Premier Rides to market Fly By Wire

106 mph flyer, sounds great!

I am having a hard time imagining how this is going to work. Do you go around like a giant waveswinger or is this more like a skycoaster or what? 106 does sound pretty cool. Also, if the ride cost 2-8 million, why are they selling it for 2.5?

http://www.flybywire.co.nz/

There's the company's website if you don't already know what it is. What I want to know is what is the lucky Southeastern amusement park that is currently in negotiations to get the first? Carowinds? SFOG possibly?

I saw that on a trill ride show on Discovery channel some time ago. Glad to see it's finally being sold to parks!

This will undoubtedly be an up-charge attraction. Capacity is worse than a skycoaster...maybe 6 people an hour or so.

"Roller coaster"? Not by ANY of my various definitions, LOL...

Nonetheless, it's something I've wanted to try ever since I saw the first US installation...and that was a few years ago now...:)

This might be what Premier is going to be doing:
http://www.flybywire.co.nz/skysurfer.htm

(It even says so on the page)

They had one of these somewhere in Texas a few years ago, but it shut down before I got to go check it out.

106 sounds fast but hey im not complaining about it.

:) :)

Dear God,

Please let skysurfer be constructed at sfog

Love

A kid from alabama

Yeah, Pancake, It was in Burleson, TX. About 15 miles from Downtown Fort Worth. 10 mins or so from me. Stupid complaining neighbors. Gr.

They just recently removed the towers and the site is up for sale, so apparently there is no hope. :(

Marketed by Premier Rides? With their own coasters as it is not exactly selling like hotcakes, their somewhat failed Liquid Coaster, it wouldn't really give me confidence in their marketing ability. The fact that their R&D team is essentially responsible for only a small handful of different styles of rides in the course of their history doesn't exactly make them seem like the most innovative bunch either. Speaking of which, it said they're 75 years old. What'd they do for the other 67 years before building their first coasters?

Hope it goes well for them though, it just doesn't sit right with me, what with Premier essentially in organism mode for the past four or so years, and their R&D team out for even longer. It'd be good to see this ride take off. The Kiwis are undeniably the world leaders for extreme activities, but not much of it makes it beyond the Pacific.

Edit: Reading Premier's website, I see that the writer of the article got slightly confused. It's 75 years of combined experience, not quite the same as a 75 year-old company. :)
*** This post was edited by auscoasterman 5/11/2004 8:29:05 AM ***

^ I'm not sure. They seem to be doing ok. They designed both of Universal's Mummy rides, and I bet that was a pretty decent payout for them.

106 mph, huh?I'm not sure I'm buying this - height of the drop (and the supporting structure, if the video is accurate) would have to be somewhere slightly north of 350 ft. Unless it's launched and they're just not saying so, of course. ;)

Edit: Upon re-read of the article, I'm completely confused. They mention the attraction will go 106 mph, which makes it sound like the "flying" ride from this company, while the article specifically mentions "roller coaster." Hmmmmm....
*** This post was edited by Doug Rowe 5/11/2004 1:47:50 PM ***

Doug - It's not a roller coaster. The vehicle is suspended by cables and powered by a small jet engine. You must have missed this link, a few posts up [twice]:

http://www.flybywire.co.nz/skysurfer.htm

mOOSH

*** This post was edited by Mamoosh 5/11/2004 3:53:38 PM ***

Thanks for the reply, Mamoosh, but I didn't miss that link. I had supposed that what was being built was the product on the FlyByWire site that actually looks like a roller coaster, since the article specifically mentions that a "roller coaster" was being developed.

But imagine my dismay when I surmised they were *actually* writing about a product that neither rolls nor coasts in any way...

Oh well. LOL.

Ah...well I've seen lots of rides called roller coasters by careless newspaper editors. I understand your confusion ;)

Yeesh. I think I'll be skipping that one. I saw some videos on the Discovery Channel (or was it Travel) and I think I would be terrified. Anything I'm in control of is not safe.

I was fortunate enough to get to Queenstown New Zealand earlier this year and check out the fly by wire. Needless to say it was fun.. but not that much excitement to it. I was able to get the plane almost parallel with the canyon wires though! :)