Flight of Fear Crew problems today

I am usually not one to whine and moan but the Flight of Fear people at PKI made me angry. Me and Rob(chucks brother) on FOF today. Now I can ride fof just fine I just need help getting the buckle down right. Today I basically got sorry your screwed and was unable to ride. Now In a week there is no way I can magically fit in and not today.

I used the backseat of a car because of the leg room. It was almost there a bit more of a push would of done it. Rob got a hand barly tapping and I got a very weak person. No soultions were offered. It was get up sorry you cant ride. Here are some things I believe should of been tried but was not given the chance.
Trying to reposition myself a bit.
Waiting a cycle or 2 and seeing if the backseats in the rear offer a bit better seating.
Pushing just a bit harder (with expressed permision)

I never have a problem before but it kinda was a back thought.
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I hate it when park employees say you can't ride because your too tall or something. One time at Kennywood I was in line to ride Pitt Fall. When I sat down I had trouble with those damn Intamin shoulder harness. The employees came over and helped me buckle it. I must commend them on their courteiousness (sp?). Being 6'6 at 15 is sometimes bad at amusement parks. The legroom on rollercoasters is a problem for me also, but I can manuever my legs so I can ride with room.

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My mind works in strange ways. Yeah with a chain driven lift hill and gravity.

Im fat but still I can ride all the time and I did this past sunday.

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Visit History of PKI!

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PKIEMPSOB said:
I just need help getting the buckle down right. Today I basically got sorry your screwed and was unable to ride. Now In a week there is no way I can magically fit in and not today.

it seems that there is a new safety standard to not force guests into seats, in any way. I can imagine some guy hyperventilating after launch and the restraint is pushing into his diaphram muscle, and not being able to catch his breath, it nearly happened to me.

SAM

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Tip on Flight of Fear...

If you have ridden recently and suddenly realize you can't, suddenly, don't give up right away. First, look to your left. If you see an attendant platform, you might be out of luck. But if you see another seat, get the attendant to let you out if necessary, and move over to the left-hand seat. You might find that you can sit on the left, but not on the right. The problem is a quarter-inch-high protrusion under your outboard foot.

The odd thing is, this does not seem to be the case on Mr. Freeze at SFStL. That one has the protrusion in both footwells. Go figure.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

My experiance today was quite the contrary. I went with a friend that had a little trouble getting the seatbelt to fit. The rideops on Flight of Fear were EXTREMELY HELPFUL (excuse me for yelling please), and there were litterally 2 rideops that pushed the thing down until my friend was able to fit.

The crew people even told me I was mean when I told me friend he needed to lose some weight when he was having trouble. I found the crew to be very nice and very professional.

This was my first trip ever to PKI, and I was fairly impressed. While the park was no Cedar Point (which I consider my home park, even though SFWoA is closer), I found the staff friendly, including the ride ops, and the overall atmosphere and collection of rides great. The park was great overall, and Flight of Fear contributed to my overall impression.

-Sam
Who now puts Beast as his #1 wooden roller coaster!
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Avalanch Run - My first Roller Coaster.
Magnum XL-200 - The BEST Roller Coaster!

Ya know, PKIEMPSOB, I think I'm in the same boat as you as far as size goes, and I've noticed that if I'm wearing anything other than a t-shirt, I have trouble locking OTSRs and also the restraints on MF.

If it wasn't what Rideman suggested, perhaps it was an overly bulky shirt that got in the way.

Just helpin out...

-Eric

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E Blitz Entertainment
Bay City, Michigan

Of course the employees can't push down on your harness...they don't want you to get hurt or have a law suit coming at them.

They can if you ask them. They will push if you ask them for some help and say yes.

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As an employee at Cedar Point (Ride op for Magnum), I was told that I could never help a guest get the lap bar down or seat belt on. If they could not get into the ride on their own due to their size or body type, they could not ride. That is not to say that we did not help them, we would tell them it might help if they cross their legs or something, we just could not physically push them into their seat.

they can not help you. even if u ask, there are reasons for that. musicfire was correct.

I couldnt get the buckle snaped on fof. The seatbelt is so far awy from the buckle

Patrick K, that's a bit of fallout (if I may use that word...) from the Perilous Plunge incident at Knott's. As nearly as I can tell, Kings Island does not have such a rule.

(if they did, I might still be on the Racer right now...)

