Posted | Contributed by 1badgmc
This is the third ride of its type and the first one to be located outside of New Zealand. It will be located just south of Ft. Worth in Burleson, Texas.
You lay on your stomach and pilot "planes" tethered to towers over 200 feet high. You have a 60hp motor behind you and have full control to fly anywhere within the hemisphere beneath the towers performing any sort of aerobatic maneuvers that you can. These rides in New Zealand can, at times, reach up to 106mph and fly as close as 4 feet from the ground.
For more information, see http://www.texasflybywire.com
I've seen this on the Discovery Channel a while back. It's nothing that new. They've been doing this for a quite a while already. If you watch road rules, this was on there as a mission they had to complete. Although it was out in the open plains somewhere secluded. Not in a theme park. But imagine if they brought this to amusement parks. You'd be waiting forever to use this, and if something goes wrong and the wire snaps, then you better kiss your butt goodbye! :)
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Shawn Bailes
Webmaster of Coasters R Us
http://coastersrus.home-page.org
For one thing, it's not a "wire", it's a
very strong cable. And I would venture a
guess that it is quite stronger than, say,
a Sky Coaster "wire" or any bungee cord.
Second, it would be a reservation type thing,
like the Sky Coaster (or Sky Swing).
It looks pretty wild, and you can see videos
of it at www.thrillride.com in the news section.
I live about 2 hours from where they're building this thing. It's not at an amusement park or anything. It's its own place. They're building 5 of them at this place, and I can just imagine that it takes up a lot of space for them. I saw the Road Rules show when they rode one of the ones in New Zealand. That made me even more excited when I read about this one in Texas because that Road Rules show made it look like a killer ride! You can count me in!
Wire or no wire there is still a chance of it breaking as well as any other sky coaster. The Rip Cord at Cedar Point has a cable made to lift elevators on it. Yet something went wrong and a guy hit the earth and broke his neck. He's ok, but that just goes to show Murphy's Law. Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Although it's most likely improbable, it's never impossible. You have more mass on it that just the human body too, you have the engine for its thrust on there as well. I'm not saying it's not safe, heck I'd ride it! Just trying to get my point across :)
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Shawn Bailes
Webmaster of Coasters R Us
http://coastersrus.home-page.org
