New types of rollercoasters.

See with CP I think that a flying coaster is more of a possibility now then before, because CF (cedar fair) already owns...or at least will be owning....a floorless at Geauga Lake, and from my point of view it wouldn't make sense to have 2 floorless coasters within 100 miles of eachother owned by the same company. A flying coaster by B&M is very smooth and they can put more inversions in it and customize the landscape sort of like Air, only since the coaster would be put in Cedar Point I would guess it would be a bit more extreme.

However, I already been on superman: flying coaster or w/e its called and I didn't really find it thrilling. I rather go on Raptor or even Batman before that.

I really like wood coasters and I hope Cedar Point looks into that soon as well. But personally I think in the next ten years your gonna see a Flying Coaster and a Maurer Söhne Coaster. Because they are both unique and can fit in a small footprint.

I doubt CP will get a flying (just my opinion). Why? Because it's a gimmick, just like standups. They already have one gimmick coaster (Mantis) and it didn't pan out for them as well as they hoped. I remember when Ron Toomer sopke at Coastermania talking about how well Raptor did for the park, and how Mantis didn't do so well for them, or something to that effect.

Now, I could be completely wrong, but I look at how my friends feel about something like Mantis...they will wait 15 minutes for it tops, but will still wait a long time for Magnum, Raptor, MF, etc.

The real item of interest will be to see if the coaster at Port Aventura really is a B&M 4d :)

Now, why does everyone say the flying coaster is a "gimmick?" My experience is otherwise. Now, sure, the stand-up is a gimmick. But my reasoning there is that the ride would be essentialy the same if it were a sit down ride, or migth even be improved. There are only a few key spots where, for about a second, you're even aware it's a stand-up. But with flying, it's totally different. You know the whole ride that you're flying, and the whole experience is different from a regular sit-down, or even inverted.

What kind of coaster did my non-enthusiast brother call "the most fun I've ever had on a roller coaster?" A flying coaster. What kind of coaster gave me a "body-chopper" experience that wouldn't be possible on any other kind? A flyer. What kind of coaster has that pretzel loop that produces insane G's in new ways? A flyer.

Now, I will admit that the whole flying gig has been a little lackluster, to date. But picture, if you will, this situation: It's 1992, and Vekoma International comes out with the newest, coolest, most insane coaster concept in the world... the suspended looping roller coaster!! However, the thing doesn't work very well (I don't know, maybe the retractable floor keeps getting stuck), and the experience is flat out painful, to say the least. Three years later, B&M comes out with its own version,somethign called the "inverted" coaster. However, due to the painful nature of the SLC, the parks have demanded a very peaceful, lazy ride, about equivalent to today's Superman: Ultimate Flight. Enthusiasts praise its improvements over the Vekoma model to the sky, but insist that the ride is a bore. In such a situation, would not the whole idea of an inverted coaster be considered a "gimmick?"

The way I see it, any kind of deviation from the standard, be it steel rails, loops, standing up, flying, or being inverted, could be a a gimmick. But most of these have become exceptional rides in their own right. I believe that the flyer has that potential. Unleash it, give it a chance to be as intense as Batman: The Ride or Raptor, and I'm sure it will be an unforgetable experience, and one that is like none other.

You're mistaken....B&M built the invert first in 1992....Vekoma built their's in 1994. Might want to rethink the whole thing :)

Flyers have been around since 96 or so (Skytrak, followed by Birdmen, followed by Stealth) The B&Ms have had a nice response, though! The Vekomas have had an ok response, and the Zamperla....OUCH!!!!!

I know the whole gimmick area is grey....I just dono't see a flyer going to CP.....I could be very wrong though! *** Edited 3/27/2004 9:22:55 PM UTC by Peabody***

Whether or not a flyer will go to CP, I agree the concept, like the stand-up, is a gimmick. Why? It's much more comfortable to sit on a coaster than stand up or lie down. When I first rode a flyer, I thought the experience was unbelievable. The second time, I thought it was ok. The novelty wore off quick. I was never a huge fan of stand-ups, either, but I actually prefer them over flyers now.

That's exactly how I feel, Vater.

It's not that the ride is a gimmmick....every coaster is to some extent. The gimmick is a change in body position. Inverts/suspendeds/launched, etc all have "gimmicks" but not for body position. The two body possition changes are standups and flying (not including X in this argument). I suspect flying will suffer the same fate as the standup....a nice heyday with a half dozen or so being built, but then dwindling popularity on existing models with no new ones being built.

In my experience, people love S:UF but after a while their body tires of the position (which is taxing on the body). An example is my father....he will ride MF/TTD/Legend/Raven etc. all day, but won't ride S;UF again because it was so tough on his body/chest.

Not to mention the eye-popping G-filled helices and face-flattening inversions.

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Vater said:
There is no '3 coaster deal' between CP and B&M.

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There is a 3 coaster deal with B&M and a 3 coaster deal with Intamin. Cedar Point put their 3rd B&M coaster aside to get the newer and more innovative Intamin designs. Now that there's really nothing more that Intamin can do for CP, they are reportedly going to finish off the contract with B&M.

Although I don't know how realistic this is, I would love to see a stand up or flyer hyper. The Gs would be kind of hard to take...(Zamperla/Vekoma trains...ouch)...but the negative Gs and high banked curves would be pretty fun. Although this could be another one of those --> lets build a stand up that goes straight down into a lake and then does an underwater launched that goes into space...hehe...sorry) But I doubt we will see any hyper/giga in any other form/with any other kind of train.

