Six Flags Discovery Kingdom (SFDK) Discussion Thread

[Tremindouz]

I was there on Sunday and got on Superman twice. Capacity was much better than I expected. I'd say the wait was about 30 mins both times. Cycles were roughly every minute and forty five seconds. The ride ops were doing an amazing job. Every launch I watched had all seats filled. Overall I'm very impressed with the ride. I also rode the Star Flyer for my first time. That was a ton of fun as well.

[ernierocker]

^Awesome! I know that was the major concern with this ride when it was first announced.

[Double0Kevin]

The park is making every effort to group single riders so there is never an empty seat. They also have had the crews do away with the high fives and other guest service initiatives in favor of quick cycles, and to this I applaud them. I'm a much happier guest if my wait is shorter than if I get a high five.

 

From what I hear, they are doing 40+ cycles an hour. So with full trains every cycle, they get 480+ riders per hour. To put that in perspective, the best we ever did at V2 in my years operating it was 21 cycles in an hour(usually it was between 16 to 19 though), so at best that's 588 riders if the train was completely full each cycle (which it never was), so Superman is right up there with V2. Anyone who's ever operated rides before knows that we have all been permanently programed to nit pick every ride operation we see. That said, I have to admit it's quite impressive to watch how they run Superman!

 

I'm not sure what caused it, but I think it was cause by the ride op on the control panel spacing out and failing to take his hand of the dispatch button.

 

The ride parks itself, so if the operator holds down the buttons from hear till eternity, the ride still parks all the same. In fact on Medusa the operator holds down the buttons until the combs (the floors) come up. I have seen Medusa overshoot many times though, sometimes it can happen if the tires are wet when it rains or if it's hot outside, etc. The cool thing is that B&M designed it (and i'm sure all their other rides) to be easily backed up by the operator and continue operation no problem.

[Angry_Gumball]

I remember a hot 2006 visit to SFDK and riding Medusa. We were on a train that overshot the station. Initially I was thinking "Oh, sweet, we get to ride again since the front of the train was poking out. Sure enough, we were reversed and lined right back up with the folding floors. It was probably a good 112 degrees that day, ridiculously hot, and the Rapids ride was down all day...go figure.

[Tmcdllr]

The park is making every effort to group single riders so there is never an empty seat. They also have had the crews do away with the high fives and other guest service initiatives in favor of quick cycles, and to this I applaud them. I'm a much happier guest if my wait is shorter than if I get a high five.

 

From what I hear, they are doing 40+ cycles an hour. So with full trains every cycle, they get 480+ riders per hour. To put that in perspective, the best we ever did at V2 in my years operating it was 21 cycles in an hour(usually it was between 16 to 19 though), so at best that's 588 riders if the train was completely full each cycle (which it never was), so Superman is right up there with V2. Anyone who's ever operated rides before knows that we have all been permanently programed to nit pick every ride operation we see. That said, I have to admit it's quite impressive to watch how they run Superman!

 

I'm not sure what caused it, but I think it was cause by the ride op on the control panel spacing out and failing to take his hand of the dispatch button.

 

The ride parks itself, so if the operator holds down the buttons from hear till eternity, the ride still parks all the same. In fact on Medusa the operator holds down the buttons until the combs (the floors) come up. I have seen Medusa overshoot many times though, sometimes it can happen if the tires are wet when it rains or if it's hot outside, etc. The cool thing is that B&M designed it (and i'm sure all their other rides) to be easily backed up by the operator and continue operation no problem.

 

 

I agree, I would rather wait less in line than have a high five.

 

When I worked Demon if the train overshot the station (different manufacturer I know) you could not back it up, it had to be sent around again and the way it was programmed if a train was coming into the station and you held the dispatch button down the brakes never closed and the train never stopped, did that a few times during an employee party. It's pretty neat that B&M designed Medusa so you can simply back the train up.

