BoddaH1994

This Saturday will be the debut of Firehawk at Kings Island! Riders will be seated four across through a half mile of track and five inversions, all while experiencing the inconceivable feeling of human flight! The new attraction will be located in the Coney Mall section of the park, next to Flight of Fear in the newly renamed X-Base area. Click here to see KICentral.com's latest Firehawk construction and testing photos. Attraction Breakdown: Attraction Name: Firehawk Description: Thrill flyers experience heart-pounding excitement as Firehawk soars through more than a half mile of steel tracking. Willing adventure seekers lie down to experience this 51 mph., top-secret, all-altitude airborne mission. But they're certainly not relaxing within seconds, each pilot is facing the ground, experiencing the inconceivable feeling of human flight. Manufacturer Vekoma International Track Length 3340 feet Ride Speed 51 mph. Height 115 feet Angle of descent 30 degrees Inversions 5 Keep checking back to KICentral.com for the latest news, rumors, photos, and information about Kings Island amusement park! Regards, Ryan

We were buy the carousel saturday and heard the opp say it was from 1926. I also think a CD player is wrong bring back the organ. The carousel is from 1926 (PTC #79) but the band organ predated it.

KI's a little more lenient than most parks about rides being open in the rain. Unless the forecast looks really bad, I'd say it's worth going.

I'd pack a lunch and perhaps even bring some sleeping bags.

Also, don't forget that if you choose to use the temporary pass to scan in it makes the pass valid only THAT DAY. So make sure you have it processed the same day you go, no matter what.

The only problem I have with B&M is that it seems as though a lot of their coasters are very compact. Local examples are of course Chang, Dominator, and Raptor. If we were to get a "signature" steel coaster, wouldn't you want something that's more of an out and back design? Personally, I'd want something that looked a lot more like Magnum than Raptor.

He's right. It really depends on how the Math and Science day goes. I'd guess that there won't be a lot of people from the general public there, but the buses have been what's making the bulked up attendance this year.

Uhh... I don't really know how to respond to that.

We were trying to get a good view of what exactly was underneath Firehawk and it seems like it is gravel. Fortunately, the bland gravel look will likely be far overshadowed by the wonderful landscape work they're doing around the queue of the ride.

I'm willing to be anything there was more than 5,000 people... that's a VERY small crowd for the park... like, that's Winterfest small.

That's quite a nice looking park.

I think there's an accessibility issue with the Paramount Theatre movie posters. If I recall correctly, one of them was changed to the Italian Job when the ride came out, but other than that, the things haven't budged... even now. I'm not 100% positive what they'd put up there though since it's not exactly in eyeshot so they probably wouldn't want to put a major advertisement. I'm guessing they'll just disappear.

With less than a week until Memorial Day weekend, final touches and testing is being done to Kings Island's new flying coaster, Firehawk! Firehawk has cycled several times over the past weekend, not only testing the ride, but drumming up anticipation for the debut of the only flying coaster in the state of Ohio. Click here to see photos of Firehawk testing, as well as final track work being done to Firehawk! Keep checking KICentral.com for the latest news, rumors, discussion, and photos of Kings Island amusement park! Regards, Ryan

Besides the parking lot marquis, how many Paramount logos do you think are left?

According to the original press release for Firehawk, it will be running two trains. The third was in fact parted by Six Flags.

Didn't B&M make a height limit on their rides? It's either 199.9 feet or 299.9 feet.

With Cedar Fair purchasing Paramount Parks, it is possible that CP may want to build at KI to make it look more like CP. If KI were to get a big signature steel coaster, who would you want to manufacture it?

We are familiar with that plant, and you are correct they do fabricate track for B&M. Will they make one for KI? Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow... I'll let the rumor mill spin from there. Welcome to the forums!

Official Press Release:

ABSOLUTELY NOT....This is pretty much the only place left in the park with the original landscaping. Children should be able to enjoy this without having to breathe in someone elses cigarette smoke. m.f.21 That's the whole point of the smoking section idea! So the kids can enjoy the area while breathing in their OWN cigarette smoke! Joe Camel says: Take Your Vitamins.

its X base. hence the picture's caption. ""New "X-Base" Sign"" I put that caption there. I'm not 110% sure it's X-Base or K-Base. Really it could go either way...

