What is going on with The Bat?

[BeeastFarmer]

The park has only been open for 3 days.  Let's temper the expectations and prognostications of any ride removal.

I do f find it interesting, that the rides we currently have problems with and the inoperable rides are all from the Paramount era. Delerium gives great service but when it's down it's down for a bit usually. Drop Tower is prone to getting struck by lightning and probably has sensitive electronics and is from Intamin. Action theater or whatever it was called has been down since 2012 I think. And then there's tales from the crypt.  Seems like the junkyard coaster is about the most reliable thing that Paramount did.

[disco2000]

55 minutes ago, BeeastFarmer said:

The park has only been open for 3 days.  Let's temper the expectations and prognostications of any ride removal.

I do f find it interesting, that the rides we currently have problems with and the inoperable rides are all from the Paramount era. Delerium gives great service but when it's down it's down for a bit usually. Drop Tower is prone to getting struck by lightning and probably has sensitive electronics and is from Intamin. Action theater or whatever it was called has been down since 2012 I think. And then there's tales from the crypt.  Seems like the junkyard coaster is about the most reliable thing that Paramount did.

What no love for Flight of Fear?

Good thing junkyard is your favorite coaster

[BeeastFarmer]

1 hour ago, disco2000 said:

What no love for Flight of Fear?

Good thing junkyard is your favorite coaster

Forgot about FoF.  It's a workhorse.

 

[CoasterJack]

While FoF was a nightmare at first, it's ironically one of the more reliable rides considering the technology was the first of its kind.

[PKIDelirium]

21 hours ago, johnjniehaus said:

I know they decided to take Vortex down coinciding with the addition of Orion but I do believe they intended to replace it before now.

 

21 hours ago, disco2000 said:

Unfortunately not all removals are "planned" and off-season inspections, testing, etc. accelerates when a ride is removed - sometimes years sooner than when a park thought the ride would be operational.  That leaves a void in planning as said ride was expected to still be operational during said planning period, so the site sits vacant for longer than anyone would like...

I've been under the impression that Vortex's demise wasn't known until sometime during the final season, maybe even as late as the end of the summer season. I'm not saying this is the case with Bat, but it's still concerning.

Hopefully it's a mechanical issue like the lift motor or other equipment that just needs to be replaced, and they don't have the needed parts or equipment in yet. Bad case of that in Action Zone right now if it's a matter of waiting for parts work.

[johnjniehaus]

1 hour ago, PKIDelirium said:

I've been under the impression that Vortex's demise wasn't known until sometime during the final season, maybe even as late as the end of the summer season. I'm not saying this is the case with Bat, but it's still concerning.

Kings Island: a ride through time shed a bit of light on the decision making process surrounding The Vortex removal and yes it's true that it was not announced until very late summer or maybe fall. However, it was still operational giving it's fans a few weeks to get last rides. I personally think they should have given it an entire season farewell much like Cedar Point gave Mean Streak but unfortunately we didn't get that. The problem with The Bat is that we don't know what the current issue is. It probably is (and I'm hoping that it is) just a small part issue or perhaps some re-tracking that didn't get completed during the off season seeming plausible seeing as Delirium and Drop Tower also are waiting on parts/maintenance. However, it is true that in cases such as Volcano at KD some coasters wind up in SBNO land and then are quietly removed without any last rides much to the grief of coaster enthusiasts and fans of the particular ride. I don't think we should jump to conclusions but I do understand the fear that The Bat could wind up in a similar situation to Volcano. 

[disco2000]

Threads like this reminds me of a quote that a Vice President of Cedar Fair has said and I have used it on the forum frequently as to why something may or may not be said from CF:  "It is important to remember that Cedar Fair is a publicly traded company and that affects the type and timing of our communication."  That simple statement says it all.  There are countless of real world, everyday examples demonstrating this same technique in other businesses and industries.

At the end of the day, they are not under any obligation to tell us exactly why and will spin the information to fit their narrative. 

Maybe an inspection of Vortex after daily operation ended turned up showing some series issues that would need to be addressed in the off-season that were going to cost a lot.  So Mike rode it and determined that the costs to keep it running wasn't worth it from a rider experience.....

In that quote above, Mike was under zero obligation to say anything more than he did, but read between the lines..."hop on it before a final decision was made" implies there was information in hand that needed to be evaluated...