[singemfrc]

I was there on Sunday and got on Superman twice. Capacity was much better than I expected. I'd say the wait was about 30 mins both times. Cycles were roughly every minute and forty five seconds. The ride ops were doing an amazing job. Every launch I watched had all seats filled. Overall I'm very impressed with the ride. I also rode the Star Flyer for my first time. That was a ton of fun as well.

Yeah they were doing a great job when I was there they were popping out the exit door and asking for single riders in the regular line to run in and get on the ride.

[Andrewoplis]

 

I'm not sure what caused it, but I think it was cause by the ride op on the control panel spacing out and failing to take his hand of the dispatch button.

 

The ride parks itself, so if the operator holds down the buttons from hear till eternity, the ride still parks all the same. In fact on Medusa the operator holds down the buttons until the combs (the floors) come up. I have seen Medusa overshoot many times though, sometimes it can happen if the tires are wet when it rains or if it's hot outside, etc. The cool thing is that B&M designed it (and i'm sure all their other rides) to be easily backed up by the operator and continue operation no problem.

 

Thanks for clearing that up! It seemed to take them a while for them to actually get the ride going again though, I guess it just never happened to that ride crew before.

[man]

Just throwing in my 2c.... It looked sunny that day and I bet the ride was tested and designed in a cooler setting. I am sure they kept the heat in mind I am sure they can't fix every possible kink. So I throw this possibility out that has probably been mentioned... Maybe the heat caused the metal to expand or something causing the train to not have enough speed to get up when it usually would. I might be totally off here too....

[Silperez]

Went to the park today, saw Superman testing a couple times, and people walking around it, looked like they were planing to reopen soon.

[singemfrc]

Went to the park today, saw Superman testing a couple times, and people walking around it, looked like they were planing to reopen soon.

I checked the line numbers at about 8pm and people were reporting it open with 20min wait

[Andrewoplis]

Went to the park today, saw Superman testing a couple times, and people walking around it, looked like they were planing to reopen soon.

I checked the line numbers at about 8pm and people were reporting it open with 20min wait

 

Its good to here that the ride is back open! I really got to get back there and ride it again!

[Silperez]

Went to the park today, saw Superman testing a couple times, and people walking around it, looked like they were planing to reopen soon.

I checked the line numbers at about 8pm and people were reporting it open with 20min wait

 

Its good to here that the ride is back open! I really got to get back there and ride it again!

 

It wasn't back open they were just testing it a couple of times on Thursday. It just looked like they were planning to open it back up some time soon without any drastic changes made to the ride.

[singemfrc]

Yeah someone must have sent a false report saying it was open. Currently its being reported as down.

[CrazedZooChimp]

I hope it opens this weekend, I'm planning to go Sunday for the first time this year, was really looking forward to trying it out, it's been so long since there's been a new coaster in the Bay Area.

[JJnCFL]

Was also at the park yesterday and saw them testing Superman a couple times but was still closed. They removed any mention of the ride on the website on the main page, but digging deeper in the rides section says TEMPORARILY CLOSED next to Superman's name.

[douggw]

Seems like a quick fix would be to just install a tire there, that drops down so it doesn't rub on the train as it passes over. If the train gets stuck, an operator can press a switch that would raise the tire, and give the train a little push. Easy, simple, and cost effective to install. No computer patches necessary.

 

As I was waiting in line to ride a few weeks ago, I noticed how close the train comes when it's going up the rear hill backwards at the start of the ride, to cresting the loop and going into the loop. It looks like it's only a few feet from doing that. One small extra push and it's in the loop and stuck. You can't just push the train out of the loop. I thought there would be a one way switch that would prevent the train from going to far backwards into the loop.

 

It will happen. The train will end up one day going backwards too far and get stuck in the loop.

[XYZ]

As I was waiting in line to ride a few weeks ago, I noticed how close the train comes when it's going up the rear hill backwards at the start of the ride, to cresting the loop and going into the loop. It looks like it's only a few feet from doing that. One small extra push and it's in the loop and stuck. You can't just push the train out of the loop. I thought there would be a one way switch that would prevent the train from going to far backwards into the loop.

