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Banshee Testing PTR 15MAR14


thedevariouseffect
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Just kidding..at least for now..Early April Fools-ish :)

So Banshee was testing today, I figured I'd try to head down and catch a bit of it, I had nothing better to do Saturday mid afternoon. Partying doesn't start till late in the evening on Saint Patty's Day weekend right?

So got down to GWL after receiving various warnings/texts from people for no apparent reason. Kings Island can only control Kings Island. Any other public place, you're free to go people. If that stopped you, I'm sorry that you missed out. So getting to the good bit here:

I did a few passes on the road to see if other enthusiasts had joined in, sadly noone really showed up. The whole time I was there I only saw one car park in the drop off area, but they had their hazards on and sat there with the car doors open. I didn't care to stop and ask and next time I headed up the street they were already gone.

After a bit I sat around at Great Wolf Lodge watching to see if testing would start up again, I missed the first round mid afternoon. Ryan (one of the admins here FYI if you didn't know) decided to head up and do lunch and talk about some things. We even invited you Don, you should have come. :P Anyways after feeling totally bloated from a huge plate of Viva Tequilla (which btw lot of ok food for the price), we got wind that testing had restarted. We headed across the street to Great Wolf Lodge again and watched it run. Man it's so cool to see the park start waking up again. Plus on top of it, it's weird seeing something you've never actually watched before, do something for the first time. It's almost like how when a dog moves their head to the side because they're inquisitive, it reminds me of that.

Anyways, the thing shoots up the lift hill. One train op, this thing climbs the lift hill in about 15-17 seconds. I'm curious about how long the actual lift hill is. I'm sure there's some math kids out there will put in the Pythagorean Theorem..I am not a math kid, I'll let you do the work :). Also from GWL, the whole ride is surprisingly quiet. It's not Gatekeeper/B&M sand filled track quiet, however, it's not..Loud. I will say I was a bit distant being on a hill near Great Wolf Lodge, and some bare trees in the way. However, it does have a roar. I honestly assimilate the roar/sounds of the coaster to Gatekeeper. Think of the roar-ish and some sounds it makes going through the track such as the zero g roll, and just amplify that. My biggest thing is I look at it like this. When I was at Cedar Point I could hear Mantis/Raptor anywhere in the park early in the morning for tests. I could have been at a ride in any of the three areas or just there early and you could hear either one or both a great deal away. Like when I was at Monster/Witches wheel, you always could tell when it was going. With Banshee..I really had to listen to hear it on the lift, and it was somewhat subtle except at the bottom of the first drop and all the way through the zero g.

The beginning of the ride is quite fast, it flies through it. Honestly we keep referring to everything after the zero g roll as the secold half of the ride. We're kind of mislabeling it. The ride flies through this part, but because everything in the valley is huge, it actually seems like it takes a bit to get through everything down there and back to the brake run.It's odd seeing these trains on it as well by the way. Because they look to have a more agressive slant to the seats when you see them on the lift hill loop of dive loop, it's quite a different sight than what you're used to seeing a B&M invert.

Right now I have quite alot of pictures that I took of the ride, most of them being burst images of what I could see of the beginning of the ride. Ryan and his friend took a few others as well. If given the go ahead to upload my media here I will come back and update this or a new post and upload all the pictures and video I have of it going through the dive loop, lift hill loop, and zero g roll. The park has requested (keyword there) that we not upload our own images. However again KI can only control KI, this is not one of those places. Secondly a request is exactly that, a request. I'm wanting to let KIC run itself as it has for years no issues and how several other enthusiast forums choose to work. I don't see any other park PR departments dictating what any enthusiast websites say, do, or regulate what the members post, far from it actually. Another point is that all of this regulation comes down on KIC, noone else was warned or asked to do what we do. For instance take a look at GOCC's page..They didn't link to the parks social media when they posted the picture of Banshee testing today, or the front of the park map, or Banshee station from a few weeks ago. It's pathetic to see KI/CF try and control us like this, it makes no sense to me. Especially considering every enthusiast would go watch and take pictures of a great new ride, including KI's enthusiast PR manager, can't lie there mate. They also need to look at this all as free marketing for the park, and one way honestly to keep everyone informed and to spread the excitement of this great new addition to the park. Lastly the park has shared two pictures of testing, then has a few webcam shots of it test, and right now I have 45 items to share with everyone. So as I wait for an answer this will be a trip report, however I will wait and see...

