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FREDxGCII at Knoebels - Photo Journal
Elysburg, Pennsylvania – Friday, July 13th, 2012
Climbing the through with the group. Looking up the first turn from the lift. Approaching the top. Almost there... Here I be. Peeking at the Phoenix from the Flying Turns. Zig-zaging back down. Examining the lift and transition into the trough. Reverse lift hill shot. I think these skid brakes along the chain were added to keep the car from disengaging with the chain too quickly. Even right off the lift they had issues with it hitting the first turn too fast. Unfortunately we couldn't get permission to walk down the lift. It's back down the way we came. More detailed woodwork, demonstrating how wood doesn't like to stay the same shape for long. Sensor detail. Mike Boodley answering more questions. I forget if these wind socks atop the ride serve any functional purpose, or if they're purely decorative to tie into the Flying Turns theme. You can see the various layers of wood that make up the trough. More detail. The spirit of entrepreneurial problem-solving it took to get this ride built may forever overshadow the merits of the ride itself when/if it ever opens, but that will just be one more thing that makes Knoebels unlike any other park on earth, that every ride has its own unique history. Back on ground level, we had a surprise welcome and speech by none other than Dick Knoebel himself. That's Jeff Pike from GCI on the right. After the tour we were free to enjoy the park for ourselves. Several of us needed dinner, so we went to the International Food Court. As you can see I opted for the pulled pork sandwich, which (if turned upside down) was happy to see me as well. Blurry, crooked shot of Knoebel's IFC. From right to left, that's me, my friend Daniel, and Chris Grey and Jeff Pike from GCI about to take a nighttime, lightly rain-slicked ride on the Phoenix together in the front car (some other FREDxers behind us, not sure who the kid is). I can't repeat it here, but if any of you have a chance to meet Jeff, ask him to tell you his "Jedi mind trick" story. Previously I mentioned that I didn't have any once-in-a-lifetime memories from Knoebels to make the park a personal favorite of mine even though by all objective criteria I really liked the park. After tonight I think that problem became solved. The night nears a close from the back seat of the Twister. Tomorrow would be part three of the FREDx event, the professional presentations, where among other things I would get to meet Larry Chickola, chief engineer of Six Flags, and then return to Knoebels in the afternoon for more rides. Overall FREDxGCII turned out to be a hugely successful event, easily a personal highlight of 2012 for me, and I really hope they continue to hold it and expand it in future years. Student engagement in the amusement business is way behind where it should be relative to other entertainment sectors, so it's great to see forward-looking companies like GCI start to take steps in the right direction and do things to help cultivate the next generation of ride engineers and designers.
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This sounds like such a fantastic event. So many parks feel they need to hide the guts of a ride due to keeping the theme alive or just plain hiding secrets from other companies, so Knoebel’s openness is just awe-inspiring. As well as seeing a group of highly motivated and passionate people come together to learn a bit about the art of amusement. Perhaps, (fingers crossed) we can see something like that happen out here in SoCal someday.
Btw, you’ve mentioned it a couple times, and it bugs me. The term is “centripetal force.” “Centrifugal force” is an imaginary force. That is all.
The windsock seems to be both functional and aesthetic; Flags have been used on roller coasters to provide a visual indicator of wind speed and direction. Excessive wind can be a precursor to an inclement weather shut down. Even if there isn’t an electrical storm, the wind alone could be an issue for some rides; I’ve heard a story that Raptor once valleyed due to high winds.
I don’t get it… They are building a Flying Turns, which is the where steel bobsled coaster originated from, but they aren’t building the bobsled coasters. As a matter of fact, they torn down Disaster Transport at Cedar Point. One of the four steel bobsled coasters left in the world. But, now there is only three… But correct me if I am wrong. I don’t remember if Disaster Transport was the third or fourth.
The Flying Turns rides were always reputed to be more thrilling than the steel coasters that came after. Dick Knoebel is the sort of crazy guy who thinks making ride purchase decisions based on hearsay of that sort is a solid move, so he asked John Fetterman (his in house engineer) to build him a Flying Turns. Fetterman got the blueprints for the one in Coney Island and the Euclid Beach one and went from there. I heard about this potentially starting, no joke, 10 years ago. Here we are now, with it finally coming close to opening.
There’s a lot of back story here that’s not clear to everyone now that it has been so long since this started. Back when the plans for the Flying Turns were first announced, part of it was that the forces would be tuned down a bit (and ergo, the wildness) for this, the prototype. In the future, perhaps they would turn the wick up in future designs. At this point, it is hard to imagine there being future designs of the ride at Knoebels or anywhere else on earth, for that matter.
Finally, re: the steel bobsled coasters. Intamin and Mack both produced them, going in different directions on design. Mack’s design clearly, CLEARLY comes closer to matching what the old Flying Turns rides did, how they sat riders, and so on. And actually, they’re all pretty good rides. Avalanche is secret awesomeness at Kings Dominion, the bobsled in Blackpool is quite forceful, and the rides at Heide Park and Parc Asterix I think are really quite good too. Intamin’s rides, with their single car design, are pretty craptacular. All of them. There just isn’t a huge market for them, but Mack built one at Parc Asterix within living memory, so it comes down to market forces more than anything.
Wait, my bad there are only eight bobsled coasters still operating in the world. (They’re all steel too!) But, when Flying Turns opens there will be nine!!