the bat at PKI - CoasterBuzz

Does anyone remember the bat? OF course! What happened to why they closed it down in the 80's? I never had the chance to ride it but always heard horror stories about it.Was there an accident with this ride? What exactly did the Bat do or supposed to do? Thanks!

The ride was a piece of junk. It had a lot of mechanical issues. After KI removed it they put up an ad (I believe it was in Amusement Busisness) right next to Arrow's ad saying what a horrible job Arrow had done.

In an effort to make up for their mistakes Arrow offered to build them another coaster at a big disount. KI chose a multi-looper patterned after the Orient Express. They got Vortex for only four milliobn dollars!

Prowler. Opens May,2 2009.

This topic has been discussed before, however, I can't find the links. The Bat was removed basically due to it being a maintenance nightmare. The curves and turns really weren't designed at the right pitch, thus causing the shocks on the train to wear prematurely.

That's an extremely short explanation, but I believe sums it up.

Fever I really enjoy the Simpsons. It's just a shame that I am starting to LOOK like Homer.

Here are some pics I took of The Bat back in the day. Too bad it was already closed. Enjoy!

http://www.extremepki.com/historyphotos/thumbnails.php?album=2

Judging from the pics it appears as though they forgot about the banking with this ride. I guess they assumed that since it was a suspended coaster they didn't have to bank any of the track. Oops. :X

This was the first suspended coaster right? And all of them since have featured banking?

I don't care how new the technology is, it's pretty silly to think you wouldn't have to bank the track.

Well, from the picture I have of it from the "American Rollercoaster," it looks like the cars swung way past horizontal to compensate.

^Which is why the coaster was tearing itself apart (or at least the trains). ;)

The original station for The Bat was actually kept and reused as the current loading station for Vortex.

Those pictures are really cool - I've never seen them before. It looks like a sizeable coaster (much more to it than Top Gun).

As stated before, there wasn't any banking for the turns. It was believed that the shocks would handle the pressure of the turns. Turns out they were wrong and the shocks were wearing out constantly. No one died or was injured on the Bat.

Thanks for the info. It was one of those things that had always bugged me. Does anyone remember the monorail and screaming demon at KI back in the day?? I guess Im getting old. I always heard stories about the bat being a crazy ride.

And in addition to blowing the shocks, it was tearing up the structure of the ride, which is what caused its demise.

Arrow perfected the design and when the built Big Bad Wolf, it had properly banked track, and it still runs today.

I believe the Bat had the brake fins on the bottom of the trains, instead of up above where they are today, too.

That was pretty dumb, but hey, it was the first one...

I'm just curious - does anyone here have or know of any video of the Bat in operation? If so, are there any videos online?

Coasterbuzzer said:
As stated before, there wasn't any banking for the turns. It was believed that the shocks would handle the pressure of the turns. Turns out they were wrong and the shocks were wearing out constantly. No one died or was injured on the Bat.

The Bat was originally designed without the shocks. The shocks were actually added incrementally after the ride had been installed and run to reduce the swing. My understanding is that Arrow thought the swinging motion would kill a good portion of the momentum.

The bit about the shocks is straight from the engineer at PKI who installed them, so that part I'm sure of.

- DJ

"When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it's always twenty years behind the times." - Mark Twain

Not banking the track was a stupid enough move, but what really struck me as silly was that they were braking the ride from under the tub instead of on the bogey. Seems to me that not braking from the heaviest spot on the car would involve common sense.

Jeff - Editor - CoasterBuzz.com - My Blog

yes there is a video of the bat over at coaster fanatics web site.

^Great promo video! You have to be a member but signing up is easy.

SOB's biggest fanboy!

Rare Roller Coaster Resources

Scroll down to the "Arrow Suspended Coaster Prototype Video" link and download it. The video shows a prototype suspended coaster that Arrow built (I'm assuming at their old plant) with no shocks and no banking. It also shows a working suspended coaster model with a corkscrew in it, showing that at least someone at Arrow wanted their suspended coasters to invert.

Really interesting video, really wrong-headed designing.

Jeff said:
Not banking the track was a stupid enough move, but what really struck me as silly was that they were braking the ride from under the tub instead of on the bogey. Seems to me that not braking from the heaviest spot on the car would involve common sense.

That always puzzled me as well. It's not like that was a design oversight, it was just plain dumb.

BBSpeed26 said:
Rare Roller Coaster Resources
Really interesting video, really wrong-headed designing.

I found the same video clip with sound on You Tube.

It's interesting to hear them talk about it and adds a lot to the clip.

coasterimage - lordgonchar