The Six Flags Magic Mountain (SFMM) Discussion Thread

[dylanreich]

Why does Green Lantern have those "arm guards" when Insane (Grona Lund) doesn't have it?

The space where the car comes back into the station at the end of the ride is vary narrow to the point where people in that seat would have been able to get their arm stuck or something.

[Chrisrad]

Pretty sure it's because of the station tolerances - you'd hit the station if you were able to move your arms freely.

 

 

EDIT: yeah, what he said.

[Jew]

As a side note to Magic Mountain's problems, what is really amazing is just how many talented people have worked at SFMM before moving on to bigger and better things at other parks because of bad management/low pay. They bolt for Universal or Disney as fast as they can, though all would probably still be at SFMM if the working environment was better...

[SkyBreak95]

MM needs to stop this "Full Throttle" project and really pour some money in other places.

[MontagnaMagica]

Just got back, yesterday, from an awesome day at the park! Here is a little picture update for you; complete with construction of Lex Luthor, construction of Log Jammer's replacement (more on that later), some cool-looking shots, and some other random things worth sharing.

 

I went with a small group of 11, so I didn't take too many pictures this time, since I didn't want to hold anyone up.

 

I didn't get any entrance photos, or anything that would show the crowd size, but it was relatively light that day. Everything was practically walk-on all day long!

 

Apparently, today was also "Rollercoaster [sic] Day 2012". If you remember this video from last year (

), it's a fairly big event for a pretty popular YouTube channel. I'm pretty sure I'm in a number of shots they took throughout the day, so I eagerly await the video!

 

First off, here are some Lex Luthor: Drop of Doom construction photos.

 

Another view of the construction.

 

Here's a shot of workers working high up on the tower.

 

Work being done on the ground. Not too much to see yet.

 

Goliath was running two trains, and had no line.

 

Awesome desktop-worthy shot!

 

I blacked out every time I rode this thing! Each time, it was earlier in the spiral. By the third ride, I blacked out less than halfway through the spiral. Wow... I knew I had low blood pressure, but this was ridiculous!

 

I can never get this one timed quite right! Even with multiple-exposures. >

 

Great ride! Smooth, fast, and an amazing rapid succession of inversions. No, I'm not going to complain about that asphalt beneath the ride...

 

Forget lunch! Ride coasters! Yes, while the rest of my group went out for lunch, I went to get some rides in on Green Lantern as a single rider (the actual line was probably the longest in the park).

 

I was a bit disappointed when I saw this sign. Regardless, I got two of the best rides I've ever had on this thing! One was terribly unbalanced and got three inversions, while the other seemed perfectly balanced at first, but somehow ended up getting a really wild ride (two inversions. One at the bottom of a drop!)!

 

Nice flip! Too bad the camera didn't focus...

 

The ride broke as I was waiting for my second ride. I don't know what went wrong, but they ran a couple of test trains, and had it back up again in about ten minutes. Good job crew!

 

Here's an artsy shot of Riddler's Revenge. I'm not sure if I like it or not... My sister likes it a lot. What do you think?

 

Now this is something I really appreciate about the park. Its natural landscaping. Trees everywhere! Isn't this beautiful?

 

Want to be a Ninja ride op? Go for it; live your dream!

 

Magic Mountain's new 2013 attraction! "Desert: The Experience". Awww yeah!

 

I think our predictions about this ride are actually pretty far off-base. I was told by a park employee, who was handing out surveys, that the ride would be "like Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure". She mentioned that it would break a height record, and make use of Metro's old tunnel for a launch. I know I'm not the first guy to hear stuff like this from park employees who hand out surveys.

 

I decided to push my luck and ask her if she knew the manufacturer. She didn't, but now we know it will be a launched coaster (rules out the giga possibility).

 

Whatever this is, it should be opening next summer!

 

One last picture, just for kicks!

 

X2 has a long line? Viper photoshoot!

 

Just a bit off with the timing! :/

 

Does anyone know why one timer counts down from about 100, while the other counts up as the train leaves (resetting who knows how often)?

 

One last cool shot before leaving the park. I can't wait to revisit in a few months!

[ScottBrown]

MM needs to stop this "Full Throttle" project and really pour some money in other places.

 

No kidding fix what you have before adding more stop sacrificing the entire park for the coaster crown and other assorted world records for Gods sake

[Chrisrad]

I believe I just saw the words 'beautiful' and 'SFMM' in the same TR.

