PKI major announcement soon.

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Jason Hammond said:
They are stil in negotiations. Everything is still up in the air. The only changes you likely see this year will be sinage changes and such.

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What negotiations? Cedar Fair has decided to completely drop the Paramount prefix as of 2007 to eliminate the fees payed to CBS Corp.

However, the individual rides named after films and television programs owned by Paramount have different licensing contracts that expire at different dates.

Wow, X-flight is going to KI. Who would have thunk? And here coasterkid promised it was going to MiA. :) Certainly had to be the worst kept secret of the offseason.

If you look at the fact sheet that was posted for Firehawk, the thing that stands out is the VERY LOW capacity. It has been stated before this may not be the best fit for a high volume park like KI. Here are some comparison numbers that I pulled off of some of the websites.

Firehawk: 400 people/hr/train for a ride lasting 2:30. Let's hope they run multiple trains.

Flight of Fear: 2,000 people/hr for ride lasting 1:05. I have a hard time believing that number but it is listed on the website.

TTD: 1,500 people/hr

Millennium Force: 1,600 people/hr for ride lasting 2:20

Patriot: 1,160/hr for 2:18

Renegade: 850/hr for 2:00

Wild Thing at VF: 1,700/hr for running 3 trains for ride lasting 3:00

Again, I pulled these numbers off of the park websites, and they will obviously vary depending on how many trains each ride is running on a given day. I also included the times since a ride that lasts one minute can handle more people per hour than one lasting 3 minutes

Still, I fear Firehawk may have a very low capacity and suffer from very long waiting times. Let's hope they can keep multiple trains running each day.

Also I think we can put to rest how KI is planning to spend their $10 million for the year. Between Firehawk and SoB, along with some infrastructure, consider the money as being spent. You can forget about KI getting a "new" thrill ride. $10 million will only cover refurbishing two old rides.

Also remember that some parks will start openning in 2 1/2 months. (I know it's hard to believe when it's -35 degree windchills in Minnesota right now). This should be the LAST major announcement for 2007. If it hasn't happened by now, it won't. Now everyone can start predicting what's going happen in 2008. :)

^ yup, sadly but yup.

I have just come across that WOF has a new NEW FOR 2007 TAG. It might mean their is still hope for some more announcements.

^Straight from the park's mouth -- NO NEW RIDES

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kRaXLeRidAh said:

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Jason Hammond said:
They are still in negotiations. Everything is still up in the air. The only changes you likely see this year will be sinage changes and such.

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What negotiations? Cedar Fair has decided to completely drop the Paramount prefix as of 2007 to eliminate the fees payed to CBS Corp.

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Ok, I guess what I should have said was they Cedar Fair Representative Maureen Kaiser from Kings Island said that they are still in negotiations. Everything is still up in the air. The only changes you likely see this year will be sinage changes and such.

And just because they dropped the prefix doesn't mean there arn't still licensing issues to resolve.
*** Edited 2/6/2007 1:19:33 PM UTC by Jason Hammond***

Flight of Fear: 2,000 people/hr for ride lasting 1:05. that number is a very inaccurate number and was the theoretical if they had the old shoulder restraint trains and were running 3 and perfect conditions.

In reality, they probably have a capacity of around 500 to 700pph. Having worked at kings island and on flight of fear when they had the lab restraints, there is no way they could ever break a 1000pph and 600 or so is considered good with the system they have now. Compared to other coasters at the park, firehawk will be average if its around 800pph.

Beast is around 900pph, were 1000pph if you're really lucky, but 900 or above is good.

Racer, Vortex, and Adventure Express push the most it seems. Some of these listed capacities, espeically on Flight of Fear are not even possible now. Beast also, in that 1200pph is virtually impossible, in that you could have a full train and check the ride before the other train has gone up the lift every time during that hour, and still might not even break 1100pph. I think the most cycles I ever got when I worked there with the new brakes and blocks was 30 cycles, and that was the only time I ever got 30. 27 or 28 was really good and lucky. Oh well, Firehawk as long as it runs 2 and does an ok job, will likely have a better capacity than Face off, Drop Zone, Delerium and Tomb Raider, and maybe slighty worst off than Italian Job. Son of Beast if it now has 30 seat trains might not be the greatest people mover either. The one thing though, its the first time in a while that a new (well moved but new to the park) ride has been added and not a single ride will be taken out. So overall, the park overal ability to handle crowds should be better.