On that same note, why have shows at all at KI? If someone wants to go to a show, they should go to the Aranoff. Don't leave valuable expansion areas to venues.

Actually, The KI trash cans are a copy of the CP ones. Guess they want to have the same trash can logo chain wide. For reference the area with the Town hall museum is called Frontier Town, and the area from MF to Snake River Falls is Frontier Trail. The areas weren't really marked as I saw, but then again, most of KI's aren't either. My company with me knew the park well, so I didn't find it necessary to carry a park map. One thing that I didn't like about the museum is how it goes primarily through the history of Sandusky rather than having a true focus on the history of the park, although the presentation of everything was great. I liked how they had their Golden Ticket awards in a glass case in the museum as opposed to KI's which has them on a shelf in the admin building. haha

Went on my first trip to Cedar Point today. Here’s my breakdown of what I rode and how I felt about the rides. Magnum XL-200 – Rode it twice. I figured it would have been obsolete being more than 10 years old but that’s not the case. Arguably the best ride in the park 10/10 Millennium Force -- Never heard a lot of good things about this ride. Mainly that it was boring. I disagree. The hill is amazing and the rest of the ride has incredible speed. 9/10 Skyhawk – This ride has a VERY short cycle as you know. The lack of restraints makes it an even more thrilling experience. 7/10 Cedar Creek Mine Ride – This ride is completely pointless. It has some fun turns, but I’d take Adventure Express over it any day. 5/10 Mean Streak – Awful awful ride. Probably the worst woody in operation in Ohio right now. The ride is rough and just overall not fun. Some people in front of my seat were saying it was the worst wooden coaster ever built… Don’t worry, I told them the legend of the Son… Jonny Rockets – Themeing, atmosphere, service, food, all 100% 10/10. Much better experience than a non-park Jonny Rockets would offer. 10/10 Disaster Transport – Screw you guys, I liked this ride. 8/10 Raptor – I was sure this ride was overhyped by some of my friends, but it wasn’t. This is clearly the best B&M I’ve ever been on and likely one of the best steel coasters I’ve ever been on. 10/10 Demon Drop – I was encouraged to get my ride in on this since it’s up for sale and I’m glad I did. The drop is amazing, and since you end up on your back, it feels like you just shifted your weight rather than hitting a break run. 7/10 Wildcat – Very surprisingly pleasant. VERY fun for a ride that is both older and at first look would be considered a kiddy ride. 7/10 Iron Dragon – This ride is like Top Gun without all the love. It certainly wasn’t terrible, but I’m glad I didn’t have to wait for it. 5/10 Mantis – I didn’t want to ride this but they made me. I hated the B&M standup at SFKK and I was sure I’d hate it at Cedar Point…. I was right. Nothing but painful Gs in the lower body and awful headbanging. 2/10 Top Thrill Dragster – You guys have probably seen me post that I’ve been looking forward to riding this one for years now. The ride was very temperamental today. It was down for the better part of 3 hours and when it reopened, it would rollback about a fifth of the time. The reliability really takes a notch off the ride, but the ride experience is amazing. If you haven’t ridden it, it would be difficult to even converse about it. I guess the best way to put it is that it’s like using the Burst Mode on a camera. You’re launching, you start going up, you’re at the top, you’re spiraling, then it’s over. I’d be willing to go back to Cedar Point just to ride this again. 9/10 (had to give it a ding for the downtime) Just a few notes: To use your Maxx Pass to get into Cedar Point, you can’t go through the regular scanners. In the entrance near Mangum, they had us come in the employee way and wrote down our pass numbers. No big deal, but I figured I’d forewarn. The park is VERY clean. No doubt. They have the same logo on their trash cans as ours, just with the Cedar Point name on it. Although they don’t have themed rides like a lot of us would define, I think that the old Cedar Fort area (forgive me for not knowing the proper name) certainly has a LOT of personality behind it. Even the museum looks like a town hall. I hope they bring that element to Kings Island. I know there’s something blasphemous about being the co-pilot of a huge Cedar Fair park fan site and not having gone to the coaster Mecca, Cedar Point, but this was my first trip, so all of the notes above are first impressions. A very special thank you goes out to Dane, Delirium_Guy, David, CoasterDime, and The Interpreter for including me on this trip. Regards, Ryan

The Flight of Fear arch is still there.