I 305 gets trim on the first drop

^Must. Behave. Double-entendres. Filling. My. Brain!

They should have made the first turn an overbanked turn like MF. Dropping 305 feet and then having a ground hugging turn was a dumb idea. Cool in theory, but dumb in reality.

If the turn had a longer radius, it could've worked with lower forces on the rider.

Lord Gonchar said:
But you're right, it's poor design - which is exactly what I was talking long before these trims were even rumored, let alone a reality. :)

Yeah, cant +1 insightful you on that one Gonch. It was being said on media day that this thing is going to be trimmed.

Mamoosh said:
^Must. Behave. Double-entendres. Filling. My. Brain!

Heh.

I have not really been keeping up to date on I-305, but I see that it appears the first turn is causing some problems....

Quite honestly I had a feeling that this exact problem was going to happen after watching the simulation videos.

Basically, Intamin oversized a Megalite's first hill and forgot to really oversize the rest of it.

While I have to say that Rideman's alternative would be pretty cool, I think that Jeff's idea to re-profile the turn is really the only option left seeing as the trims do not seem to have done as much as planned.

(I have not ridden I-305 though, so disregard this post if you would like. :) )

So I'm not a huge coaster enthusiast like most of you guys are, but I happened to ride the I305 today (I was kind of pushed into it, I prefer more intricate coasters to the tall drop, high speed ones) and was intrigued by what I saw happening, so I looked into it and found this thread.

I think there's three problems with this ride:
1. The speed cut
2. The blackouts
3. The turns later on

First of all, like I said before, I'm not much for the whole insane speed thing, so I was a bit worried on the way up about just how fast it was going to be, but.. even I noticed the trim on the way down. I was seriously surprised we weren't dropping faster, and this explains it.

And that connects to the second issue. I greyed out. Even though it didn't feel fast, once I hit the turn, I was losing it. It's definitely related to the turn, not the speed, as has been suggested before. The trims didn't stop it, and adding more is pretty much impossible without totally killing the fun.

And it wasn't just me. I was part of a fairly large group, and I'd say 60ish percent of those I talked to about it either greyed out or fully blacked out. This isn't a small, isolated problem. It's only a matter of time before something bad happens. Quite frankly, I think this is scaring people off. On a day when the wait for the Volcano took 45 minutes, we walked straight into the queues for the separate rows on the 305. Maybe a 15 minute wait. It should be more popular, but I hardly heard anyone say they loved it. Mostly I heard "underwhelmed", "overrated", or "I blacked/greyed out". Not the reputation you want your major new coaster to have...

Anyway, number 3. This pretty much resulted in me not enjoying any part of the ride. The sharp turns at the end - especially the last one, but maybe three total, were seriously jarring. Those over the shoulder restraints they're using - I hit my neck on them multiple times (I'm around 5'10"). Personally I don't think the whole problem is the restraints, but that's a major part of it.

So I walked off KD's main attraction pretty beaten up and not really in the mood for much else. My neck hurt for the rest of the time there. They need to do something about it, and I think the only option is the aforementioned one of completely redesigning the bottom of the first drop. Enjoyed the Volcano much, much more.

Interesting.

I'm more intrigued than ever to ride this.

This has to be the first coaster in history to simultaneously be called too slow, too intense and too rough.

It's the trifecta of suck.

I'm not sure I followed you here: did you know about the trims before your ride or did you not find out until afterwards?

I havn't been on this ride, but from what i've read I totally agree with you. Come this offseason they will probably redesign the bottum of that first drop.

I found your story very interesting thanks for sharing! 60% is very high; so i'm wondering just how many people were in your group that rode I-305.

WhiteBox said:
Quite frankly, I think this is scaring people off. On a day when the wait for the Volcano took 45 minutes, we walked straight into the queues for the separate rows on the 305. Maybe a 15 minute wait.

This is actually not an accurate gauge on the ride's popularity; I305 and Volcano were both packed opening day, and while Volcano had a 1.5-hour wait, I305's was no more than 35-40 minutes. Granted, Volcano was running only one train, but even with two it's never been a people mover.

Lord Gonchar said:
This has to be the first coaster in history to simultaneously be called too slow, too intense and too rough.

It's the trifecta of suck.

Indeed. And ironically, without the trims, I still didn't find it too intense or too rough (though I know many will disagree).

I like the thought of modifying the sled, because this can happen at ground level. Making it a safer and easier alternative to the current trims. If it's possible. I for one think they could have a prox activate a mag-plate latch on the sled. But then again they can't drain water from a boat.

Considering people are still graying out despite the trims, wouldn't it be best to just remove the trims so that people are graying out for a shorter amount of time?

That might be true if the only reason for the trims was to prevent greyout. They are still working on getting the wheel maintenance manageable and the trim may be helping with that quite a bit.

Eric Hossfield said:
I'm not sure I followed you here: did you know about the trims before your ride or did you not find out until afterwards?

I havn't been on this ride, but from what i've read I totally agree with you. Come this offseason they will probably redesign the bottum of that first drop.

I found your story very interesting thanks for sharing! 60% is very high; so i'm wondering just how many people were in your group that rode I-305.

I had no idea anything was wrong with this until after the fact. I didn't even know there were trims until I looked into it later. I just knew something was off.

Er, it was over 200 people all together, and I'm going by asking multiple smaller groups of people I knew from that. At least half of the people in each group said they did, but I think it leaned more towards being higher than 50%.

Vater said:

This is actually not an accurate gauge on the ride's popularity; I305 and Volcano were both packed opening day, and while Volcano had a 1.5-hour wait, I305's was no more than 35-40 minutes. Granted, Volcano was running only one train, but even with two it's never been a people mover.

That's interesting.. Though I305 was only on one car too. It just seemed like a really short line for something that should be really popular?

Indeed. And ironically, without the trims, I still didn't find it too intense or too rough (though I know many will disagree).

See, I'm coming from more of a general public angle I think. Since I'm not a huge fan of this type of coaster. I'm sure a lot of you guys would love it, but I definitely wasn't hearing much positive about it afterwards. Heard quite a few people say "Yeah, it was rough". Not sure if they meant the blacking out, or literal roughness. Not good either way.

Well, the fact that there wasn't much of a line and that it was only running one train could be pretty telling. I haven't been to KD since opening day, so if the ridership has indeed decreased since then (and if people generally don't seem to enjoy the ride), I wonder if we could be seeing another Drachen Fire scenario.

TAER IT DOWN!

;)

You beat me to it, LK!

Is it time to ride Diamondback yet?

WhiteBox said:
I think there's three problems with this ride:
1. The speed cut
2. The blackouts
3. The turns later on

I wouldn't have a problem with #1 as a patron - but as a park operator, I'd be less-than-pleased that it was necessary and that I'd paid for a 300+' coaster almost immediately altered to yield a top speed equivalent of a 200'-220' ride.

#2 - I didn't experience, but I've heard enough to know wayyy too many people did.

#3 - to me, THIS is the real debacle of this ride - those turns would be pretty awesome IF the ride featured lappies, or even the vests featured on the aforementioned rides....but those uber-quick turns combined with the OTSRs = ouchiness! :(

For the record, I've not seen any real proof that anyone "blacked out." Grey-out is not the same, though I can see why a lot of people might not be fond of those kinds of feelings.

^Oops, true enough. What I'd heard was grey-outs, which for some reason most people find unpleasant...go figure! ;)