KDCOASTERFAN

The ride was approved back in 1999 along with a whole list of attractions that,thanks to corporate's neglect for the park never got built & the information was easily obtainable back then from the PG county planning board website.It was also in the local papers as well around mid summer of 1999. When KD decided to scrap the flyer in favor of that POS HS:XLC SFA picked it up at the last minute & as a result the ride required approval,that's how everyone found out about it in november/december 2000 before the park even officially announced it.

The last stand up that was planned was to be built at SFA in 2001 but when KD decided to back out of their original plan to build a vekoma flyer at the park SFA ended up getting Batwing instead.As for DL & their hopes to install SFAW's old Intamin stand up I'd say forget about it because word has it the ride was damaged(much like UT was) during the tear down & shipping to the park.

Technically speaking KD's is the tallest Intamin giant drop/gyro Drop Tower in the world....KD's planners only left the rotation system out of their installation after all the problems that KI had with theirs.

Considering that the roughest part of the ride is the rosebowl, I really don't see how SoB being a hyper make that much of a difference. El Toro's drop is only about 40' smaller than SoB's, and it is not even close to being as rough as SoB. Being such a large structure SOB is quite a challenge to maintain & the vibrations from the heavier premier trains were literally shaking the ride apart.

Actually its not 'swampy'. The 'lake' that was under Beast was artificial. Vortex sits on solid ground, so does Beast. Adam Klocke, a former park employee, has some excellent photos of the ride that he took with permission and can atest to the fact that the land Vortex sits on is pretty firm. see the rest here. Yep it's manmade alright,much like lake charles(more like pond charles) was also man made at KD.

Sigh SOB was a POS when it was built because simply put you can't build & maintain a hyper woodie no matter how thorough the design.Wasn't RCCA sued over the problems with the ride & basically put out of business as a result?IIRC SFFT backed out of a wooden coaster deal with RCCA due in part to SOB back in 2000 & got Road Runner express instead.

Chaos has proven to be quite unreliable but still was a good ride for the thrill value.I believe that there was some sort of restraint issue relating to a design flaw that led SF to remove them though...the one at SFA was plauged with mechanical problems & would get stuck mid cycle quite frequently.

Doesn't CWL have one of those things & it's almost always down? KI,KD & probably some of the other former PP parks really do need some more flats though as well as a good hyper & invert.

WTH? it actually hissed at you? Those suckers do have a pretty mean bite though....and that's for a creature without teeth. I should know as I got a bit too close to one & got bit while feeding it some bread a few years back.

Yes indeed. I swear yellow doesn't really fit the Voodoo theme at all....red & perhaps purple would fit the theme much better don't you think?

I was thinking more along the lines of 2009 as being KI's year.I shoulda made that more clear in my original post.

Well maybe next season will be their year & obviously it is going in the parking lot ughh but the congo area has too many coasters now as it is.I just hope they paint over the power city logo on the sign if they plan to use it. Now I just looked on their homepage & can't find any info on what the paint scheme will be.Does anyone think they'll keep the yellow/blue colors or paint it in a different color scheme? Of course I did hear that the green/black color combo had been mentioned but that was when there was talk of placing it over by FOF.

I'd much rather have a more reliable(and safe) ride at the expense of a pointless record wouldn't you?

The last time I was at KD back in august TR:FF was stuck just short of the platform so I guess it's all top spins that suffer from frequent downtime.Zamperla's Roto-shake ride was also plauged by mechanical problems which led to their removal in just about every US park that had one. BGE also had a ride similar to SFKK's Quake,known as Gladiator's Gauntlet & like Quake the ride suffered from frequent downtime which led to it's removal in the late 90's I believe.

Yeah but didn't the premiere trains use a foot bar on the bottom of the restraint for proper positioning? FOF,IJ:TC & all of the SF LIM coasters use that system so what made SOB any different? The actual weight of the trains coupled with the forces generated by the speed of the ride caused the ledger to fail last year.IMO SOB is simply too large a structure to take the kind of forces generated by it's trains & is a maintenance nightmare that would be better off being removed from the park & replaced with a more standard sized wooden coaster.

Definitely KD(as my username implies) althoug hSFA is much closer to me being in northern Va. I still prefer KD better due to the maintenance,operations & overall ride selection.All they need after Dominator will be a hyper & maybe some more flats & they'll probably become the best regional park in the area.

Good thing I'm a heck of a lot closer to KD than KI,although I wouldn't mind having a Behemoth clone on the other side of the parking lot to go along with that floorless as well.

Screamscape probably won't have any new updates til monday.

Well I guess short of an official announcement that pretty much settles it as to where the ride is going.KD has been in desperate need of a coaster like this for quite a while seeing as the last few they've added have been a little on the short side & with the attendance t he park generates the lines are sure to be long on this one for quite a while.

I thought I remembered reading in the SFoG press release that the new Thomas Town is going to be going in the spot now occupied by Deja Vu? With that said, I happen to like the ride. The one in Georgia has always been closed on all my visits, but I did ride the one at Great America. I didn't find it rough at all. Totally loved the vertical spikes. - Todd For some reason the Invertigo & the Vu's seem to be much smoother than the SLC's,it's probably due to a change in the wheel design though.Now their flyers on the otherhand are a bit on the jerky side however...Batwing rattles around so much I'm suprised that the trains don't fall apart mid ride.

You're right,the Vu's have been a maintenance & engineering nightmare from the beginning & aside from a few problems that pale in comparison(cough Two face getting stuck repeatedly cough) the Invertigo has proven to be a much more reliable design....not to mention thrilling. In all the years I've ridden Two face since it's debut I still havn't ridden facing backwards in the station yet.I prefer the front seat,right side instead myself.

Well the last ride added to the ride side of the park was penquin's blizzard river in 2003 & then two years later two slides were added as part of the hurricane harbor makeover but since then nothing has been done to the park other than the removal of four rides with nothing to replace them.

I rode the one at HP back in 96 & found it boring to say the least. Did KI ever have a skyride? KD had one in the grove but yanked it out about eight years ago.

Carowinds & KD offer CF a much longer operating season than their mid-western parks due to the climate so those wouldn't go anywhere as they're also turning a profit for the company.CWL is a virtual "jewel in the crown" that was never recognized until the aqquisition so it's safe to say that their future as a park is pretty secure as well,especially given the huge coaster they're installing for 2008.

Screamscape reports that Dominator's trains are now on site at the park....I guess that pretty much confirms which park the ride is going to for 2008.