Lake Winnepesaukah 06/12/2004 (#1)

It's only a couple of hours' drive up IR-75 to Chattanooga from Atlanta. Lake Winnepesaukah is located in Georgia, but it serves the Chattanooga, Tennessee metro area. To get there from Atlanta, it is actually easiest to drive into Tennessee, then cruise through a residential neighborhood, back into Georgia, and down a hill. At the bottom of the hill is a traffic light, and a giant banner over the parking lot entrance that says, "Lake Winnepesaukah" in large, friendly letters. It's one of the few places where you can see the word "Winnepesaukah" spelled out, as most places refer to the park as simply, "Lake Winnie".

When I got there, the front parking lot was full, so I had to go around to the back. There is a gate back there, and there was a really long line. I was informed that if I wasn't with Shaw, I didn't have to wait in that line. I don't even know who or what Shaw is, so I didn't wait.

A year or so ago, the park suffered an unfortunate incident, which has resulted in some new rules. The park now has a minimum age requirement if you want to visit unattended, and they discourage the sale of general admission tickets. None of that really affected me, as I am older than 21 years, and I was planning to buy the ride wristband anyway. $21 later ($18 for the ride pass plus $3 for the general admission) I was entering the park. I wonder if they are paranoid about people sneaking in...at the gate I was presented with my receipt, a ride wristband, a UV-active handstamp, and a little sticky tag indicating that I had paid my admission, which I guess I was supposed to hang on my shirt. Odd. And it doesn't mean much, as the tag disappeared while I was riding something just an hour or two later. Hey, if anybody cared, I have three other ways to prove I paid my way in today.

The Cannon Ball coaster is a gleaming white out-and-back coaster that runs alongside the back parking lot. Just inside the back gate are the Conestoga, a modified Rainbow ride that I last rode when it was still at Hersheypark, a rubber tubing flume ride, and an Eyerly Fly-O-Plane. Yup, that's right, the elusive Eyerly Fly-O-Plane. Oddly enough, the park doesn't have an Octopus, Spider, Monster, Loop-O-Plane, Roll-O-Plane, or Rock-O-Plane. But they are the only park in the United States still operating a Fly-O-Plane. I'll have to be sure to come back to that!

But I will come back to it later. For now, I can't resist taking a ride on the Cannon Ball. As the train is out on the course, the attendants allow a trainload of riders onto the loading platform. When the train returns, it unloads to the unload platform and the train is brought down to load. I stepped into the train, sitting in the front of the last car, fastened my seat belt, then pushed forward, then pulled back on the lap bar. The seat is generously padded, though divided, with no nasty hard foam anywhere. The electric lap bar is in good shape, and the release solenoid box is on the right-hand side, so watch your shins if you sit on that side. This is more or less what a PTC wood coaster train should look like!

After the attendant checks all the belts and bars, the operator leans back on the brake lever and the train rolls out of the station. It's a quick trip to the top of the lift, then a series of hills, with lots of airtime on each one. It's a classic John Allen coaster, a lot like Frank Hoover's Blue Streak at Cedar Point.

A classic wood coaster...

...with a classic profile...

...and almost-classic trains.

But that really doesn't adequately describe the Cannon Ball. That tells you it's a midsize out and back coaster. What that doesn't tell you is that the 3-car 18-passenger train flies over the hills smoothly and quietly, delivering classic airtime in classic doses. It doesn't tell you that the track is in excellent condition, that the ride runs like it was built yesterday. The Cannon Ball is well cared-for, with trackwork that puts both of the wood coasters at Six Flags Over Georgia to shame. It's the kind of ride that one could easily ride all day long.

It's a terrific little wooden coaster. They don't build them like this anymore. Seriously, they don't. On the turnarounds at each end of the ride, the curves are not cut, as it standard on wood coasters today, but rather they are bent, track laminations stacked on end and pulled around the curve. Except for the seat dividers, everything about this ride is classic, right down to the Philadelphia Toboggan Co. manufacturer's plate in the station. I rode it repeatedly, one ride spoiled by the jerk who sat next to me who informed me that what he likes to do is stand up on the first drop. I asked him not to. He did anyway. On the one hand, I wanted to push him over the side. On the other hand, that would have been unpleasant and messy even if he did deserve it, and besides I am not that kind of a vengeful person. So I spared him the physical violence and left him with a tongue lashing instead. Now he probably thinks I'm some curmudgeonly killjoy trying to ruin his fun. That's far from the truth, of course. In reality, I'm a curmudgeonly killjoy trying to preserve my fun!

