Flying Turns Update

Does anyone think this thing will be open by Memorial Day or say late June?

^ I'd say all timelines at this point rest squarely on the trains.

Hey, at least *we* have a better Steve-O than MTV does... :)

Steve-O is a very funny guy, IMO, Wildboyz is my favorite jackass spin-off.

I want to see the trains NOW! hah. im very impatient.

I asked Coastin' Steve about the trains and I got this response:

" I see nothing, I hear nothing, I know noothhhing"

LOL. He basically went on to say that if anyone knows anything new about the trains other than John Fetterman it might be someone who was at the Q & A session at the recent Eastcoaster event.

Tom

Think they'll do what GAdv did with El Toro and open the ride earlier with just one train until the others are completed/inspected?

Going by what I was told earlier in the year, the ride will test with one train and open with one train- obviously Mr. Fetterman and Mr. Adams aren't going to build all the trains until they are sure the first one is going to work fine. As of now, there seems to be no timetable for the ride's opening- it will be done when it's done. Not a moment before, and we should all be thankful for that. This is the type of thing they want to get right instead of rushing it along!

True, and on that note, once they started doing the layers on the figure-12, things sped up greatly. I guess once they did it for a bit, they got the hang of it, which is why the bottom portion and ground turns got done very quickly (all 3 layers).

That does make sense, Rob, and it's what I would expect, I just wasn't sure if that was "officially" confirmed. Either way, I know Knoebel's will do an awesome job, and I'll be there riding it quite a bit this summer once it finally does open!

Just pray there isn't a flood this year... I would venture a guess that if they had another big flood this year, it wouldn't open until 2008.

<Knock on Wood>

I don't think so. While the flood did delay things, it seemed that they only lost about 2 weeks.

Knoebel's doesn't go around saying "...we're behind because of the weather." and sit on it -- that's Six Flags. Knoebel's works their butts off to make up for the weather and still provide an awesome guest experience with as minimal of delays as possible.

I sit corrected. Although even 2 weeks is a long time in the construction industry.

---

dannerman said:
I don't think so. While the flood did delay things, it seemed that they only lost about 2 weeks.

Knoebel's doesn't go around saying "...we're behind because of the weather." and sit on it -- that's Six Flags. Knoebel's works their butts off to make up for the weather and still provide an awesome guest experience with as minimal of delays as possible.

---

Right, Knoebels don't have thousands of stockholders to make excuses too. As long as they profit, Their fine. If they make a big profit, THEY ADD MORE STUFF!

Chuck

...and they're adding a lot more stuff! :)

Regarding flooding concerns-- here's a brief summary of the events that have hit Knoebels in the past few decades.

2006- 12+ inches of rain from a non-tropical storm front that moved back and forth and the same location over several days. Happened in June.

2004- Hurricane Ivan. Happened in September.

1996- Several feet of snow on the ground melt within hours as the temps soar into the 60s. Ice in streams and rivers adds to flooding problems. Happened in January.

1975- Hurricane ? Happened in September.

1972- Tropical storm Agnes dumps almost 2' of rain over Pennsylvania as the storm stalls.

There is some concern about urban flooding this coming weekend as they're expecting several inches of rain. But there's nowhere near the amount of snow on the ground as there was in '96. Plus most of the park is already in "slumber" mode. But I guess we'll see.

A flood would do damage none the less. And as they did last year, they would probably utilize the FT crew to help clean up. Especialy since their is no regular summer staff there to help out. Which would mean it would probably take longer. Unless everyonewho works there during the summer is on call in case of emergency flooding? I would be suprised though. That being said, I think the FT project could be affected even more with an off-season flood because of fewer people to help clean up.

Here in Ohio the media is all hyped up on the ICE building up in the rivers. I don't think there is much chance of a flood yet, but the ice itself can be dangerous.

^ Ask anybody in Harrisburg about ice. They still show footage every now and then of the ice jam that took out a few spans of the one bridge over the Susquehanna in January 96. They fixed the bridge, but it's open to pedestrians only going over to City Island from the city.

Jason, what I was thinking of at KG was that in June they had to throw out food, souvenirs, etc. Nothing like that there now. There also is no sense of urgency to get the park back up and running like there was last summer-- unless there's some imminent danger of a structure totally collapsing or something. They have seven weeks to groom paths, repair minor damage, and replace items that can't be repaired.

I guess it wold depend on how high flood waters got on wether or not immediate work would be necessary.

What is KG?

^KG = Knoebels Groves

Just curious, do you know if Floyd affected Knoebels at all Bear? Also in 1975, was that Eloise? The flooding just last night here was terrible, especially being out on a paper route overnight there was alot of small creeks overflowed closing off many back roads. *** Edited 3/5/2007 11:19:47 PM UTC by P18***

What is KG?

Knoebels Grove.