220 foot balloon test at Busch gardens VA

I (heart) Gwazi too.

Give the parks a few years, and I think we'll see the PTC trains replaced with MF trains. They are just too good of a fit for GCI designs, and other than brake runs, I'm pretty sure parks can drop them onto rides with minimal changes. But that's just my take...

Don't count on it. GCI only builds their flyer trains for their own coasters and last I heard they were going to keep it that way.

CPunk? Care to comment??

Moosh, you've got that right (not that I'll stop asking, there's money in them thar MFlyers, LOL)...but Gwazi IS their coaster...

IIRC from my inquiry ;) at the GCII tour, the *expected* life-span for a coaster train is somewhere around 15-20 years...so HP Wildcat and Gwazi have a few years left with PTCs (which are great trains, just not really meant for GCI-style layouts)...IMO.

The Millennium Flyer trains may track better, but in my opinion they're not very comfortable all because of one thing--the lap bar. I think the design is all wrong and too heavy, as it tends to dig into my stomach for most of the ride. My only experience with them is on Lightning Racer, but I can't imagine that it would be different on any of the other GCI trains with them. That wouldn't stop me from riding them though.

edit-Oops I forgot to comment on the topic at hand. If you go back and re-read the article about the proposed attraction (which is never described), you'll read a few things that would make you wonder if the ride is ever going to be built 1) The only thing that has been approved is a couple of ride buildings, so hence the ride height itself has not been approved. That could be a whole other can of worms 2) The spokesperson said something to the effect of 'We need to ask corporate first for their permission to build whatever we want to build.' Isn't usually the other way around? 3) There is no start date listed for the project and they only have three years on the permit for the ride buildings.

If they are going to build a dive machine, you'll probably see another Apollo's Chariot building scenario, where they started building the year before and shutdown all of Italy for the construction. So could it put Alpengeist out of commission during the construction? One would hope not, but we'll find out one of these years.
*** Edited 4/7/2006 3:19:56 PM UTC by Intamin Fan***

Oh. MF Trains = Millennium Flyers.

I was confused because I usually abbrev. it MFlyer.

Carry on!

Intamin Fan, do you realize how early it is right now for BGW to be talking about a new ride for 2007? AB is just very slow and methodical about building rides, most parks will not be going before the local board until 4-5 months from now!

I agree Touchdown, remember how long we had info on the buildings and ride removal stuff for DarKastle.

bgw did not close down all of italy for apollo's chariot, they only closed festa italia in the fall of 1998 so they could tear down the old long bridge and replace it with the new one. wasnt really related to the coaster construction except that they wanted a wider path to get to the ride.

the height approval meeting is this tuesday (4/11) and provided they get approval, construction can begin as soon as possible. it won't take 11 months to build it either.

The park could definately use a wooden coaster...and the US / world needs more with prefabricated track anyway.

A Diving Machine...could be nice, but the high drops of Apollo are pretty much the same right ?
Tampa didn't have any high coaster before SheiKra.

Hypers and Dive Machines are totally different beasts, IMO. One has the freedom of a lap bar, and the other has OTSRs. One can (and probably will) have inversions, and one doesn't.

A B&M hyper and B&M Dive Machine can easily coexist in a park and I think we'll see that next year at BGW...and maybe in a couple years at BGT if we're lucky!

JC

Yeah, BGT's hyper has been rumored for at least 10 years now, probably longer. This will be a beautiful thing to behold if it ever does happen. Central FL has a great collection of steel coasters but it would not take that great a hyper to be easily the best coaster in Florida.

10 years now? 1996 there were rumors about a hyper? There were like three hypers in the country back then, lol. :)

Glad BGT got Montu, even at 10 years old and trim braked, it still provides a kick ass ride!

JC

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eatitpeggy said:
bgw did not close down all of italy for apollo's chariot, they only closed festa italia in the fall of 1998 so they could tear down the old long bridge and replace it with the new one. wasnt really related to the coaster construction except that they wanted a wider path to get to the ride.

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First off, I didn't have a map in front of me and haven't been to the park since 2001, so I forgot there was a Festa Italia section. Since I hadn't been to the park since the additional area, I was a little bit disappointed that year. To say that it wasn't related to the coaster's construction would be wrong though, because of its close proximity to Roman Rapids (I believe the twisted turn under the lifthill on the way back actually crosses over Roman Rapids).

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Michael Darling said:
When we say "MF trains" do we mean Intamin Gigacoaster trains from Millennium Force?

Or am I really confused? (shut up, Matt)

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You need to get out of Ohio once in a while. There are coasters in other states.

I don't think its too early to be planing a new ride for 07. Especially if the rumor about moving the Le mans car ride is true. That ride takes up alot of ground and finding a place to move it wont be easy. I do think they may change the ride from 3 lanes to 2. I been there in all different months of the operating season over the past few years and I have'nt seen all 3 lanes running at once. Plus they will probally be adding some new shops and other thing like they did with Alpengeist.

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Intamin Fan said:

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eatitpeggy said:
bgw did not close down all of italy for apollo's chariot, they only closed festa italia in the fall of 1998 so they could tear down the old long bridge and replace it with the new one. wasnt really related to the coaster construction except that they wanted a wider path to get to the ride.

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First off, I didn't have a map in front of me and haven't been to the park since 2001, so I forgot there was a Festa Italia section. Since I hadn't been to the park since the additional area, I was a little bit disappointed that year. To say that it wasn't related to the coaster's construction would be wrong though, because of its close proximity to Roman Rapids (I believe the twisted turn under the lifthill on the way back actually crosses over Roman Rapids).

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Fist off to get to the festa area you have to cross the bridge. Was the bridge done but the coaster was'nt ? Then yes the area might have been closed for the coaster's construction. But lets not forget that they also had to remove a ride for the que area and Busch's extreme safety polices. Also the more room you have with no guest's the easier the construction. Plus I was probally late in the season so closing the area would only mean closing the tea cups, rapids,train station,and elephant run(ride wise).

Well, when I visited they had a construction fence up and the only thing built at the time was the storage area for the trains, and that was just a frame I believe. That would've been in October of that year, and oddly enough on a Monday (Jewish Holiday at work).

Scroll down:

http://www.jccegov.com/current_agendas/bosagendas/041106bos.html

Thanks for the link. Neat to see the balloon test pictures. And I thought the color scheme provision was odd, especially considering Apollo's Chariot's visibility and color scheme.