What it is with roller coaster riders in Georgia that they can't be bothered to sit down for a two minute ride? Where I come from, this sort of thing is not nearly so common!

Across the midway is Lake Winnie's newest coaster, the Wild Lightning, a Wild Mouse-type coaster from L&T Systems. Of course, ride techno-geek that I am, the first thing I noticed on the platform was the large diagram of the ride showing the layout of the ride and the status of each of the blocks and condition of each of the brakes. The ride has nine blocks on it. I climbed aboard, and took the quick trip up the lift. The ride is a simpler layout than either the Mack or the Maurer-Soehne Mouse, with a simplified support structure. As the car approaches the top of the hill, the lift system kicks into warp drive to launch the car over the top and into the upper switchbacks. The car is built in the classic Mouse style (albeit with the modern 2+2 seating) that puts the front of the car well ahead of the wheelbase. The switchbacks are angled fairly significantly, so the car picks up speed quite rapidly...and the trim brakes are opened wide as the car approaches. That's right...tight turns, high speeds, and no brakes until the end of the ride. Wheee!

Along the midway at Lake Winnie

The Matterhorn is a Mack Schlittenfährt.

Lake Winnie is built around the edge of...well, of a spring-fed lake, of course. Past the Wild Lightning, the park extends in a narrow band around the lake, A set of pedal-boats operates on the lake, while the other side of the midway is the usual games, concessions, and souvenir buildings. Behind those buildings on a sort of midway extension are the antique Carousel, an antique car ride, a Scrambler, a haunted house, and a Wacky Worm kiddie coaster. The haunted house and carousel are built on piers which look to be over the lake, but a closer examination (and a look at historic photos in the gift shop) reveals that the body of water here is really the park's long-disused swimming pool. It gives the area a kind of Indiana Beach sort of look, without being nearly so crowded. I boarded the park's fixed-grip chairlift (looks to be an older Hopkins unit) and took the round-trip out across the lake. That ride gives some nice views of the park's antique Boat Chute ride. More about that one later. At the turnaround for the chair lift, the midway backs up to the (jam packed full of people) picnic grove. Here you can ride the swinging boat ride, the Boat Chute ride (I will get around to it eventually), a C.P. Huntington train that runs around the full perimeter of the park, and a ride that the park calls a Matterhorn, but which I identified as a Mack Schlittenfährt, one of only two that I have ever seen (the other is at Darien Lake).

The Genie is the park's Hrubetz Super Round-Up.

Tucked away in what is really the front corner of the park is an enormous Super Round-Up, and a carnival style slide. While I was up front, I bought a $1.50 frozen Coke and consumed it as I walked back down the midway to the back gate for another Cannon Ball ride and a trip on the Fly-O-Plane.

The Fly-O-Plane in loading position.

Detail of a Fly-O-Plane tub.

Do you see anything wrong in this photo?

How about this one?

Taking off...

Flying!

The Fly-O-Plane is most certainly the most rare of the Eyerly *-O-Plane rides. Knowing a thing or two about how the Eyerly center works, I have often wondered how they made this thing work, and when I saw it I was kicking myself because it is so simple. The ride has eight sweeps extending upward and outward from the center. At the top outboard end of each sweep, a rigid secondary sweep extends downward. It's cantilevered off the attachment point, so there is a short stub above the pivot and a long sweep extending downward. At the bottom of the sweep, there is a little two-passenger airplane with two wings oddly mounted to the front of the fuselage. The aircraft is attached at its nose to the long sweep. A wire rope extends from the inside of the tub nose up along the sweep to the pivot point. A second wire rope attaches to the upper stub of the sweep and extends inward to a grooved cylinder on the center of the ride. The aircraft is mounted so that it can barrel-roll about its attachment point. Inside, there are two little steering wheels which are tied together and which are configured to pitch the little stub wings (canards?) attached to the fuselage. The center of the ride is covered with a canvas, so I didn't get a look at how the center works, but it appears that the center is similar to an Octopus, except that the grooved cylinder...a wire rope winding drum or windlass...is not mounted off-center on the ride's secondary. The other wire rope, the one attached to the nose of the aircraft someplace, is rigged to become taut when the aircraft 'lands' and holds the fuselage in an upright position.