Hope y'all enjoyed the descriptions thus far, and hopefully my gripes make a point and are relatable, give it time and we'll see what happens here on this thread. Hopefully I get to share the pictures and video with all of you here soon, I'd love for you to all see the views we got. The testing was fantastic to watch.

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Awesome description of the ride. I remember DB being kind of a let down during testing and when it opened but from what you say Banshee will not follow suit.

Couldn't have said it better. All this control on KIC seems very out of character with the new order up in Sandusky. Almost like a Kinzel-esque way of squeezing out a few more Nickels.

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Thanks, did the best I could sans media :P

And glad I'm not the only one..It does seem Kinzel like the more I think about it..hopefully this won't continue..Also they want all traffic to go to them. Ok..but look here..80 times this page has been viewed by someone. 80! One hour later on a late Saturday night on a drinking holiday weekend and 80 hits to this..

They want everything on their twitter, but people here want this stuff too..Like I said, 45 just from today..Free marketing Cedar Fair..free marketing.

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First (and probably last) time poster here, been reading for about a year though. But this finally got me to make an account.

Post the pictures. This is the USA. It's a free country and you're on public land and taking pictures of something visible for all the public to see. It's not like KI is controlling you; they really aren't at all. Everyone has a legal right to take pictures of something visible to public and post it on the internet. Sure, it might not be favorable to some but it's not like they can control it. Plus this is a fan site and we all want to see it! The amount of TOS arguing on this site is ridiculous. It's like every thread is a courtroom. "You can't do this, this, this, this according to rule 2, section 4, paragraph 6, must do this, this, this" Aren't we just all here to talk about Kings Island? This website has turned not even enjoyable to read anymore. It's everyone throwing rules around and trying to enforce them on everyone. Sometimes people don't capitalize their words, sometimes people trespass, sometimes people just want to show some cool pictures of a brand new roller coaster that I'm sure we're all excited to ride. I think everyone needs to relax a little and talk about some coasters, not so many rules.

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KIC is privately owned and anyone who signed up had to agree to a certain set of rules, therefore this message board is not comparable to a free country. You could be banned for whatever reason the leadership of the site chooses, including no reason at all.

That being said, I don't understand why any member of this board would be prohibited from posting media related to a new ride so long as it was attained legally.

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^^Because one member here who is a regular user and employed by Cedar Fair believes himself to be an admin

Also 165 views in an hour and a half on a drinking weekend folks! People are out getting billigerently drunk..or asleep or whatever..Free marketing CF..I doubt their twitter is getting these kinds of hits at this hour lol

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If you're referring to a certain waterpark obsessed third person speaker then that could easily fit the same description.

I happen to know that the person which you speak is a staff member and mod on another coaster forum which might add even more to that aspect. He also doesn't speak like that at said site.

Speaking of that other coaster forum, its one I was once very active on (spent 8 years on, was a mod, a few other roles), but it changed much in the way you're describing devarious; stricter mods and rules, admins trying to do too much, etc. Its now a shadow of its former self with admins desperately trying to saturate it with material in order to get members. I may be a newer member here, but I know and have seen the effects of such change and would hate for this site to go down the same path.

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I was there around 5:45, and as I drove past the south entrance I saw Banshee go through the zero g roll and disappear into the valley. I glanced back to the road and then back to see the train come up out of the dive loop in the valley...in just that length of time.....She was a-flyin.

Drove back to Kings High and surprisingly, you can't see much of this coaster on the horizon, just what is in the main park.

Exciting to see our baby take some of her first steps.

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For now hopefully..still waiting, hopefully I hear back soon, or this post gains traction to get my point across.

Also to include just saw it. KI Fansite posted park related pics, did not link to park social media..tisk tisk

Yeah hopefully and I wasnt directing my anger at no photos to you.

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Anyways, the thing shoots up the lift hill. One train op, this thing climbs the lift hill in about 15-17 seconds. I'm curious about how long the actual lift hill is. I'm sure there's some math kids out there will put in the Pythagorean Theorem..I am not a math kid, I'll let you do the work :).

I got bored and figured I'd fulfill this request. Looking at pictures I decided to subtract 24 feet from the lift height to account for how high off the ground it starts. Using Google Earth I got a ground length of 230 feet and calculated the length of the lift to be about 270 feet.

Going further, based on the times you gave, I determined the speed up the lift to be 10.8-12.3 mph.

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