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Could KI be getting a Floorless next?


SonofBaconator
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I know I've been preaching this and we're all excited about Orion so just hear me out on this.

What if KI got a record breaking floorless coaster by B&M to replace Vortex? I'm not talking about a dive but a traditional, ground up, 6+ inverting, floorless coaster. One hasn't been built ground up in years so the park could really make something special. With Vortex and Firehawk gone, the park's lost 11 inversions so adding a B&M floorless could help bring that number back up. Not to mention the elements they can do and the amount of land they can work with.

Much like how Banshee broke invert records, KI could easily break some floorless records. All it would have to do would be at least 170ft high (or have a drop greater than 170ft), be 4,300 ft or longer, or reach a top speed over 70mph and it'd break records. I'm not saying it has to break all three I listed, but I feel like they could easily take all three records, if not two out of the three.

I know enthusiasts are tired of B&Ms, (some more than others), but they're safe, reliable, and are a good ROI: all things Cedar Fair values in the coasters they install.

Thoughts? Before you answer, think about it from a business perspective. We've seen it with Orion that as long as the GP is happy, the park's happy so I'm arguing that they could market a "record breaking floorless coaster" it would be a hit.

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And everyone in Ohio would see it as a bigger Rougarou which I know a lot of people do not like. You see it with Orion and Millennium force even though they will feel very different when different manufacturer. Or people would say it’s just like Banshee but you sit above the tracks. Kings Island needs something new that you cannot get a Cedar Point. There is no hype for floorless coasters anymore and there is a reason most of them were only made as conversions of standups.

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50 minutes ago, THE_BEASTmaster said:

Why not a record breaking B&M flying coaster? Promote it as Ohio’s only flying coaster like they did with Firehawk when it opened.


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I don't know. KI did just take out a flying coaster and I think if they built a flying coaster too soon after removing one, the GP will be like "that's just like Firehawk, but you go up the hill on your belly rather than laying down." 

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On 3/5/2020 at 7:40 AM, Fishely said:

There is no hype for floorless coasters anymore and there is a reason most of them were only made as conversions of standups.

There have only been 3 conversions. You are right that there is a reason they were converted. Powers that be deemed them to have more 'hype' than the stand ups they replaced. 

Anything is marketable if you have the right people handling it. 

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I just don't see it.

While its certainly not outside of the the realm of possibility, and would be a welcome addition to the park, I'd say a Dive is more likely.

While I'm aware there was an 8-year gap between Banshee and Patriot, its relevant mentioning that a floorless somewhere in 2023-2025 would be nearly a 20-year gap between the last one built in the US (Hydra, 2005) and over a 10-year gap worldwide (Nitro, 2013).

The reason for B&M invert sales stalling would have to do with nearly every park that wants/can afford one already has one.

There are plenty of parks out there without floorlesses that could afford one, but more (in my opinion) interesting models have surfaced, thus rendering them obsolete.

  

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On 3/8/2020 at 9:36 PM, ohiocoasterfan said:

Could we get away from B&M for a while? Not that there is anything wrong with them, but there’s so many other great manufacturers out there.

Variety is the spice of life!  RMC, Intamin, S&S, Mach, Vekoma, Gravity Group, Chance Rides etc.  So many other manufacturers out there.  It truly is a great time to be an enthusiast!

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From an operational point how easy/similar are the operations of the other manufacturers?  B&M is popular from a business standpoint because they are so streamlined safe and the standardized controls are the same whether its Banshee, rougaru etc which makes training and operating super easy barely an inconvenience as now employees can operate any b&M to cover short staffing and not have to rely on ride specific control training per say.  I can see why they  are b&m Heavy because on an operations view its quite logical and the GP don't mind make as long as its enjoyable and fun.  

Variety is the spice of life so hopefully they do still build unique and vary manufacturers still. and not turn into carbon copies of each other

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While I would wish for something else, what if in order to fill the gap since Vortex's removal was unexpected, could it be a possibility that Cedar Fair would relocated a Floorless to Kings Island. What if The Vortex came from Carowinds and we had another Vortex, of course that would confuse the GP. But since the park just spent $30M on a new giga, a relocated Floorless might not be a bad idea, kind of like relocating Dominator to KD from Geauga Lake. It would get new life at a different park.

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3 hours ago, LuckyluvsKI said:

From an operational point how easy/similar are the operations of the other manufacturers?  B&M is popular from a business standpoint because they are so streamlined safe and the standardized controls are the same whether its Banshee, rougaru etc which makes training and operating super easy barely an inconvenience as now employees can operate any b&M to cover short staffing and not have to rely on ride specific control training per say.  I can see why they  are b&m Heavy because on an operations view its quite logical and the GP don't mind make as long as its enjoyable and fun.  

Variety is the spice of life so hopefully they do still build unique and vary manufacturers still. and not turn into carbon copies of each other

Ride operators at KI are trained thoroughly at each and every position regardless of how similar one position may be to another. That is, someone trained to drive Diamondback won’t be able to just hop on over to Orion.

The operational concerns between manufacturers are diverse and depend more on structural things. A good example are rmc’s awful restraints (from an operations pov). They are heavy, don’t pop up automatically, and require guests to keep their feet in a certain place. The worst offense however is the way the restraint completely covers the seatbelt. If you’ve noticed at CP, the SV operators have to do one pass to check seatbelts while the restraint is up, then do a second pass to lower and check the restraint. This basically doubles the amount of time between dispatches.

Another example are the dispatch gates on b&ms. Think about how long Diamondback has to wait for the gates at the front and back of the station to open/close in between cycles — it probably adds about 7 to 10 seconds. Multiply that out over an entire day and your can understand why Canada is rumored to be replacing them with non-moving barrels this season.