 

 

 

I did enjoy the pictures though. I don't know what RC day is that everyone's talking about, but it sounds fun.

[CoasterKings908]

Hold on, did I read that white board right?

[MontagnaMagica]

I believe I just saw the words 'beautiful' and 'SFMM' in the same TR.

 

 

 

I did enjoy the pictures though. I don't know what RC day is that everyone's talking about, but it sounds fun.

 

RC Day is an annual get-together this semi-famous YouTuber has at Magic Mountain. I wasn't a part of it, but was surprised to see that they were there the very same day as I. Check out the YouTube link to see last year's video.

 

Hold on, did I read that white board right?

 

I was wondering the same thing too! Surely they can't mean that CP!

[Chrisrad]

^^ Yeah.

 

The other day it was avoid inversions; now, it's balance trains.

 

Sad. Not that I'm bitching about the ride being neutered, but it's sad that the employees are told to run it that way - they're probably led to believe that that's totally normal operation for that type of ride.

 

[galindoverhere]

Hold on, did I read that white board right?

I guess they finally got the fact that CP does a better job at operating their coasters better than SFMM

[SkyBreak95]

I believe I just saw the words 'beautiful' and 'SFMM' in the same TR.

 

 

 

I did enjoy the pictures though. I don't know what RC day is that everyone's talking about, but it sounds fun.

 

RC Day is an annual get-together this semi-famous YouTuber has at Magic Mountain. I wasn't a part of it, but was surprised to see that they were there the very same day as I. Check out the YouTube link to see last year's video.

 

Hold on, did I read that white board right?

 

I was wondering the same thing too! Surely they can't mean that CP!

 

They could learn a thing or two.

[jzoole]

I think our predictions about this ride are actually pretty far off-base. I was told by a park employee, who was handing out surveys, that the ride would be "like Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure". She mentioned that it would break a height record, and make use of Metro's old tunnel for a launch. I know I'm not the first guy to hear stuff like this from park employees who hand out surveys. I decided to push my luck and ask her if she knew the manufacturer. She didn't, but now we know it will be a launched coaster (rules out the giga possibility).

 

The last I had heard, that info pretty much fits the latest rumors to a T. Atleast the ones from Screamscape's sources atleast. They've been saying it would be a launched coaster from Premiere that would utilize the Metro tunnel and take the record for tallest inversion.

[simaticable]

I guess that board is proof that even the Six Flags staff prefer Cedar Point!

[sfgam#1]

MM needs to stop this "Full Throttle" project and really pour some money in other places.

 

No kidding fix what you have before adding more stop sacrificing the entire park for the coaster crown and other assorted world records for Gods sake

You took the words right out of my mouth!!!!!)

[MontagnaMagica]

I think our predictions about this ride are actually pretty far off-base. I was told by a park employee, who was handing out surveys, that the ride would be "like Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure". She mentioned that it would break a height record, and make use of Metro's old tunnel for a launch. I know I'm not the first guy to hear stuff like this from park employees who hand out surveys. I decided to push my luck and ask her if she knew the manufacturer. She didn't, but now we know it will be a launched coaster (rules out the giga possibility).

 

The last I had heard, that info pretty much fits the latest rumors to a T. Atleast the ones from Screamscape's sources atleast. They've been saying it would be a launched coaster from Premiere that would utilize the Metro tunnel and take the record for tallest inversion.

 

Maybe. But she compared it to Kingda Ka. Makes me wonder...

[SkyBreak95]

Seems legit that it will be premier. Just look at SFDK, the rides center-focus is the inverting part. Hopefully this is some type of clue or indication that inversions, and launch coasters for SF will soon take off again!

[Gav]

I don't understand how they can't just give the ride ops some kind of basic mechanic training that would allow them to be able to go over to the car and right it

There isn't any mechanic training needed! At Grona Lund, the ops would just come over and turn the car like it was a steering wheel. It's made to rotate. The ops at Linnanmaki were doing the same thing. I even rotated the car myself a bit when I was mounting the camera. The idea that this cannot be done by a ride op, and requires a maintenance person makes no sense to me!

 

--Robb "The ride should have never been built in America." Alvey

 

I guess what I'm wanting to know is though, does Grona Lund/Linnanmaki do that in day to day, non ERT operations?