In operation, riders are loaded into the eight tubs and securely fastened in place with the Eyerly belt-bar system. I noticed some ...ahem... noncompliance with Manufacturer Directives involving the ride's doors, but nothing serious, and certainly nothing to worry about given that the two guys who were running the ride obviously knew everything anybody needs to know about it. The ride begins to rotate, and the operator locks the secondary rotation, stopping the windlass at the center of the ride. As the ride rotates, the wire ropes wrap around the cylinder, which pulls the outer sweeps inward at the top, raising the aircraft into a flying position. This also lets the tension off the braking cable so that the aircraft can roll. Which they do, more or less under the control of the riders, based on the aerodynamic action of the two little canard wings. In practice, it's a bit difficult, as gravity can override the aerodymanics. Worse yet, in all honesty, the rolling motion is not particularly pleasant. I can see why Eyerly's other interactive ride, the Rock-O-Plane, with its pitching motion, was apparently more popular and more successful. For all of the Fly-O-Plane's similarities to a Flying Scooter, it really isn't nearly as much fun; in fact, it has more in common with the Intamin Flight Trainer, which was also a fairly unpleasant ride. Anyway, once the aircraft reach full altitude, the winding drum at the center is locked to the main rotation so that the position holds. What I could never figure out was how they could unwind this thing when the ride was over. It turns out that it's ridiculously simple. Just release the brake on the center, and the weight of the airplanes pulls the sweeps down, which unwinds the center drum. Now why did I never think of that?

Oh, I understand that something really good did come from the Fly-O-Plane...supposedly, the Aeroaffiliates Flying Coaster (Kennywood's Kangaroo) is built on a Fly-O-Plane center.

The Castle dark ride as seen from the aerial tramway.

After I got off, I went back down the midway, rode the Cannon Ball and the Orbiter, and the Carousel. Then I ran into Chris. I joined Chris, and he reintroduced me to Jack and Derek. That's right, the same guys I rode Monster Plantation with yesterday at Six Flags Over Georgia. I joined the three of them for a ride on the Castle dark ride, which strikes me as an electrified version of Camden Park's Haunted House. They pointed out that the ride apparently once had a second level to it. I wondered if it was originally a gravity-powered Pretzel ride similar to the ones at Camden and Conneaut Lake, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

Lake Winnie's bumper cars are in a carnival style bumper car pavilion, and operate with decent speed, although they are generally unremarkable cars. I found the drivers to be a bit more competent, though, than the drivers at Six Flags Over Georgia. No directions are given, and the free-for-all makes for a decent ride.

The four of us rode the Wacky Worm. Lake Winnie's Wacky Worm is a little different from most that I have seen in that the lap bars do not latch, so the park has added a short nylon belt with a dog-clip on the end to tie down the lap bar. What I noticed about that was that the belt effectively blocks the "door" opening, which might be an effort to make it harder for a kid to worm out of the thing. I know we talked about that apparent problem with the Wacky Worm on r.r-c recently.

Finally, I must describe Lake Winnie's Boat Chute. This is an antique Shoot-The-Chute ride built on the lake itself. The boats actually look like long speedboats, and each boat has four flanged wheels on it for the lift and drop, but there are no guide wheels, so there is nothing to guide the boat in the trough. There is a break in the trough at the bottom of the drop, where the lake water enters the trough to carry the boats down a very gentle slope in a very dark tunnel to the base of the lift. At that point, the boat catches a chain lift for the trip to the top of the lift, and a paddle wheel actually pushes the water from the bottom of the trough back up to lake level. So mechanically, the ride is very similar to the Old Mill ride at Kennywood. Unfortunately the water wheel is positioned in an inconvenient location for people like me who would love to get photos of it.

Well, I'd spent most of the day at Lake Winnie. I took a few more rides on the Cannon Ball, then it was time to go. Knoxville, and my hotel for the night, was still two hours away. The park was busy because of the massive company picnics that went on, but it was still a great day in a really nice park. And the Cannon Ball is a real gem of a coaster. I wish I had a park like this one nearby.

Trip Report: Lake Winnepesaukah (#1) Rossville, Georgia - 06/12/2004

Trip Report: Lake Winnepesaukah (#1)
Rossville, Georgia - 06/12/2004