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2005's Tallest Roller Coaster

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the no-fear dept.

MacBrave writes "MSNBC has a short story about a new roller coaster, named 'Kingda Ka' that is set to open at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey in the spring of 2005. This coaster will beat the current world record-holder, Top-thrill Dragster at Cedar Point."

10 of 233 comments (clear)

  1. Short Ride by john82 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Take a look at the "Virtual Tour". Certainly it appears to be a high peak. The faux clouds are a nice touch. But the ride amounts to one climb, a twist as you come down and a small hill as you return to the station. Might be less than 25 seconds once you sit in the car.

    How does that compare to other high rides?

  2. How UNORIGINAL by Shivetya · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Gee, lets see how unoriginal we can get. While I applauded Cedar Point for their interpetation of a "RollerCoaster" I don't think the term fits these beasts.

    To me a Rollercoaster involves more than going up one incline, no matter how tall. It is all about the flow of the machine. Some wild machines are just a royal pain to ride as they thrash or feel disjointed from seemingly "just thrown in" hills and curves.

    The Great American Scream machine in Six Flags over Georgia is representative of a classic rollercoaster. CedarPoint has many REAL roller coasters. These new things remind me of railed free fall machines. Boring...

    --
    * Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
    1. Re:How UNORIGINAL by ShadowBlasko · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I wanted to mod you up, but I can't do that and post to the thread under my account.

      I'm pretty sure I have ridden The Beast more than anyone should ever dream of. I was a "green sheet" (essentially operator qualified) on that ride for a couple years, and rode at *least* 5 times daily.

      I've ridden coasters in just about every east coast park, and I honestly have to say that The Beast is the greatest wooden coaster there ever *will* be.

      The reason for that is because, during the construction, the designers and builders kept adding things and lengthening it, and Kings Island (screw you, Paramount!) just kept throwing money at it. It was designed before everything had to be perfect on some computer before the first board was cut. If the final cost (before the 1990's rebuild of the entry and station) were on an invoice before construction actually started, it would NEVER have been greenlighted.

      It was true "seat of your pants" design by the best in the business, with little or no limits on the money.

      NOTHING... and I mean nothing measured up to riding riding The Beast before it was "semi-tamed" by additional trim brakes in the late 80's. If you rode it in the rain, when the trim brakes didn't work, you would get that full 74MPH whiplash speeds through the back corkscrew... and honestly think the train would derail.

      The Beast has many many moods. Depending on the temperature, humidity, time of day... every ride is somewhat different. Sometimes smooth, sometimes boucing you all over. It is truly, IMHO, the best of the best in wooden coasters.

      Son of Beast is an intense ride, and Cedar Point has many great coasters as well, but The Beast rules.

      Ohio Coasters Rock!

      (Proud ACE Member, and ex Beast, Racer, Vortex, and Cobra operator)

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order- Ed Howdershelt Via Tass
  3. Re:In case you are... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    it's called Great Adventure by the locals because that's the name it had before it was bought by Six Flags.

  4. Issues resolved? by Rew190 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Top Thrill Dragster had an unfortunately large amount of down-time (mostly due to the cables and hydraulic system). Last year, when it premiered, it was down for nearly an entire month. It actually became prevalent enough that the ride's running status was put online. TTD is an amazing ride, though, and downtime was to be expected on a ride whose design was revolutionary.

    It'll be interesting to see if Intamin has worked the bugs out of this one; I'm sure they've learned much from Dragster.

    At any rate, it's very exciting to see the 500 mark being approached so rapidly!

  5. Re:In case you are... by Achoi77 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I've been to Six Flags New Jersey many, many times. Probably more then most people that live in New Jersey. And nobody called it "Great Adventure." Everyone calls it "Six Flags."

    That's strange, because when I was at Rutgers (about an hour away from Jacksonville where the park is), everybody I know of called it nothing but Great Adventure. Plus it a number of students just called it GA (as in 'Gee Ay') for short and everybody knew what they were talking about.

    Of course, every summer a number of students would buy a season pass and go everyday untill they were bored to tears of it.

    It looks like GA is getting some new rides, which is good, especially since rides like Robin was kind of short (as in 10 seconds!! WTF). Too bad longer rides are not able to justify the price it costs to build for profit. *sigh*

    It's been a number of years since I've been to GA, but I seem to recall they had a little paintball field nearby (which a number of us geeks also used to frequent), but that's getting offtopic. :-)

  6. Cedar Point by RoadWarriorX · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's sometimes great living in the Northern Ohio area. Cedar Point is the greatest park EVER. With great, world-record rides like the Magnum XL200 (puny by today's standards), Millenium Force, and the Top-Thrill Dragster, how can anyone really do better here in the U.S.?

    I do have a concern though. With the Dragster, the ride uses a cable driven mechanism to pull the car at 120 MPH. There was an incident this past summer where the cable shredded and shards of cable covered in hot oil injured a many of the riders. The local news coverage showed people having first-degree burns and embedded wire pieces on their face and arms (yikes!). I agree that this is an isolated incident, but this ride has been closed a lot because of the high winds from Lake Erie. Being 420-something feet, I would not like to be stuck on top of the hill for any reason. So, I hope the designers are prepared for this new ride.

    --

    Coderz 4 Life
    1. Re:Cedar Point by DigitalDemon617 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I've actually seen empty cars get stuck at the top of the hill, then go either forward or backward about 15 seconds later. I saw a full car with people on it make it almost the full way up the hill and then go back down the launch side backwards. Not to mention the cable snap problem. Those problems and the fact that it has been closed for more time than it has been running have kept me from riding it. I'm sure it's a great ride when it works, but you won't see me riding it.

  7. what if 'hydraulic launch' fails to achieve ... by polished+look+2 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    the needed velocity to put the cart over the top of the hump - say if something goes wrong during the 'launch' of the vehicle? What type of safeguards are there to prevent a catastrophe?

    Lets say the vehicle must achieve 115 mph to reach the summit but during the 'launch' the hydraulic mechanism fails and the vehicle hits only 110 mph - the vehicle will go near the top of the summit but then WILL START GOING BACKWARDS - and then what? Do they have some kind of track they can run off onto (remember that the seats are not meant for this).

    Any ideas on how best to deal with this?

    1. Re:what if 'hydraulic launch' fails to achieve ... by Frappuccino · · Score: 4, Interesting

      At cedar point i've seen the car not make it all the way up... it just rolls back and tries again... They have a sign in the line that says that it's normal and just happens sometimes. I believe they actually changed the cars to hold 4 less people than originally because it had problems making it up the hill at first. There are no hydroulics to aid it up the hill after the launch... it goes from 0-120 mph in like 2 seconds. You sit still, the car rolls back a little, and POW!!! You're 420 feet up in the air, and it's a smooooth ride. Doesn't last long enough, but it's wild. Going that fast is actually cooler than going up in the air. Now if they just used the same technology to build a flat ride around the perimeter of the park that let you go 200 mph around cedar point in a minute and a half... now THAT would be cool. No hills or anything, just a smooth, fast ride.