American Eagle at (six flags) Great America

[CoasterComet]

This ride is running better than I ever remember it. Maybe not as good as 1985? Yeah, probably better than then too.

 

Does anyone have old and or construction pics of the ride? I've been looking all over (and have found a couple, including in coaster books) and would like to find more. I'm working on a Nolimits accurate re-creation and need some clear pics of the ride (and before the trees grew up around the south side of the ride). Any help would be great!

 

I really think the ride should be the crowning jewel, the pride and joy of Great America, as it once was. The way it is now, the walk to get to the ride, and years of bad reputation (rough track), prevent that. I think SF needs to give the ride some major TLC (READ: NOT speakers and a bizarro makeover). I've got some great ideas myself.

 

The ride itself, is fast and has plenty of airtime on the red side. Also has some slamming, but that could be taken care of.

[mwm1444]

As my first woodie in 2007, I really enjoyed it. Having ridden 8 more woodies (of varying degrees of roughness, age, and general quality) since, I do wonder how my opinion would change riding it again, but I'm glad to hear it's running well. I remember loving the helices.

[ginzo]

I've only been on this ride one time and it was just an average woodie. I tried to ride it again this year, but it wasn't on the Q-Bot that I had that day. And I didn't feel like waiting after paying all that money for the Q-Bot.

[dandaman]

It's the best woodie I've ever ridden. And I've ridden... Gwazi, and... uh... Mean Streak... and... well, despite that, it's still pretty damn good. Went in July with a few TPR members for the first time and was VERY pleasantly surprised that a woodie could run that amazing. (I'm certain there's better ones out there, but pretty much anything would be an improvement over the ones I have ridden...)

[Guest]

Its nostalgic for those of us that grew up SFGAm especially since it was the tallest/fastest coaster in the world when it opened but to say its a great woodie is a stretch (though I love Red side front row!). Ive always preferred riding it forwards over backwards, its cool the first few times but the novelty dies off and its good they both run forwards now.

 

Heres some pics I took a few years back

 

 

This was on display for an employee event when I took the pics and was originally built to tour malls in the Chicago area to publicize the opening of the ride. I dont know where it is now, probably somewhere in the admin building.

 

 

Fright Fest 2006, taken from Daredevil Dive's platform

 

Running it backwards for so long did a number on the track which required the blue side to be SBNO for a bit to do major track work.

 

The big queue that was replaced with Wiggles World

[mcjaco]

You can also check out :Great America Parks.

 

It's a nice website about the history of both parks. There should be some American Eagle pics there.

 

You'll probably have to look for them in the Photo Albums.

[deathbydinn]

Running it backwards for so long did a number on the track which required the blue side to be SBNO for a bit to do major track work.

 

How is it bad for the track to have a backwards train?

[CoasterComet]

Its nostalgic for those of us that grew up SFGAm especially since it was the tallest/fastest coaster in the world when it opened but to say its a great woodie is a stretch (though I love Red side

 

Hmmm.. yes, it is VERY nostalgic for me! I wouldn't ride it until I was 12 (1985) because of the reputation (overblown) that the first drop had. I was really scared of it!

 

I think calling is a pretty damn good woodie (RED side) is fair... I've been riding it all summer and it is certainly better than the slew of other big a$$ woodies we have - the Beast, Colossus, Mean Streak, Texas Giant (in it's present state)... I would even say it's better than the John Allen racer's (in their present state with retracting belts and pinning lap bars).

 

One thing real nice about the Eagle is that the lap bars don't fall. They still aren't buzz bars (which the ride had until the early 80's), but they are a hell of a lot better than most all the PTC ratchet bars.

 

As a side note, and a very good one, the Viper at Great America also has specailly equipped lap bars that do not fall down. In fact, they can only go down to a certain level - so it's impossible to get stapled on that ride. Very cool decision on the parks behalf, I would suspect.

 

HEY, thanks for the pictures btw! I remember seeing pictures of that model! Very cool.