Anaconda, part of the problem is that getting the belt fastened on FoF is an awkward position because you have to reach over the end of the lap bar. If you have short arms, you don't have a chance. You think it's bad now? When PKI opened up the modified ride in '01, the safety belt terminated in a dog-snap that was supposed to attach to an eye-bolt on the top of the lap bar. Trouble is, there is not enough clearance between the lap bar pad and the side of the train to get an adult hand in there to release the catch on the clip. It was a huge pain in the neck; the pushbutton buckles they have now are much easier to deal with (I guess PKD has 'always' had 'em that way). Except now people want to try to hook the belt ends together instead of hooking them to the lap bars. Fortunately, since both belt ends are 'female', they don't connect...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.
*** This post was edited by RideMan 4/21/2003 12:35:52 AM ***

I'm not so sure that is correct, Rideman. Now more than ever ride ops at Knott's do the lapbars and seatbelts *for* the guests.

Look at Xcelerator. Guests are not allowed to lower their lapbar. The ride op must do it for them. On Perilous Plunge, the ride ops do the majority of the work with restraints.

I guess policy is just different at CP and KBF, because it seems like we at Knott's are almost encouraged to assist with the placement of restraints rather than leave the guest to do it on their own.

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The Trip: CP, SFWoA, PKI, KW, HW, IB, SFGAm, MiA and LeSourdsville too.
8 Days- 10 parks. May 2003

Well, Matt, all I know for certain is that after the Plunge incident, CP ride ops stopped fastening seat belts on Millennium Force and Raptor (specifically). On Millennium Force, the argument is that if the rider is so large that he can't fasten the belt, the attendant is doing him no favor if he's really too big to ride. Over the course of last season, things loosened up a bit, and attendants were helping with bars on both Raptor and Wicked Twister; I think someone finally realized that it is nearly impossible for a rider to pull his own shoulder bar tight (instead he tends to pull himself out of the seat).

I hope the rules at CP are different enough from KBF that they'll let me set my own lap bar on Dragster. I know they redesigned it, but I still won't trust that T-bar until I see for myself how that geometry works. That one Millennium Force ride was REALLY painful.......

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I'll be interested to see how they choose to operate Dragster from the standpoint of operations.

As an Xcelerator ride op, I have tightened many seatbelts for larger guests. From my vantage point, I have a far better position from which to pull the belt than they do anyway.

Going back to the original problems with the FoF crew, I have no problem helping a larger person in, as long as the restraints fit as they are intended to.

The reasoning, I have been told (and I believe this), is that if a guest puts down their lapbar without putting on their seatbelt, its almost impossible to get the belt on without releasing all of the lapbars. From a capacity standpoint, that seems to make sense. But then again, is this really a problem on other rides running Intamin hyper trains?

And yes, from what I can remember of the Mil. Force trains, the lapbars on Xcelerator seem to have been redesigned from that of the earlier Intamin hyper trains.

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The Trip: CP, SFWoA, PKI, KW, HW, IB, SFGAm, MiA and LeSourdsville too.
8 Days- 10 parks. May 2003

On my most recent coaster trip to SFMW, I was down to my last click (but comfortably) on Roar, and V2 was a snug but not uncomfortable fit. This experience convinced me that it was time to drop a few pounds. There are other cbuzz threads discussing this, for example here. Personally, I'm on the six-week body makeover, which is much more moderate in its view towards carbs than Atkins-like diets (which many other buzzers prefer), but whatever floats your boat.

My view? You don't get as much fun during airtime if one click rides are a necessity rather than something you only get with operators willing to let a loose restraint slide. :)

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http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~bnoble/

*** This post was edited by Brian Noble 4/21/2003 10:42:21 AM ***

The CP ops have, as recently as last year, buckled us into Raptor (if we haven't done it ourselves already), and they've helped buckle my husband in on MF. Last year, a ride op on Wicked Twister tried to help force the OSTR down far enough to buckle the belt for my hubby (to no avail). They've always been pretty helpful, so it surprises me to hear they aren't really "allowed" to.

Won't be a problem this year. My husband lost 40 pounds, so we are confident he'll fit on WT this year!

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I'd rather die living than live like I'm dead
http://www.webtechnik.com/ebony/CPLady.htm

It seems like no one has pointed the obvious. Why dont you guys stop looseing the wait? The ops are just trying to do their job and keep capacity as high as possible. Who knows, that certain TL may not have liked ops pushing down on the restraints. Besides, would it kill you guys to just loose the weight?

Hey just checking cuz I'm going to PKI on May 28th, does FOF have lap bars?