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In my opinion, floorlesses are dead. There are conversions with firebird, rougarou, patriot, etc., but a true, custom layout, built from scratch floorless hasn't come since Hydra, which was built in the really early 2000s.

But there is hope. In the new Universal Studios park, there is going to be a ride very similar to Hulk being built in a few years. I'm guessing since they don't do sitdowns anymore, that it is most likely a floorless. I say there is a 50/50 chance.

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1 hour ago, 139Signal27 said:

Another example are the dispatch gates on b&ms. Think about how long Diamondback has to wait for the gates at the front and back of the station to open/close in between cycles — it probably adds about 7 to 10 seconds. Multiply that out over an entire day and your can understand why Canada is rumored to be replacing them with non-moving barrels this season.

I just conquered Diamondback this fall I'm assuming you mean the gates in the loading corrals?  I don;t remember any gate in front of the train or behind us. but i could be wrong lol but they were on point in loading i didn't notice any slowdown from a rider perspective ( rode it like 7 times that day).  

 

Thank you for the insights though,  I figured it was still pretty individualistic to be trained per ride but in all stations of the ride.  B&M just promote their standardization of their controls for ease of operation.  But I'd prefer something unique too. 

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6 hours ago, ThrillKingsFitzy said:

In my opinion, floorlesses are dead. There are conversions with firebird, rougarou, patriot, etc., but a true, custom layout, built from scratch floorless hasn't come since Hydra, which was built in the really early 2000s.

But there is hope. In the new Universal Studios park, there is going to be a ride very similar to Hulk being built in a few years. I'm guessing since they don't do sitdowns anymore, that it is most likely a floorless. I say there is a 50/50 chance.

Universal Studios Beijing is getting a Hulk clone (with drive tires and not an LSM launch like speculated beforehand, also the photo was taken from the grassy area outside the plant, next to the road, I didn't go onto the gravel because I didn't want to trespass, but I got a good enough image of a piece of track's tag close up. This was taken in February of 2018.) 

 https://rcdb.com/17349.htm

(Also Mods, if the image isn't okay, feel free to remove it)

20180218_144737.jpg

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I'm happy somebody created this topic. I just recently had a dream where Cedar Point modified Rougarou a second time. This time they removed the second half of the ride so they could fix the headbanging issues. They removed track from the mid-course brake run, then started a new route. Now I'm not saying Kings Island will get Rougarou, but maybe they could throw in an element that Rougarou already has. For instance, that bent loop that was hyped up in 2015 is still the only Floorless roller coaster to have a loop like that. Let it be the first Floorless to have the vest restraints. Those vests don't bother me, but I know they bother other people. Kings Island could make it the second longest Floorless roller coaster in the world so that way Dominator keeps the record for longest at Kings Dominion. Maybe they could bring back The Vortex name for the Floorless too. The possibilities are endless.

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2 hours ago, rhyano said:

Universal Studios Beijing is getting a Hulk clone (with drive tires and not an LSM launch like speculated beforehand, also the photo was taken from the grassy area outside the plant, next to the road, I didn't go onto the gravel because I didn't want to trespass, but I got a good enough image of a piece of track's tag close up. This was taken in February of 2018.) 

 https://rcdb.com/17349.htm

(Also Mods, if the image isn't okay, feel free to remove it)

20180218_144737.jpg

Why are they getting one piece of track?

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On 3/12/2020 at 8:45 PM, Shawn Meyer said:

I'm happy somebody created this topic. I just recently had a dream where Cedar Point modified Rougarou a second time. This time they removed the second half of the ride so they could fix the headbanging issues. They removed track from the mid-course brake run, then started a new route. Now I'm not saying Kings Island will get Rougarou, but maybe they could throw in an element that Rougarou already has. For instance, that bent loop that was hyped up in 2015 is still the only Floorless roller coaster to have a loop like that. Let it be the first Floorless to have the vest restraints. Those vests don't bother me, but I know they bother other people. Kings Island could make it the second longest Floorless roller coaster in the world so that way Dominator keeps the record for longest at Kings Dominion. Maybe they could bring back The Vortex name for the Floorless too. The possibilities are endless.

There’s two words associated with that head banging... ball joints, rougarou along with a lot of early B&M coasters were built with ball joint Connections to supports unlike flanged connections today. Tolerances weren’t as tight as they are now, ball joints allow a lot of movement during installation in case the support wasn’t in the exact alignment but also causes the track to slightly move during operation causing that head banging...

00CF387F-0765-4D97-BB6D-9D79004CD59A.png

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I personally would not mind this addition at all. There are still a lot of choices on manufacturers and styles/models. My brother has been on Carowinds' Copperhead Strike. I think The Vortex piece of land would work quite well for a coaster of that type. 

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^ Me too. Although I'm confused why Kings Island left footers from Vortex after removing it? I said in another thread, maybe they plan to reuse some of those old footers for the next roller coaster. However, that's just a guess at this point.

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3 hours ago, Shawn Meyer said:

^ Me too. Although I'm confused why Kings Island left footers from Vortex after removing it? I said in another thread, maybe they plan to reuse some of those old footers for the next roller coaster. However, that's just a guess at this point.

How do you know the footers are still there? The drone flyover that I saw with Vortex site flyover was from 2-3 weeks ago.

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7 hours ago, Shawn Meyer said:

I said in another thread, maybe they plan to reuse some of those old footers for the next roller coaster. However, that's just a guess at this point.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they reused some of the footers (and the stairs on the lift) from The Bat for Vortex? It'd be cool if they reused Vortex's footers.

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