Have any of you, or maybe your parents, took a car in for scheduled maintenance like a simple oil change and tire rotation, and the service tech says they found a crack in the engine block or some other big expense, so you have to decide whether to spend a lot of money to fix something on an old car that could then have something bigger break next year or get rid of it before you planned to and get a new car....same idea, just on a much larger scale LOL...

[Kenban]

I believe both Vortex and now Bat have similar problems, metal fatigue.  Arrow Dynamics requires Non Destructive Testing annually.  If you are a seasonal park with freezing temperatures the instructions say to do the testing towards the end of the off season.  The requirement is 20% of high G areas and 5% of the rest, typically you rotate what you inspect so every few years you have hit everything.  When multiple problems are found you expand your search, if those areas also show defects you do 100% inspection.  Every defect you find has to be repaired.  I suspect The Bat needed 100% inspection.

The problem is at some point you’re fixing too many issues, the steel is just too worn out.  You can fix the problems, and increase inspections throughout the year, but realistically the track just needs replaced.  More often than not when a ride reaches this point the parks solution is to remove the ride.  I believe this is what Kings Island really meant when they said Vortex had reached the end of its service life.

To my knowledge Arrow never specified an end of life for their coasters.  They specified where and how to test for defects.  They also provided guidance on how to perform repairs.  But from the documentation I have seen and read when a park states a ride has reached the end of its life, that is due to the park or chains standards not Arrows.

The claim going around for The Bat is that the incident with the wheel last year caused more damage than was originally known or found at the time.  It’s very possible this is wrong.  No one is ever going to discuss issues like this publicly.

Metal fatigue is an area where a park running all the trains all the time ends up hurting the coaster.  The more days a year and hours in a day the park is open it does more damage.  Cycles do matter on metal fatigue.  So do the forces that the ride produces, those swinging cars might be fun, but they are not easy on the track.

IF I am right, this likely would have only been found a few weeks ago.

[rlentless]

<<delete>>

[shark6495]

On 4/26/2023 at 12:48 AM, PKIDelirium said:

When Top Gun was built, the monorail was still in service. It's not just a matter of being the same layout as CW, they had to work around the monorail track and station.

I thought I was losing my mind as the only one who remembered this. 
wasn’t this designed with the idea of going around the Animal Park. That’s why it’s so far away from the main pad. 

On 4/26/2023 at 10:49 AM, BeeastFarmer said:

The park has only been open for 3 days.  Let's temper the expectations and prognostications of any ride removal.

I do f find it interesting, that the rides we currently have problems with and the inoperable rides are all from the Paramount era. Delerium gives great service but when it's down it's down for a bit usually. Drop Tower is prone to getting struck by lightning and probably has sensitive electronics and is from Intamin. Action theater or whatever it was called has been down since 2012 I think. And then there's tales from the crypt.  Seems like the junkyard coaster is about the most reliable thing that Paramount did.

Ehhhh this was designed by the previous owners and Paramount just slapped the name on. 

10 hours ago, PKIDelirium said:

 

I've been under the impression that Vortex's demise wasn't known until sometime during the final season, maybe even as late as the end of the summer season. I'm not saying this is the case with Bat, but it's still concerning.

Hopefully it's a mechanical issue like the lift motor or other equipment that just needs to be replaced, and they don't have the needed parts or equipment in yet. Bad case of that in Action Zone right now if it's a matter of waiting for parts work.

Did the park ever say why Vortex came down?

[DeltaFlyer]

I’ve been watching Bat test for the last ~20 minutes… cautiously optimistic and very relieved!

[DoomPlague]

The Bat did indeed open this evening. It wasn't open around 1 PM when I first checked but then I went back after 5:30 or so.

Got 3 rides. Honestly, I think its running a bit shakier than it has in the past.

[Taylor.B03]

It was great!

[johnjniehaus]

9 hours ago, DoomPlague said:

The Bat did indeed open this evening. It wasn't open around 1 PM when I first checked but then I went back after 5:30 or so.

Got 3 rides. Honestly, I think its running a bit shakier than it has in the past.

YES!!! It flies again! I can't wait to get back to the park and ride it again!

[BeeastFarmer]

5 hours ago, johnjniehaus said:

YES!!! It flies again! I can't wait to get back to the park and ride it again!

It's a non stop fright...only at Kings Island. 

