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"What 50-degree rule?"
It is a long-held belief that Kings Island will not operate steel coasters when the air temperature is below 50 degrees. I can now report with some certainty that if there is a minmum temperature threshhold, it isn't 50 degrees. I didn't give it much thought, but as I pulled into the parking lot an announcer on the radio mentioned that it was a balmy 45 degrees. It was shortly after 11:00am as I entered the park, and Face/Off was running. I headed down the right-hand side of International Street, around the back of the tower to Coney Mall and down the...Well, come on now, this is my fourth visit to Kings Island this season, by now you should know where I was going. A few minutes later I had a rudder in my hand, and the airframe dancing through the air. The general feeling of chaos was accented by the presence of Dave Bowers and Eric Huelsman elsewhere on the ride. They are both competent pilots themselves. When the ride was over, the three of us rode a couple more times. My original plan was to ride the Flying Scooters on my way to The Beast and Tomb Raider, but Dave and Eric had already been there for morning gold-pass ERT, and were on their way to Flight of Fear. Being a flexible park-goer (and big fan of the improved Flight of Fear), I joined Dave and Eric To pass the time waiting in line...what little of that there was...Dave and Eric related their stories from their recent trip to Geauga Lake, Kennywood and Cedar Point.
Over on Flight of Fear they still haven't got their third train back, and I wonder if they ever will. The loading process takes forever, partly because people still haven't figured out that the safety belt attaches to the lap bar, but it seems there are other issues. Tight seats are a big part of the problem. I also wonder if a better system for handling people's boatloads of crap would help. People carry more junk around with them at Kings Island than in any other park I can think of. I think a lot of it is the midway games; there are a lot of prizes walking around the Kings Island midways, and ultimately those prizes end up on ride platforms.
Anyway, after too much time sitting in the train waiting for it to go, we were off. There are really two rides at Kings Island that I really go to that park for, and by 12:30, I had ridden them both.
That doesn't mean the park doesn't have a good ride selection. We proceeded down Coney Mall for a ride on the Racer. Since I'm planning to make this report a short one, I'll mention now what we learned later. Finally, the Racer has all four trains on it. Of particular interest is the modification done to the blue train on the South Racer, that is, the backwards-running recaR. Much of last season one of the trains was missing, and I don't know if this is the one, but all four trains are running now. You may recall that the Racer's trains have a very early version of the PTC ratcheting lap bar, an electric version. Now on the one train, when the lap bars are unlocked, a little yellow flag pops up out of the top of the mechanism cover. It only indicates the state of the lock; I figured that perhaps it wouldn't drop down again until the bar was lowered, but that's not how it works. When the bars were locked again, before we could pull them down at all, the flags all dropped out of sight again. The only practical reason I can think of for it is to serve as an indicator when operating the manual release...
Anyway, Racer is being its usual self. I've become smarter as I now carry a safety belt with me at Kings Island so that I can ride Racer without getting my privates mashed by the lap bar on that last dip before the turnaround. You know something, there really is a litle bit of airtime on the return leg. The forward side is running a bit rough, though, compared with the backward side, though both sides are giving perfectly competent rides.
The next ride down is Adventure Express. We took a quick ride, noting that the dude at the top of the second lift wasn't saying anything. I guess he's still working on getting a gig over at Tomb Raider.
As we exited Adventure Express, the climbing wall operator suggested that Eric should give it a try, and that she would videotape him using his camera. He said he'd give it a try if Bowers did it. Dave asked the important question: The wall has a hydraulic auto-belay system on it, and it has a 250-pound weight limit. I noted that I could do it only if I stripped naked, and besides the fact that nobody present would want to see such a display [Footnote 1], 48 degrees was far too cold for that.
On down the midway from Adventure Express and the climbing wall is Kings Island's newest attraction, a Slingshot-type attraction. It's a simpler ride than the S&S Absolutely In ane ride that Cedar Point had for a couple of months last season. Like the S&S ride, it uses wire rope...redundant wire rope, in fact...to support the passenger gondola. Unlike the S&S ride, this thing uses a cage full of coil springs to generate the lifting force. A hydraulic ram is used to stretch the springs, which are attached through a pulley network to the wire ropes supporting the gondola. The gondola is held down with both a magnetic lock and a safety pin as the springs are stretched. On cue the pin is removed, the magnet is released, and the energy stored in the springs is released, sending the gondola skyward. The action is similar to that of a bungee cord, but the action is more controlled and appears to be smoother. Still, I'm not paying $20 to ride on it.