 

Agreed that it seems dumb to call mechanics over when its so simple to correct the problem by spinning it manually, but I'm not sure if a park would want to have to deal with having to do that on heaps of cycles....would kind of defeat the purpose of the straightening system if a human is constantly having to run over and manually intervene.

 

To be honest, I reckon the best idea would be for Intamin to redesign the system so it can straighten a car from any angle easily.

 

Though, I still think rider comfort and safety would be the main reason for them to avoid greatly unbalanced cars, and hence the memos on the GL employee whiteboard. From most normal pov's and offrides of these rides I have seen (both the small and large version) only normally do one inversion per cycle, always on the tight U-turn at the end.

 

Quick search of Insane offrides seems to confirm the above:

One inversion,

One inversion,

One inversion on each cycle (2 shown)

 

The examples of it doing flips at other points in the ride, spinning upside down at the bottom of drops causing high G forces on the head and so forth I don't think are 'natural', and would probably be outside manufacturers recommendations, since the only way to get it to do it is to unbalance the cars.

 

Whereas on the other hand all parks with these rides have a standard policy of balancing the cars and not having empty seats.

(When I rode GL I was a single rider on my side, so the ride I got did about 4 inversions, including on the MCBR)

[Tmcdllr]

To be honest, I reckon the best idea would be for Intamin to redesign the system so it can straighten a car from any angle easily.

 

That would be the easy way out for the park, and why doesn't it already do that?

[Six Flags Enthuseast]

MM needs to stop this "Full Throttle" project and really pour some money in other places.

 

No kidding fix what you have before adding more stop sacrificing the entire park for the coaster crown and other assorted world records for Gods sake

You took the words right out of my mouth!!!!!)

And mine! SFMM should put some serious emphasis on... well, pretty much everything but thrill rides! It goes without saying that family rides, more (or at least open ) kiddie rides, ride operation, and theming are all downfalls for the park.

 

Considering the lack of other rides, I can't say I'd be surprised that SFMM could once again be looking for another record-breaker as their 'big 2013 addition'. The rumor that some kind of launch coaster utilizing Metro's old tunnel and Log Jammer's area makes some sense to me. As to what kind of ride it could be, I'd really only guess Premier or Maurer X-Car, but what do I know?

 

I guess we won't know for sure until we see pictures of track or get an announcement...

[andyuk200523]

To be honest, I reckon the best idea would be for Intamin to redesign the system so it can straighten a car from any angle easily.

 

That would be the easy way out for the park, and why doesn't it already do that?

 

The system works as well as it is ever going to work, it is a similar system to the spinning mice coasters from Maurer, there is an auto leveller as you come into the station, however if the car is tilted past a certain angle it will end up levelling upside down! There is no way around this, not without spending some serious bucks (or you could just get lazy operators and park management to do some work).

 

In all seriousness, during Insane ERS we were coming into the station in all manner of angles, it was never a problem for the staff, and I also saw this during normal operation, so was not something exclusive to ERS.

[MrSum1_55]

The reason why SFMM has had more bad than good days in the past years is due to the interaction with management and SFI. Whenever the park gets a bad manager, SFI simply ignores the situation as long as the park is continuing to make a profit. Whenever the park gets a good manager, like Jay, SFI takes notice to how well he is running the park, and promotes him to upper management. As a result, the park has now re-entered a never-ending cycle.

 

My prediction is that if you give the place a few years, and a new, good manager will be hired, only to see him be promoted to upper management, because of how well he/she fixes up the neglected park. As for the current management, I will need to see quite a few improvements before I can be convinced that the park is being run well.

[Wes]

^ That's not really true though. Del Holland was the GM before Jay, and Holland had that position for like 20 years, and then retired. The cycle you speak of doesn't exist, unless the cycle is one person named Jay Thomas.

[UberBeavis]

Magic Mountain will always revert to a dump as long as people like Tim Burkhart are in place- people who have a real disdain for their customers and their own employees.

[snoflake15]

Hope I haven't missed it being mentioned but the UK is running a show called 'Scream Extreme'.

 

Those who follow the Thorpe Park thread may have heard references to a show called 'Scream if You Know the Answer' which had list D celebs answering qustions and doing various daft challenges on the rides.

 

Well now this series has been filmed at SFMM. First show was aired on Sunday. Haven't watched it all yet. Here's the trailer link.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD9l82UN0CI