Hersheypark Skyrush - Sunday, May 27th, 2012

bunky666 said:

I've only experienced the good people, but they were so nice that it made me truly think about joining ACE.

I think in the end, it's about finding a group you enjoy. ACE is big on preservation, so if that's something you enjoy, ACE may be right for you.

Another thing that sets ACE apart from other clubs is that ACE is run by it's members. There is no supreme leader. And of course, ACE was the first. There had to a first before all the other clubs started popping up in the 80s, then things went ballistic in the 90s and every other coaster geek wanted their own club (and some seem to rule their club with an iron ego.)

I find that running a club as a business has the inherent win that there is no drama. ACE in particular is notorious for this among its officers and the malcontents that don't like them. Furthermore, there's no, "What's in it for me," when working with third party charities. Don't even get me started on that...

There's no iron fist or ego here... if you like what the club offers, great, if not, that's fine too.

I bet most coaster enthusiast clubs have their fair share of pooyheads. Neither ACE nor CoasterBuzz come to mind when I think of dicketry. I don't even think we are allowed to mention the one club with the biggest douche of them all. ;)

My recollection about the card flasher was that he bragged about it in a trip report, and got laughed at all the way off the site.

But we all make stupid mistakes, especially when we are young.

The biggest jerks these days don't seem to belong to any club. They get T-shirts and push past people so they can reride. And they're allegedly grown-ups.

Only dicketry I've ever seen at CB events was the dude rushing and pushing to get rerides - I believe there was an issue with Diana too.

Other than that, I loved the old BeastBuzz events. The HW event I was able to get to was cool. BooBuzz is always a good time. This last thing at Dollywood was fantastic. The Wild Eagle ERT was the coolest, most mellow bunch of people just chilling and trying different seats and even the crew running the coaster was pretty cool. Even the morning tour was interesting without being too geeky.

Exactly the sort of intimate, low key, good time I'm looking for in expressing my coaster dorkitude.

Carrie J. said:

Well, I just let my "I Survived The SooperDooperLooper" t-shirt confirm my credibility.

I used to have one of those! From my first ride in 1977!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, that's what I was talking about Gonch. He's not a club member, he was someone's guest.

BeastBuzz was amazing every year. I credit Jeff and Maureen, when they were still there. Having a keg at dinner was a nice bonus, too. It all went surprisingly well for such large groups... I think we had well over 100 most years.

I was disappointed at the turnout for Dollywood, but it was so relaxed and we got so many rides that I can't complain at all. Except that you gave up before it was done. ;)

Jeff said:
The biggest jerks these days don't seem to belong to any club. They get T-shirts and push past people so they can reride. And they're allegedly grown-ups.

I'm pretty sure the grown up in question got our train booted from the MF Travel Channel shoot. He pissed off one too many crew members because he plowed them over when going from the unload to load platform. Someone called him out on it, and when we came back, they told our train we weren't needed anymore.

Raven, that is a whole pile of suck. That's beyond enthusiasm...it is actually dangerous to riders and crew. I don't think I need to also declare it rude...dicketry says it perfectly.

Jeff said:

Except that you gave up before it was done. ;)

I wasn't the only one.

My kids hung in there for the entire time. I'll live vicariously through them.

T-Shirt guy should be very happy that I wasn't the guy he pushed out of the way. I don't take to being physically manhandled very well.

Sorry that the Dollywood turnout was less than expected. I would have attended with my DW Pass, but it's almost a six hour drive, and I had just been there a few week prior to that.

I could maybe see the entitlement if it was an exclusive club, like one where you had to be invited, accepted, and it was selective. But with ACE, you just fill out the paperwork and pay your dues. Sure, you can be kicked out for violoating its terms, but really anybody can join.

Wow, I'm really surprised to hear these complaints about the restraints on Skyrush. I was there on 06/13 with my family and we absolutely loved the ride. My brother and niece got 5 rides on it and I got 3. None of us had any complaints about the restraints nor did we even hear anybody complaining about them. Everybody we talked to or overheard talking about it loved the ride. I thought it was amazing, definintely up in my top 3. The ejector air is insane. Don't let the negative feedback deter you. Everybody's experience is different. By the way, my advice is to wait until late afternoon to go on it. We went once in the morning, but the line was about 1 hour. Around 4:30 or so, the line had dropped to 5-10 minutes. I guess everybody was thinking about dinner at that point. We could have easily gotten 10 more rides on it if we wanted to, but our other family members were interested in doing other things.

