silver2005

You all are terrible, terrible trolls for keeping this thread going.

My 2016 season was a hiatus from Kings Island, but I did manage to add 2 new parks that I've visited, Holiday World and Kentucky Kingdom. Before that, I haven't been to many small parks or parks that weren't part of a chain. I was impressed in one way or another by both, but I'd have to say KK surprised me the most given their situation. Holiday World lived up to expectations, both the dry park and Splashin' Safari. The hiatus turned out to be a great decision as I felt a renewed energy when I came back for the Mystic Timbers announcement, plus the Haunt meet up was fun. Now armed with a 2017 CF Platinum Pass, I'll definitely be going to KI a bit in 2017 in addition to trips to Sandusky, Muskegon and Pittsburgh for a few parks (CP, MIA and Kennywood).

I have a few under this category. The first 2 that come to mind are why I'm the enthusiast I am today. Both were on P&G Days. The first of which was when I discovered Top Gun and instantly loved it. I was still weary of Racer and didn't care for airtime quite yet and every other coaster just intimidated me. Even lowly Adventure Express wasn't to my liking. Top Gun was just different- the suspended nature intrigued me, it was the quietest coaster in the park at the time, and I loved it's location away from the rest of the park. I think I marathoned it for 6-7 rides when I first rode it. The 2nd was a P&G Day where I conquered Vortex and Beast in the same night. I rode Beast prior, but it scared the pants off of me. It felt sooo good to finally take a liking to coasters. Soon after, a trip to NJFTP and my first ride on Medusa got me hooked to where I wanted to learn more. I used to spend hours on RCDB. Other visits I remember well were SOB's opening night and my first ride on Diamondback. The later especially because it was my first new coaster after all the medical problems I had. I didn't think I'd ever ride coasters again and it was an incredible welcome back to my love of amusement parks and coasters. That and the wonderful feeling of finally getting a B&M at Kings Island. Recently, I'd have to say my first KIC meet ups from the Banshee announcement through closing day 2014 were quite memorable. I was in transition from a site I didn't care for anymore and was looking for another coaster site to call home, and after that season, I was set on staying here. Met a lot of great friends here.

I just noticed something about the rendition regarding the shed. There's another section of straight track before the curve into the station that almost looks long enough to accommodate a train. The 'shed' surprises may lie in that section. How many trains is this going to have? If there's 3, that might be another block section. Even newer GCI's with only 2 trains sometimes have a few block sections before the station. Still not going with drop track though.

^Good googly moogly.

Current wait time for all attractions- approximately 6 months.

^Whoops....I totally forgot about the train tracks. My mind lost track of the ride's orientation for a moment.

Also, reference GCI on how out-and-back layouts can have a bit of variety.

^Agreed. I, again, raise the question to people who think the shed has drop track to tell me where they'd put the storage track. The shed is the only logical place where storage track could possibly be, and GCI doesn't seem the type of company who'd design some hair-brained combination drop-track/storage track contraptions. As for a queue, I think they could re-use some of the old WWC queue, which, they'd only need to widen a little bit to make an efficient enough queue. As great as GCI's are, I don't see them building as lengthy a queue area as, say, Banshee and Diamondback.

RMC picks their projects? That's news to me. silver2005, pulling a Terp.

As a huge GCI fan, this is just beautiful.

Really? The LA Times talking like Racer is notoriously rough when they've had Colossus pre-RMC, Psyclone, and CGA's Grizzly at their doorstep?

I'm guessing they're building to a point where when they move the crane, it'll be within an ideal distance as not to over extend to keep building. There don't appear to be a lot of options on where to move it given what they've already built, the trees they've left intact, and the terrain. I'm guessing the next placement will be somewhere on the old WWC queue.

malem's bane- going to parks during good weather with special promotions attached.

It was quite windy today. May have hampered them lifting up the higher sections and trying to connect them. They were having trouble placing the lower portions due to the swaying.

Looks like the wind is being a bother to the crew this afternoon.

Now that I think about it, the current camera location doesn't show back by the station, thus, the shed, very well. I imagine if/when they move the camera, they'll be keen on that notion. For those unaware, GCI has a Facebook page for if they show off progress that the webcam doesn't.

To all getting excited by this ride- the power of GCI compels you.

I technically wouldn't call it topped off yet. The supports are in place, but has yet to be tracked.

They've now moved the crane back to the lift/first drop area. I know there's probably a good reason for moving the crane about like they area, but it seems weird the way they're progressing to me. Probably one of many reasons why I'm not going in to engineering.

Well, also realize that Mean Streak and Hurler are hardly the best examples of wooden coasters out there. They were in need of improvements of some kind IMO.

I'd like to know where they're going to put the crane to finish the lift. The far side of the lift looks rather uneven to place the crane plus its a tight fit between the footings and the woods.

Yeah, as mentioned.. the park seemed to explicitly omit a great deal of statistics for the ride. I think all we know is speed, height, length... maybe drop height? I wish they would release more stats now that the ride isn't new. Especially since Banshee now has the largest loop in the park, and we still don't know how large it is. Before it, I think Firehawk had the largest barely beating Vortex? (which I found hard to believe, cause Vortex, though slimmer, does look quite tall) I presume the loop on Banshee has to be at least 110'? I think it would've been cool if they made its first vertical loop 118' tall as an homage though. Wait what were we talking about? According to RCDB (which has stats that match an article KI put out shortly after the announcement, its gone now since it was on Banshee's ride page), Banshee is 167 ft tall, and the drop is 150 ft,

I don't know. There's no info on it anywhere on the internet. KI didn't post a lot on Banshee's stats other than its length (because its a record) when it was announced. It's certainly steeper than Vortex. Oh, and Diamondback is 74 degrees.

For those curious on drop angle, Kings Island posted on Twitter that it'll be 54 degrees. By comparison, Beast's and Racer's first drops are 45 degrees, Vortex is 55 degrees. https://twitter.com/KingsIslandPR/status/785533748624392192