 

It will happen. The train will end up one day going backwards too far and get stuck in the loop.

 

I agree with this, after seeing Superman stalling, I could see the train going a bit too fast since there was a situation of the train going a bit too slow.

[Angry_Gumball]

If anything, it would probably be one of those rare situations just like when it peaked. I'm pretty sure that if something like that happened, the trains would have to be winched to get it up and over that loop...after an evac of course. And once again, it would probably make national, maybe international news.

 

I do give kudos to SF for putting the info on the site that S:UF is temporarily closed...primarily because there are the people juiced to go to Six Flags to ride the new coaster only to find it being closed. Anybody (with some intelligence anyway) would know the ride is temporarily down when they decide to check out the site and read about the new coaster...and for Six Flags' sake, it's a case of "Well, it's not like we didn't tell anyone the ride was down" (or otherwise known as covering their butts).

[Double0Kevin]

I'm kind of speechless at some of the previous posts. Do you guys seriously think that this thing was so poorly engineered that it's just going to accidentally go too fast? When have we ever heard about a ride launching too fast? Slow is one thing, rides are designed to launch just perfectly but sometimes they can account for extra weight or windy conditions so they go slower than expected. But we never see rides like V2 hitting the bumpers because the rides don't launch too fast, simply put.

 

Also to say that the installation of a tire would be a simple fix, that costs more money and work than you obviously realize. And it would require a software patch, because no park, manufacturer, or state would allow for 2 desperate systems to operate on one ride, there is just too much risk of issues arising from competing systems.

 

Premier knew what they were doing when they built this thing. A freak issue arose with this, but it doesn't mean we all need to suddenly act as if we are experienced engineers that know how to fix something we don't even have all the facts on.

[EastCoastn07]

Seems like a quick fix would be to just install a tire there, that drops down so it doesn't rub on the train as it passes over. If the train gets stuck, an operator can press a switch that would raise the tire, and give the train a little push. Easy, simple, and cost effective to install. No computer patches necessary.

 

As I was waiting in line to ride a few weeks ago, I noticed how close the train comes when it's going up the rear hill backwards at the start of the ride, to cresting the loop and going into the loop. It looks like it's only a few feet from doing that. One small extra push and it's in the loop and stuck. You can't just push the train out of the loop. I thought there would be a one way switch that would prevent the train from going to far backwards into the loop.

 

It will happen. The train will end up one day going backwards too far and get stuck in the loop.

 

Quick fix? Cost effective? You do realize that you can't just plop a drive tire anywhere down on the track right? When a component like a drive tire, flat brake, magnetic brake, etc. is used, the track has to be designed for it. Meaning, it has to have special connections to attach the component to the track via a different track tie. You can't just plop a drive tire down anywhere you want, that's not how it works. Unless you are suggesting they start cutting up existing ties and re-welding a new track tie to connect a drive tire to, then I would say its not possible. But then you're talking about completely re-engineering something to prevent an incident that is 1 in a million from happening, and that costs $$$$$. It's not a quick or cost effective fix at all, and there would definitely have to be a software upgrade because you need the PLC to control it. Please let the professionals handle how to fix this, I guarantee they know what they're doing.

 

And I completely agree with Double0Kevin on this one, there is never going to be a time when a launch is going to go too fast without the computer acknowledging it and shutting the system down. Do you people not think that the engineers didn't determine the safest and fastest speed in the reverse launch to prevent something like that from happening? I guarantee you that there is a speed limit on all the launches to prevent overspeeding and the system will completely shut down if it goes above that. So I will say this, I doubt that a valley in the loop will ever happen, unless there is another freak accident like this one. However, a valley in the loop is nowhere near as bad as getting stalled at the top. For one, the roof is easily accessible to get people off. The only bad part is having to remove the train from the track. But once again, I doubt this will ever happen because there is most likely restrictions in the program to prevent overspeeding, whereas there isn't restrictions on how slow a train can go.