Ok, so it's literally been years since I posted on here, but I feel like adding my 2 cents on Skyrush.

I just went to the park yesterday with my dad for a Fathers Day present to him, and the first ride we hit was Skyrush. The queue was basically full, and it took us about an hour to ride.

First off, I'll confirm that the station design is pretty bad. I don't know why they didn't go with an exit-on-the-opposite-side design, except maybe they didn't allow enough space on the opposite side in the initial design phase, what with it butting up so close to Comet. This is more an annoyance than what the real problem with the ride is.

Let me say that I've been visiting Hersheypark since I was at least 4 years old, so I have a history with the park that spans over 25 years. After many new park trips and hundreds of different coasters later, it is still one of my favorite parks. They did an outstanding job with the installation of Skyrush, and the layout, while short, is great. The new path running along the creek is a wonderful place to hang out and watch the ride in action. It's also great to see Intamin finally produce a modern, roomy, 4-across train design (I am not a fan of their modern looping train design--they must design those things for small European people or something).

The biggest fault of the ride is easily one of the things I thought I'd like best about it--the lapbars. Pain is a bit of an understatement. First, the positive Gs push the bar down against your thighs pretty good. Then, the massive extreme negative Gs (which I very much enjoy on El Toro) throw your body into the bottom of the restraint so hard that I literally could not enjoy the one ride that I had on the thing; I immediately had to assume a defensive riding posture that really didn't help much. It was such a relief to hit the brakes at the end.

From what I can tell, the design of the track and trains is really good; the main fault seems to be the lap bars themselves. It seems to me that if the part that touches your thighs were much larger, then that could help alleviate some of the pain. The bars are basically a giant flat disk. Instead of the entire bottom of the disk pressing against your thighs, the disk is tilted, so that only the botton edge is pressing into your legs. The pressure is placed on a narrow ridge of the bar/disk, thus increasing the pain instead of spreading the force over a larger area.

I really hope Intamin and Hershey come to a great fix for this ride, as it could be so much better. Right now, it's not that it's a lame ride; it's a ride that downright hurts more than any other ride in the park.

For the record, I was riding on an end seat, but it was in the middle of the train, where the forces should be more balanced than the front or back.

Honestly I think those end seats are twice as rough and make the lapbars twice as painful, which is really damn painful. I agree with you one hundred percent though; I likened the experience to having someone back you into a corner and then repeatedly slam a hard, thin edged plastic table into your thighs. At an angle. Ow, ow, and OW!!! Hopefully though, as rumored, Intamin predicts a solution by later in the season. Hershey does NOT want to neuter this ride in any way, shape, or form, so likely there will be no trimming or retracking. This is great news, and if it happens that they can fix it, this coaster will most likely be in my top 10 (at least top 20). Until then, I'm done with it.

Oh, and middle of the train doesn't help. Nothing helps, although the middle seats ARE slightly less brutal. Slightly.

I don't know what other effects this would have, but it seems like the easiest solution would be to angle the "disk" forward about 30 degrees. If the entire disk is pressing down instead of just back edge, it should distribute the force across your entire thigh which might press but not pinch. Alternatively, they could strengthen the return springs and try to make them resist the positive G's, but that would take some pretty impressive springs.

It's too bad that such a potentially great ride is getting painful reviews.

For a good return spring, they can look no more than a few feet away to the sooperdooperLooper (I am assuming the new lap bars are nearly identical to the old ones?) I'm sure the "pull down" force on the Skyrush lap bars is much stronger, but those old lap bars on sdL are very hearty. (edit - now that I think about it, Intamin built the original sdL trains - I'm sure they can easily come up with a way to keep the lap bars from getting tighter.)

Another good example are the "custom" return springs fitted to the Viper lap bars at Great America. You have to pull down to get them down, they never fall.

While they are at it, maybe they would add return springs to the GCI trains... wishful thinking at least.

This return spring idea seems unusual for hypers. For instance, Nitro has no return spring system: The further you push down, the further down it stays. This isn't a problem, however, because as most users have suggested, using a bar with more surface area will better distribute the downward force on the thighs, making it more comfortable.

bunky666 said:

Oh, and middle of the train doesn't help. Nothing helps, although the middle seats ARE slightly less brutal. Slightly.

Actually, I thought the inner seats were MORE painful. Granted, I only had one ride in each type, but that was the sensation I got.