MantisRO2002,

And you know this how? You don't know what you are talking about. *** Edited 3/28/2004 5:07:36 AM UTC by Scream Machine***

Exactly...it's just a persistant rumor. After all, CP has even said there's no such deal, as do "those who know". Even then, such a contract makes 0 sense from a business standpoint.

The only such deals that exist are when a chain buys 2 or more coasters from a manu. in the same season (WT, and Xcel for example)

If I was CP I wouldn't make a deal with B&M or anyone. I mean for all CP could know something better could come along with another company.

Peabody said:

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You're mistaken....B&M built the invert first in 1992....Vekoma built their's in 1994. Might want to rethink the whole thing

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Okay, if that had been a wink, I wouldn't write this (because I thought you would have gotten it), but I want to be sure I'm not taken for a fool:

I know perfectly well that B&M came out with their inverted ride in '92: SFGAm, where that ride debuted, is my homepark. I was taking a concept we all agree is a superb ride, and trying to show you all how we could, under different circumstances, call it a mere gimmick that offers, at best, a passing thrill. I was implying, in short, that if B&M had done a fast, intense, smooth flyer first, like thye did with the inverted concept, we would all think flyers are just as valid a "stable" concept as inverted rides. I'm not actually saying that this is true, but I think it's something to be considered.

My apologies if I was clear the first time, and am coming off as patronizing.

That makes much more sense now....it didn't before :) No rudeness intended out of my original post. You were just making a point on how Vekoma came out with the invert before B&M and that isn't the case.

I would still disagree with your point, just based on the fact that the gimmick we are talking about is body position, and that's not found on inverts. It has almost nothing to do with Vekoma vs. B&M. Case in point: Put a blind man (general public) on a floorless and an invert and challenge him to tell the difference if he doesn't know what he's riding. There's no way to tell, because they are the same on your body. Standups and flyers are gimmicks in body position, and they do not hold the test of time as well, as discussed above.

I will admit, flyers may be a little "gimicky" but to be fair here, isn't every new coaster design a gimmick of some sort? A ploy to get guests to come flocking to the parks every year. It's getting harder and harder to accomplish because guests are becoming bored with the mundane. They don't just wanna go fast anymore. They want high, fast, dangerous, more exciting. So these new coaster designs (flyers, standups, impulse, launched, etc) all have to play the roll of new and exciting reasons to attend a park every year. And in all honesty, if parks don't start innovating somehow people WILL start to get bored and go to the people who DO provide innovative and new rides. So I say build the flyers and the standups (mainly cuz I was a RO on one for a summer and LOVED IT) and launchers, and the impulses. As they say in Field of Dreams: "If you build it, they will come."

In defense of my "3 coaster deal" posts, I only know what I was told by former "higher up" employees of the Park Operations at Cedar Point. And yes, it may not make sense in a business stand point if you're looking at it from CP's side of the fence. But take a look at it from B&M's or Intamin's side. It's assured business, which from any stand point is a great thing

Either way. It's a good thing Cedar Point builds different Coasters. They are diverse that way, offering to a more wider range of the public sort of, and they are making themselves look good too. They can say they have 17 (with the new coaster) coasters from 5 different companies all offering a different thrill experience, compared to SFGam for example, which has like 8 B&M's, a lawn ornament, and a launch coaster. I guess Cedar Point just wants to be different in a way that noone else can challenge them. That doesn't mean they have to build a 120 mph launch coaster, but they did. So knowing the kinds of risk CP has taken throughout the last 5-6 years, I would say that they are gonna build something unique, something that many parks don't have, and something that the public would want to see from them. I trust Cedar Point to offer a great thrill experience no matter what they build.

I don't think there are many more "risks" that a park can take. They can only build so high and so fast. I think that the roller coaster industry is going to have to come up with new ideas. Possibly something like a track jumper. Either that or they are going to have to start copying other innovations like the technology of X Flight. Knowing CP as well as I do, they will come up with the most innovative and unheard of ideas. I'm watching and waiting in suspense.....

Actually, I disagree....the future is better and more inovative use of the existing...(Look at The Mummy for example). ....not the invention of new things. Look at the popularity of simple coasters like quality woodies, hyper coasters with nothing fancy about them, shuttles, etc.

A track jumper? never, ever going to happen :) And copying X-flight? We're in the third straight year of Vekoma selling 0 flyers, and I doubt that will change. Flyers don't last well...the first 2 were complete failures, Stealth was more successful, but not really, and the B&Ms still have to stand the test of time. (I think they will have the same fate of the standup....a brief heydey followed by no more being built and dwindling ridership)

The biggest attempt at coming up with a new idea (X) is a failure from a desiging standpoint...no one else is willing to build another one, and the current one can't reach a resonable capacity, nor operate very reliably. (Not saying the ride isn't killer, just saying that as a product it failed so far)

In the midst of all these attempts at innovations that are popular for a while, the simple, crowd pleasing designs are the real winners. Just wait and see...the big winners this year will be Thunderhead and Timberland Twister. They will still be pleasing tons of riders in 20 years all with smiles on their faces when half of the really "innovative" coasters are torn down. *** Edited 3/30/2004 5:00:23 AM UTC by Peabody***