[CharlieT.]

A facebook fan page of Six Flags Magic Mountain, known as SFMMcrazy, was going to visit the park this weekend and posted a picture of Superman running. Also, Ride Hopper says the line is about 90 minutes (although that can be adjusted by anyone in the park) so I believe Superman may be back up and running.

[singemfrc]

A facebook fan page of Six Flags Magic Mountain, known as SFMMcrazy, was going to visit the park this weekend and posted a picture of Superman running. Also, Ride Hopper says the line is about 90 minutes (although that can be adjusted by anyone in the park) so I believe Superman may be back up and running.

I saw it open on RideHopper earlier as well, looks like its actually back up now.

[Tmcdllr]

Seems like a quick fix would be to just install a tire there, that drops down so it doesn't rub on the train as it passes over. If the train gets stuck, an operator can press a switch that would raise the tire, and give the train a little push. Easy, simple, and cost effective to install. No computer patches necessary.

 

As I was waiting in line to ride a few weeks ago, I noticed how close the train comes when it's going up the rear hill backwards at the start of the ride, to cresting the loop and going into the loop. It looks like it's only a few feet from doing that. One small extra push and it's in the loop and stuck. You can't just push the train out of the loop. I thought there would be a one way switch that would prevent the train from going to far backwards into the loop.

 

It will happen. The train will end up one day going backwards too far and get stuck in the loop.

 

Quick fix? Cost effective? You do realize that you can't just plop a drive tire anywhere down on the track right? When a component like a drive tire, flat brake, magnetic brake, etc. is used, the track has to be designed for it. Meaning, it has to have special connections to attach the component to the track via a different track tie. You can't just plop a drive tire down anywhere you want, that's not how it works. Unless you are suggesting they start cutting up existing ties and re-welding a new track tie to connect a drive tire to, then I would say its not possible. But then you're talking about completely re-engineering something to prevent an incident that is 1 in a million from happening, and that costs $$$$$. It's not a quick or cost effective fix at all, and there would definitely have to be a software upgrade because you need the PLC to control it. Please let the professionals handle how to fix this, I guarantee they know what they're doing.

 

And I completely agree with Double0Kevin on this one, there is never going to be a time when a launch is going to go too fast without the computer acknowledging it and shutting the system down. Do you people not think that the engineers didn't determine the safest and fastest speed in the reverse launch to prevent something like that from happening? I guarantee you that there is a speed limit on all the launches to prevent overspeeding and the system will completely shut down if it goes above that. So I will say this, I doubt that a valley in the loop will ever happen, unless there is another freak accident like this one. However, a valley in the loop is nowhere near as bad as getting stalled at the top. For one, the roof is easily accessible to get people off. The only bad part is having to remove the train from the track. But once again, I doubt this will ever happen because there is most likely restrictions in the program to prevent overspeeding, whereas there isn't restrictions on how slow a train can go.

 

Makes sense. And if for some strange, freak reason it ever did valley in the loop and they had to remove the train, since there are only two cars it should not take long at all, at least not nearly as long as a 7 or 8 car train would.

[douggw]

Nevermind that I suggested a "quick fix". I'm sure problems will never happen again. Computers NEVER go down or have glitches. There are NEVER freak accidents. Things ALWAYS go the way they are planned. I'm sure there will never be a problem again.

[Double0Kevin]

Nevermind that I suggested a "quick fix". I'm sure problems will never happen again. Computers NEVER go down or have glitches. There are NEVER freak accidents. Things ALWAYS go the way they are planned. I'm sure there will never be a problem again.

 

This seems way out of line. You made a post making confident claims, and people corrected the errors. Don't post on here if you can't handle people responding to what you say. No need to be rude because others may have a bit more experience than you.

 

On a side note, I drove past the park a few hours ago and Superman was running with riders. So looks like everything has been addressed with OSHA and the green light was given to open back up. Crossing my fingers there are no more stalls at the top, this thing adds so much to the park, so it's a bummer if it's down.