FREDxGCII at Knoebels - Photo Journal

5 comments to FREDxGCII at Knoebels – Photo Journal

• William Benson

  July 30, 2013 at 2:15 pm

  This sounds like such a fantastic event. So many parks feel they need to hide the guts of a ride due to keeping the theme alive or just plain hiding secrets from other companies, so Knoebel’s openness is just awe-inspiring. As well as seeing a group of highly motivated and passionate people come together to learn a bit about the art of amusement. Perhaps, (fingers crossed) we can see something like that happen out here in SoCal someday.

  Btw, you’ve mentioned it a couple times, and it bugs me. The term is “centripetal force.” “Centrifugal force” is an imaginary force. That is all.

• Ethan T. Benedict

  July 30, 2013 at 9:38 pm

  The windsock seems to be both functional and aesthetic; Flags have been used on roller coasters to provide a visual indicator of wind speed and direction. Excessive wind can be a precursor to an inclement weather shut down. Even if there isn’t an electrical storm, the wind alone could be an issue for some rides; I’ve heard a story that Raptor once valleyed due to high winds.

• Matthew

  July 31, 2013 at 6:06 pm

  I don’t get it… They are building a Flying Turns, which is the where steel bobsled coaster originated from, but they aren’t building the bobsled coasters. As a matter of fact, they torn down Disaster Transport at Cedar Point. One of the four steel bobsled coasters left in the world. But, now there is only three… But correct me if I am wrong. I don’t remember if Disaster Transport was the third or fourth.

• Alan Conceicao

  July 31, 2013 at 10:27 pm

  The Flying Turns rides were always reputed to be more thrilling than the steel coasters that came after. Dick Knoebel is the sort of crazy guy who thinks making ride purchase decisions based on hearsay of that sort is a solid move, so he asked John Fetterman (his in house engineer) to build him a Flying Turns. Fetterman got the blueprints for the one in Coney Island and the Euclid Beach one and went from there. I heard about this potentially starting, no joke, 10 years ago. Here we are now, with it finally coming close to opening.

  There’s a lot of back story here that’s not clear to everyone now that it has been so long since this started. Back when the plans for the Flying Turns were first announced, part of it was that the forces would be tuned down a bit (and ergo, the wildness) for this, the prototype. In the future, perhaps they would turn the wick up in future designs. At this point, it is hard to imagine there being future designs of the ride at Knoebels or anywhere else on earth, for that matter.

  Finally, re: the steel bobsled coasters. Intamin and Mack both produced them, going in different directions on design. Mack’s design clearly, CLEARLY comes closer to matching what the old Flying Turns rides did, how they sat riders, and so on. And actually, they’re all pretty good rides. Avalanche is secret awesomeness at Kings Dominion, the bobsled in Blackpool is quite forceful, and the rides at Heide Park and Parc Asterix I think are really quite good too. Intamin’s rides, with their single car design, are pretty craptacular. All of them. There just isn’t a huge market for them, but Mack built one at Parc Asterix within living memory, so it comes down to market forces more than anything.

• Matthew

  July 31, 2013 at 10:59 pm

  Wait, my bad there are only eight bobsled coasters still operating in the world. (They’re all steel too!) But, when Flying Turns opens there will be nine!! 😀