[PKIDelirium]

I wonder what the structural stress difference is on our ride vs CW's ride because of the trains. Ours runs 6-car trains while theirs runs 5-car trains.

[disco2000]

Um our Bat is 7 car trains and theirs is 6...

[johnjniehaus]

17 hours ago, PKIDelirium said:

I wonder what the structural stress difference is on our ride vs CW's ride because of the trains. Ours runs 6-car trains while theirs runs 5-car trains.

In any footage I've seen of Vortex at Canadas Wonderland it runs 6 car trains. The Bat at KI runs 7 car trains. However, yes it would be interesting to know what the difference in wear and tear is on the two rides. 

[PKIVortex]

Ours also uses the bigger Arrow Wheels and Vortex at Wonerland uses the smaller wheels.

Sent from my SM-G986U using Tapatalk

[CorkscrewMcPuke]

On 4/28/2023 at 11:26 PM, Taylor.B03 said:

It was great!

 

[PKIDelirium]

23 hours ago, PKIDelirium said:

I wonder what the structural stress difference is on our ride vs CW's ride because of the trains. Ours runs 6-car trains while theirs runs 5-car trains.

Derp. Okay, see where I said 6? Replace that with 7. Now see where I said 5? Replace that with 6.

[CoasterJack]

2 hours ago, CorkscrewMcPuke said:

 

 

There was one day in 2019 this was blasting on the Fun TV, and walking into the station, it felt like a rush of adrenaline and memories all at once. It was great

[DoomPlague]

9 hours ago, CoasterJack said:

There was one day in 2019 this was blasting on the Fun TV, and walking into the station, it felt like a rush of adrenaline and memories all at once. It was great

I miss having theme-appropriate music throughout the park. The Top Gun line had speakers lining the entire queue. There's one theme that would play that I liked, it was this dramatic, mostly electronic (I think?) music that I've never heard anywhere else and it doesn't seem to be from the movie.

[CoasterJack]

2 hours ago, DoomPlague said:

I miss having theme-appropriate music throughout the park. The Top Gun line had speakers lining the entire queue. There's one theme that would play that I liked, it was this dramatic, mostly electronic (I think?) music that I've never heard anywhere else and it doesn't seem to be from the movie.

 

 

 

Are you talking about the instrumental intro, I think it was something like this. It's the theme, just without the guitar and has this dramatic feeling to it. I remember this playing throughout the station and with them loading the trains and the hissing of the brakes, it was one of the coolest feelings.

Top Gun Anthem Instrumental without Guitar

[DJSkyFoxx]

On 4/30/2023 at 5:44 PM, PKIVortex said:

Ours also uses the bigger Arrow Wheels and Vortex at Wonerland uses the smaller wheels.

Sent from my SM-G986U using Tapatalk
 

I've always wondered why ours had the bigger wheels since the two rides share similarities. 

And also, yes I would be lying if I said I didn't miss the Top Gun soundtrack blasting in the station before boarding. It always added that extra bit of fun before taking off. I never got to ride it when it still had all of its functioning theming/effects but I have seen old footage of its early days and it looked amazing. In all reality, some of those same effects could be put to use today if they wanted to even as The Bat. The fog in the station would be fitting, some strobe lights at night or even some cool LEDs. Lots of potential here.

[DoomPlague]

On 5/1/2023 at 12:49 PM, CoasterJack said:

Are you talking about the instrumental intro, I think it was something like this. It's the theme, just without the guitar and has this dramatic feeling to it. I remember this playing throughout the station and with them loading the trains and the hissing of the brakes, it was one of the coolest feelings.

Top Gun Anthem Instrumental without Guitar

Nah, the one I'm referring to was more fast paced and had a more noticeable melody that seems to be unrelated to anything I can find for the film.

[DJSkyFoxx]

I just wanted to add that I had my first Bat flight of the season yesterday and it was marvelous. Felt smooth and super speedy to me. Rode in the front car and enjoyed every second of it. Thankful we still have our little Arrow Suspended coaster and that the park takes such good care of her.

[IndyGuy4KI]

I think I found where it was being worked on. Notice the new pain on the track rails. This is at the bottom of the second drop.

 

 

[TheRickster]

That could be a good call. Not sure if it's the cause for the late opening, but that was def replaced not long ago.

[disco2000]

If you look you can find other spots worked on as well.