the clearing. Once again they sure aren't wasting any time, they only have 9 months until opening day 2015. Hopefully that means this area will be themed and landscaped to the teeth. I know there will still be a lot to do within the current GG area as well, so maybe they are trying to get all the new area stuff done beforehand.

^lol, some clues are more discrete than others, but I think you might have taken it a bit too far there. Also, there is a separate company named MACK produces a huge number of large trucks and construction vehicles. Not that an RMC is a bad guess though. I like today's clue:

Hmm? Is there a press release or anything to go with that or is that just a rumor? What do you do for GCII?

^Definitely. There are so many options the park could be pursuing based on what market is more lucrative. Are they trying to bring in people from out of state, broaden their appeal to families, or even make a play for national attention with a creative new gimmick? I really try not to speculate on what I think would "fit" a certain park anymore, because that rarely plays into what they are actually trying to do with new attractions. Consider (for example) the benefits of a fairly sizable B&M coaster: you get great capacity, minimal downtime, a smooth and broadly-appealing ride experience, and lots of great regional and even national attention. I could see that being highly appealing for a park like HW seems to be on the verge of breaking into more competitive markets. Lots of things to consider outside of what best suits coaster lovers. I'm still leaning towards the launched family coaster though, they just seem like a highly marketable attraction right now.

Didn't they just double the size of their original facility like two years ago? I can't tell if this is due to exponential growth or bad planning, lol. I'm glad RMC is doing what they're doing for the industry and cementing their foothold in the wooden coaster world. They deserve much more business.

I think we could use a general frontier city discussion thread. I'm at the park now for my first visit in two or three years, and so far it's not off to a great start. There's a massive set of lines out of the front gate just to get in. I waited for 15mins before I realized I wasn't even in the line to get tickets when a park employee finally showed up to sort people out. Now I'm back in line and it looks like it will be another 30 mins before I even get in. I'm not even mad though, I'm so glad to see the park finally doing this well. Hopefully they'll be able to optimize this entry process soon, though I fear it may take building an entirely new entrance. The concert series and corporate events combined with all the recent general improvements are really lifting this park.

What's really interesting here is that after all these years of ripping off American/European coaster designs and layouts, they made a teeny-tiny innovation of their own. Too bad they haven't copied the concepts of banking or heartlining yet.

That looks like an old wagon wheel to me. I don't know what steel coasters you've been riding.

^It's mostly speculation on my end at this point. Looks like there will almost definitely be something new for them in GG soon though. I actually heard over the weekend that the Swinging Bridge was closed, apparently so they could work on something in the old Lil' Swings space. I'd guess there's a new activity on the way there, hopefully it's not a pay-to-play game - they're trying to add a lot more of those lately. Has it been three years already? Man, the last few years have been crazy for me and I haven't been keeping track of things as closely until now. Doesn't help that they've been skipping years between additions occasionally.

^^Yup, I mentioned that a few pages back. I have since heard that it was closed down and removed as recently as early May. I still think its and odd move, even if it is going to pop up again in Geyser Gulch. They went through all the trouble of hollowing out that area and making a toddler area, why suddenly decide to chop part of it off and move it to the next "new" area after just a year of operation? I was wondering if there was something problematic with that particular ride. I know parents weren't able to ride with their kids, which can be a liability in some cases.

Frontier City just announced that the old Terrible Twister rotor ride that has been SBNO for years has reopened under the name 'The Tumbleweed'. Another awesome move by this park. I thought that ride was just going to rot away. I'm planning on heading out there next week and will probably do a PTR of all the new stuff. It's been a couple of years since I've visited. I can't believe how much new stuff there is now, the park used to be static for so long with little investment.

I agree, there's always a way to do it, though SDC is a special case where it takes more effort than usual to keep it's world-class atmosphere in-tact. The Giant Swing was such a unique way to handle this when it was introduced in 2007. I can't wait to see them do something similar again, but there are some other things for the park to address first. As someone who frequently visits the park with up to four generations of my family though, I have to say that the smartest thing the park can do right now is to continue to broaden their appeal to the younger family demographic (while maintaining their appeal to other demographics). There are just so many young kids visiting the park these days and while everyone enjoys SDC's special offerings such as crafts and shows, after awhile the kids just want to ride something. If I had my way I'd like to see them go back to developing unique family rides such as dark rides and such rather than just out-of-the-box flat rides from Zamperla or whoever that you can get anywhere. In any case though, a few thrill rides go a long way. I think they've got enough right now to attract any thrill seeker within a 300 mile radius or more.

I wouldn't complain about an RMC in every park. What sets RMC apart for me isn't the "never before seen elements", rather it's the fact that the designers that work with RMC (notably Alan Shilke) are able to fully utilize unbridled creativity in their layouts and elements. RMC coasters simply move in ways coasters haven't been able too up to this point without hurting people or being maintenance nightmares. It's not even just the elements themselves... it's like the whole package is designed top-to-bottom to be more extreme and optimized. So it's not about them eclipsing other manufacturers, it's about them bringing a whole new style of coaster design to the market, one that doesn't necessarily rely on gimmicks. I think the future for them right now involves expanding their offerings to cover clients looking to appeal to younger families as well. That's a good point about Intamin though - they used to be in a fairly similar position with their formerly unique and daring coaster styles with 3 different styles of track that they can switch out dynamically throughout a ride to save costs. Even the best innovations in this industry can become stale with time, not that I still wouldn't be hugely excited to have a new intamin come in near me.

Nope, there's definitely no alcohol at SDC. I've actually never been to DW yet, but I'm almost certain its the same there. I'm not sure anyone who hasn't been to Branson really understands how much of a religious company HFEC is. Even the magic show at SDC ends with a gospel presentation. If you look anywhere beyond the rides and coasters, it almost feels like a church camp sometimes. I am certain that HFEC has objections to serving alcohol in a property that they are associated with, but they will deal with it as long as CNL is in the picture.

I had to go back and look it up, and you're right Jay, Pro-Slide was in charge of the recreation in 2003. I don't know who created the original version, but it was definitely a custom order with specialized boats that involved tandem seating. I think the original seating made it much more difficult to fall out and thus less dangerous, plus the curves were less aggressive. Practically all other slides of this nature end in a pool or something, so if you theoretically did fall out it isn't as big a deal. Somehow the old version felt like more of a dry-park water ride (at least to me), while the new version was just a water slide.