We started into the queue house for Face/Off just as an announcement played indicating technical difficulties. Right on cue, we all turned around and went the other way. That made Top Gun our next stop, followed by Son of Beast. The best seat on that coaster is the middle row of the last car, so that's where I sat. The ride is significantly better this year, and the new pad on the seat is a welcome addition. Last year the car floor redesign meant that for me, my entire body weight was rocked back onto my tailbone and supported by a very small "contact patch" with the seat. The new seat pad fills in the gap caused by the awkward seating position and offers some additional support. Even better, while the pad is urethane foam, it is far softer than the rest of the cushioning on the ride, more like the seat cushions on the Racer and the Beast. Why can't they use this kind of foam on the side and back pads on Son of Beast? Maybe next year, assuming they still haven't decided that what they really need to do is re-engineer the trains. Speaking of which, I am eagerly awaiting any reports on the performance of the LoCoSuMo [Footnote 2] trains at Indiana Beach. I think if that chassis design (no, I don't think the face-to-face seating would necessarily be a good idea...) were adapted to certain major coasters...what the heck, I'll name Son of Beast, Mean Streak, Hercules and Texas Giant...a lot of problems could be solved on some of these big coasters. But I've been preaching that almost as long as I've been preaching against shoulder bars, and it still hasn't done any good... 8-)
I wanted to dump my camera in the car, as I wasn't getting any shooting done, and I was followed by Dave and Eric. The three of us opted to leave the park for lunch at Skyline Chili. That particular Skyline location would do well to hire a couple of people to bus tables at lunchtime, but other than that it was a decent lunch. We returned to the park. We started with Face/Off, which had come back up, then worked our way around the right-hand side of the park. Phantom Theater is still looking and sounding good, the trim brake on Beastie is still a major annoyance (When will I get to Wyandot Lake where I can ride what Beastie is supposed to be?). We skipped the half-hour wait to squeeze into Ghoster Coaster, but we did ride Rugrats Runaway Reptar Roller Coaster. This is one of the best new products to come from Vekoma for a long time.
Tomb Raider had a long wait so we skipped it, but I finally got that ride on The Beast that I had planned for the morning. We rode up front and I am pleased to report that the adjustment they made to the shed trim brakes after the first week of operation has stuck...it appears that they are going to run this thing in "decent ride" mode this season. The ride is not without some troubles, though. Three train operation is underway, but now the train just sort of idles up the lift so that instead of cresting the lift as the train ahead crests the second lift, the train doesn't make it to the top until the train ahead is well into the helix. At the end of the ride, instead of parking the train waiting to enter the station on the ready brake right behind the safety brake and immediately uptrack of the station, they are parking the train on the first holding brake, the one I thought was put there for stacking the third train. Then instead of starting the roll into the station when the departing train clears the station...or even when the departing train clears the transfer switch brake...the roll-down isn't starting until the departing train is not only past the transfer switch, but actually when the first car rounds the curve and approaches the base of the first lift. I don't understand it. They did a lot of work to put two useable parking brakes uptrack of the station and put a ready brake close in to the station so that the ride's biggest capacity killer could be fixed. But now, in spite of the ride's apparent new capabilities, they are still wasting lots of time bringing the trains into the station. I presume that the long trip up the first lift is to increase the ride time enough to allow the time needed to bring the trains in. But if they parked the trains right and brought them in on time, they would be loading the second train by the time the first one got to the lift. A few cycles like that and parking the train on the ready brake might not even be an issue.
Or have I just taken too many trips to Cedar Point, where they'll bring in a Gemini train before the train ahead is all the way out?
Anyway, the important thing is that The Beast is running pretty well. But it's a long ride to the top of the first lift now, and it's still a long roll to the station from the stop at the end of the ride.
Vortex was running, as it had been all day. I mention that only because Vortex is one of those rides that (allegedly) doesn't operate if the air temperature is below 50 degrees. Well, I don't think the temperature reached 50 degrees all day. But apart from being cold, it was a beautiful day, and Vortex ran very nicely all day long. I don't know if the park has changed to different wheels on Vortex or what, but it still isn't squeaking this season, and they seem to have sped it up just a little bit coming out of the mid-course brake. The result is less hanging and banging through the Corkscrew [Footnote 3].
We went back and rode the best coasters again, and with an hour left before closing...well, you know where we ended up. There was quite a crew of experienced pilots in the park that night, snapping away at the Flying Scooters. I want a set of these closer to home!
It was a good day at Kings Island. Now that the summer is finally starting for real, and the schools are starting to let out, it may be a while before I can enjoy a wonderfully uncrowded day like this one again at Kings Island. Good for the park, but not so good for me. But, as the Maestro suggests as I leave the Phantom Theater, I know I'll be back!
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
Footnote 1: ESPECIALLY me! [Return to text]
Footnote 2: Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain, the new wood coaster being built to replace the oddball dark ride/powered coaster hybrid thingy at Indiana Beach. [Return to text]
Footnote 3: I guess since Tomb Raider is entirely based on hanging people from a shoulder bar they figure they don't have to do it on Vortex anymore... [Return to text]
--DCAjr.
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