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Did anyone else find it funny that in the 13 industry leading roller coasters out of the main ones to be shown was Runaway Reptar? Even though MANY people HATE those contraptions! I guess this also means they include Beastie in those 13; that or Little Bill's Giggle Coaster, LOL!

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No, but I find your post funny. Every park includes the kids roller coasters in their "world class count"...like Woodstock Express and Junior Gemini at Cedar Point.

Runaway Reptar IS a world class coaster. How many inverted coasters designed exclusively for children are there? Actually when I see it, it makes me wish I was 6 again.

And I am going to guess you have never ridden (former Beastie) the "fairly odd coaster". For a "kid's coaster", it packs a nice little bang. It's not your typical "snap-together-carnival-esque" dragon on a make-shift track....it's a nice little woodie.

For kids, they are world-class coasters...and Kings Island is the #1 park for kids by far....so it makes perfect sense they would mention it.

^Actually I've ridden the Beastie (Fairly Odd Coaster) over 40 times. :) But I still don't find it as "world class". I understand they count them for advertisement purposes, but in my book they do not "lead" the industry.

And BTW, there are 9 inverted coasters designed *exclusively* for children.

I dunno Beast Fan,JJ<premier LIM bowl> can load & disptach several trains in the same amount of time that it takes to load & dispatch just one Batwing train....but given the park that the ride is located in it could be chalked up to poor operations than anything else.

Also of consideration is that both rides have a capacity of 24 riders per train,that said the load times for a vekoma flyer would be increased due in part to the restraint design as,unlike the LIM launcher you have more than just a lap bar & seat belt to deal with.

A lot of people would argue that the Fairly Odd Coaster has the most well maintained track and trains of any wooden coaster in the park. Probably because it doesn't have a tendency to eat itself like all the others do.

^ I resemble those people...I even saved it for my last coaster at PKI last year due to expecting FOC to be the cream of the woodie crop there. Shame that is...

Honestly, I'm probably one of the few who believes CF will do *at least* as well as Paramount did at maintaining wooden coasters. They'll certainly have lots of wood to work with, LOL.

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BATWING FAN SFA said:
I dunno Beast Fan,JJ<premier LIM bowl> can load & disptach several trains in the same amount of time that it takes to load & dispatch just one Batwing train....but given the park that the ride is located in it could be chalked up to poor operations than anything else.

Also of consideration is that both rides have a capacity of 24 riders per train,that said the load times for a vekoma flyer would be increased due in part to the restraint design as,unlike the LIM launcher you have more than just a lap bar & seat belt to deal with.

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The second theory is right the batwing crew just needs to get there buts in gear.

If people listen on the vekoma flyers and just did there shoulder harness it would run better, 80% of the time when people pull down the lapbar they don't put there legs in the cuffs.

^ Yes,I noticed that happening once last season....good thing they can just unlock individual rows instead of the entire train.

Those lap bars aren't easy to push down I can tell you.I once tried to push mine down when it wasn't set tight enough & couldn't do it at all...still Sirloindude was doing one helluva job dispatching trains during frightfest 05.

In retrospect, I think that instead of being PKI's major announcement this really turned into KI's minor announcement. Nothing except the name was new information from what had been speculated for several months. This is further emphasized by the fact that no mention of Firehawk has appeared on their website since the announcement. Now that is hype! ;)

I wonder if they will change their domain name anytime soon.

Ha.. not likely. They still have a ton of old info on cedarfair.com much less the park websites. Look at the company description page alone... in one paragraph it says they have 12 parks (with paramount) and in the very next it says only 7. Further down the page it says stuff like "...will open...in 2006..." - long since over, guys. :)

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BATWING FAN SFA said:
^ Those lap bars aren't easy to push down I can tell you.I once tried to push mine down when it wasn't set tight enough & couldn't do it at all...still Sirloindude was doing one helluva job dispatching trains during frightfest 05.

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Once the train is locked they won't move.

Yea Sirloindude was pretty good, he was beating people that had been there all summer on his first day.

^That's odd because I've had it pushed down tighter by the ops before after the train had been locked.

When sitting in the seat there simply isn't enough leverage<at least not for me> to push it down further if it's one or two clicks away from being firmly tightened but it can be pushed tighter by the ops from their upright,standing position.

^there's two sets of pins, one just so they can put the bars down and the second to lock it. Once the second set comes out the bars won't move anymore.

They attendants can get more force on it than you can, thats why the attendants normaly push the bars down so fast.

Does anyone have a progress report on how far along they are in the building prosses of firehawk? The last picture that was posted is almost a month old.

Just curius if there is any footer work done yet.