silver2005

I will say the hills around DB's splash could use some touch up on the paint.

IIRC, there was a season or 2 where Vortex's paint was worn away down to the primer, which is a pretty good indicator that it wasn't painted every other year. KC's paint quality left a lot to be desired, too, for most seasons at least. And let's not even get started on Racer. That probably hasn't been touched up since the KECO days.

For B&M flyers, I've only ridden Superman: Ultimate Flight at Six Flags Great Adventure, which currently is my least favorite B&M, but I'm willing to hold reservation on judging them as a whole since I haven't been on the bigger and/or more elaborate designs like Manta or Tatsu (the later has some other features outside the flying design which look appealing to me). On the other hand, I really liked Firehawk, though, I preferred sitting on the brake run and going up the lift on the B&M version than the Vekoma version. My only complaint on the B&M flyer restraints are the leg restraints, mainly as I'm not a fan of any form of leg/shin restraints. In terms of other models, I think a B&M floorless is entirely plausible, too.

There's no way that top piece on Drop Tower is 51 ft above where the ride vehicle stops (if you guys are saying the dropping point is at 264 ft and the tower is 315 ft tall).

^I've read the forensics report from the 2006 accident before it disappeared from the internet, at least the non-engineering focused parts I could understand. It was made clear in it that the park took a 'band-aid' approach to fixes in the track and structure and the park and/or RCCA used bad wood to construct the ride. The park also did all fixes in house and didn't consult a third party to fix it. That's negligence.

For me, any and all good memories I had on SOB were shattered when it hurt all those people and it was made clear that those who ran the park during the Paramount era were neglectful about the ride.

Since most of, if not, all of it's structure would have needed to be replaced, would that really be 'saving' it? Would it be considered 'saved' if a ground-up woodie or RMC that started from the SOB station were built instead of Banshee? I'm confident in guessing that the park still wouldn't have named it Son of Beast to alleviate confusion among the GP. Heck, some GP think Mystic Timbers is SOB re-located and/or re-named from the Paramount era.

How have you been here as long as you have and realize that is certainly not the case? Did you not read the bazillion of other topics involving Son of Beast around here? It's pretty naive to start with that premise.

The loop was pretty good as well (mostly because it used a steel structure which made it smooth). A surprisingly forceful loop for beings so big.

This article confirms there is RMC involvement and provides links to permits found for what is being done to Gwazi, though, no stats released. https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2019/02/18/busch-gardens-will-celebrate-60th-anniversary-with-free-beer-pin-trading-and-coaster-news

You're talking about wanting an Intamin in a topic about the International Street makeover work. With the way you post, you often derail entire threads and turn topics that don't have anything to do with Intamin about Intamins. Its honestly getting annoying. I'm not saying you can't talk about them, but realize the context of your posts before posting them. Its like being stuck in a mobius loop with you and you're pretty Johnny on the spot about bringing up Intamin anytime you can. Seriously dude. We. Get. It.

^Its honestly a bit creepy with how obsessed you are with Intamin that you can't even go without looking at an obviously tongue and cheek inside joke without clamoring for a new Intamin to be real. You take the obsession to a whole new level.

I'm personally glad they're keeping I-Street work under wraps. KI's entrance is one of the greatest of any amusement park with how the entrance building unfolds into the actual I-Street area. I want to be surprised, especially as someone who frequents I-Street as his favorite eating spot. I genuinely enjoy some good fountain ERT for meals. Even if there are updates, I might just avoid them. Sure I'd appreciate some hints to get my imagination going, but I also don't want too much spoiled. Its part of why I like amusement parks in general- I like a little spontaneity and surprise when I visit them.

On that topic with the CF Vekomas (aside from Nighthawk, its only going to last so long with Firehawk's donated parts, which aren't that many considering Nighthawk is the prototype), Vekoma is really good at getting parts out for their rides, especially with how many of each model they've sold. Coasters like the handful of Boomerangs (WoF, CW and Carowinds) and the pair of SLC's (MIA and CW) in the chain should be good to go for a while. KI's Invertigo has probably been the best run of its type of the entire line and its shares certain parts with SLC's. WoF's and CW's Boomerangs can also be upgraded to the new Vekoma trains which are HUGE improvements, speaking from experience having ridden HP's Sidewinder with the new train. I think there are trains that help out SLC's as well. Arrow parts get made by S&S (who absorbed Arrow) and with how many Arrows that are still running worldwide, they won't stop making those anytime soon.

Low ridership by itself isn't enough to remove a coaster. There has to be a number of other factors.

Just to give a noise comparison- Banshee (aka, track filled with sand) Great Bear (aka- completely hollow track and the greatest B&M roar of all time)-

Were the trains being painted in-house or did KI send the trains to PTC for some TLC? I'd love for it to be the later.

If Banshee were hollow, you'd be getting a B&M roar around the likes of Great Bear, Raptor and Rougarou.

What did you do to know if Banshee's track is hallow or not?

I've been to Michigan's Adventure. Its a fine park for what it is and I'd love to return. But Muskegon sure ain't a tourist-y type town that would benefit that much in CF investing in MIA. There's next to zilch to do around that area of Michigan, at least compared to their more prosperous parks and their respective markets and demographic pulls. Dorney is a very niche park. Its in such a saturated market (its less than 2 hours from 4-5 other parks of various sizes and means of their own self investing) that they have to be extra careful on what and when to add things because HP and SFGAdv definitely have more of the area's attention over Dorney. The reason they have rides like their B&M's and Steel Force is they were before CF added the Paramount parks and had different important areas to invest in at the time. Same goes with WoF and Valleyfair (the later being in the middle of Minnesota with a short season to work with and a famous, GIANT, indoor amusement park not too far). That script happened with the Parmaount parks investments as well. Viacom only owned the 5 parks, so they had to go pretty heavy on all of them, though, it was obvious that KI, CW, and Carowinds were the more favored of those parks. KD still got good things due to it still being bigger than Great America, which was probably the lesser of the 5 parks (though they did get Stealth however short lived it was, and that was a HUGE capital investment with how much development that ride had, probably Paramount's biggest in their entire tenure). Switch to CF, and KI, CW and Carowinds are getting a lot of love (which CF had to reallocate attention from other parks that used to have more focus such as Dorney and Wof) and KD and CGA aren't as heavy in the investments, though, a lot of with CGA was with the land agreements which seemed to have panned out and they're now showing a little more focus there. KD is in the same predicament as Dorney IMO with such a heavy player in Busch Gardens right down the road.

^Based on what? That's a pretty broad statement to put out there with no evidence.

I say gut the whole thing and put in a Ghostwood Estate type system. That ride was slick.

I'd bet it was LIM's. LSM's were just coming into being on coasters around that time (Superman: The Escape at SFMM was the first).

I agree with the 'that's it?' sentiment. For having such a great start, just a bunch of 0g rolls and s-curves was pretty underwhelming. Then again, it was the first launched inverted coasters, and Intamin is usually lax on making good layouts for prototype coasters, so I'll give them a little leeway there.

How about a B&M strapped with LIM's/LSM's that can go 200 ft?