PointBuzz covers maXair media day at Cedar Point

They had a segment on MaxAir this morning on NBC 5 here in Chicago. I was surprised it got coverage this far away...especially since it's not a major rollercoaster.*** This post was edited by CoasterDude316 5/6/2005 10:31:42 AM ***

My word!

Does that look like a longer ride cycle than PKI's Delirium? I'm counting 4 "big" swings on maXair rather than the 2 on Delirium. The Games section looks pretty bland compared to what it used to look like, but I like the new look.

~Rob Willi

I thought CP said they would have a longer ride cycle than Delerium, and a higher throughput, but I can't see that happening, since they both seat the same aount of people.

^^This Cedar Fair, bland is what they do best. I see that new concrete was involved. ;)
*** This post was edited by CoasterFanMatt 5/6/2005 1:11:00 PM ***

Check out the very early morning pictures of the area with the colored lights on the games facade. That doesn't look "bland" to me at all.

Haha...that HUSS guy in the Welcome video was awesome. "...at speeds that would certainly raise the eyebrow of a police officer."

The photos don't do the games lighting justice. To stand at about Johnny Rocket's and look at the entire area with the dynamic lighting is just awesome. Very well done.

I spoke with Monty Jasper for a few moments and he said they used a lighter floor and a more "robust" pneumatic system to raise and lower the floor, so it's significantly faster. I thought perhaps the ride parked faster than Delirium, but that was only the case when it was not fully loaded. Sean Flaharaty said that maXair indeed has two more full-height swings than Delirium. I'll take his word for it, because he probably rode it last week. The crew has apparently been hitting 800 pph, but they think perhaps they can squeeze a lot more out of it with practice. It's a very stupid-guest-friendly ride to load and unload.

I did five rides between six and noon. That was plenty for me.

Seats 1-8 are the money seats.

Delerium has 3 "big" swings and one on each end of the "big swing cycle" that are almost as big....

It seems that Maxair is the same: 3 big, and one decent swing on either end...

I know when I timed Deleriums cycle from when it started swinging until it stopped was like a minute and 5 or 10 seconds...

All in all, it seems the cycles are at least very similar..

No, UBRhino, since the same seat will always be at the same spot of any certain swing every time certain seats will be going in certain directions at certain times.

Whichever seat is facing in whichever direction you perfer on whichever swing you perfer will be your personal money seat.

That said, I perfer seat 1-ish on Delirium.

Those seats tend to be on the top side of the disk on two or three of the biggest swings, and rotate to the bottom, putting you face down, on the others.

Here is a pretty funny video of a reporter on the ride.

http://www.wkyc.com/video/player.aspx?aid=12383&sid=34451&bw=

Jeff,

You are correct. MaXair does indeed have a longer ride cycle than the one at PKI. MaXair not only has more swings taken at the highest point of the ride, but it has quite a few more "moderate" swings at the end as well. The time the ride takes to "get home" is less as well.

Besides the extended ride cycle, I think both rides feel the same although the seats on MaXair sit further off the floor so your feet can't touch the ground. The one thing that confused me about MaXair is the lack of a large queue. It only looks as if it would hold 100 people, if that. The park did mention they are bringing in temporary queues tonight.

The lighting package the ride has is pretty sharp. The whole area looks great with all kinds of different lights. The ride itself will look nice at night with strobe lights in the center floor area as well as the very top of the ride.

I got in over 15 rides today and what impressed me with the most was the views. Seeing Dragster and Power Tower upside down was cool but seeing the lake and shooting up towards Space Spiral in the money seats was very strange.

Now, please excuse me as I honestly have to get some sleep. Staying up for 36 hours and riding a Giant Frisbee over and over tends to make you see strange things.

-Sean

CP does take a lot of trees out to build new rides, but give it 10+ years and those new trees will look much better.

No problem.

Delirium was me and my brother’s favorite ride at Kings Island, when we visited the park for the first time last year. We rode it about 6 times in two days. He hates spinning rides, but the swining motion of Delirium was so smooth that he didn’t get sick, which is why he loved it.

We’ve been to the Point several times over the years, and I’m sure that Maxair would fit right in, especially with a slightly longer ride cycle.

By the way, the news reporter ride video was classic!*** This post was edited by Al Miner 5/7/2005 2:31:28 AM ***

maXair looks amazing at night. They have wonderfully lit the ride. There are strobing lights when it swings back through. I thought the area looked very nice with banners and little projection machines that cast the Cedar Point logo onto the ground and the facade of the games. This might be one of my favorite parts of the park now. The line for maXair was never anything more than 45 minutes yesterday. The crew handled the crowds really well and they were on their game. I just don't understand why they made such a small queue. . .