I'll say right from the start that I didn't have the opportunity to ride Stealth last year, so I can NOT compare X-Flight to Stealth (Lori, if you want to jump in here feel free ;) )
Now, having said that, I found X-Flight to be an interesting, but not outstanding, coaster. But as usual I'm getting ahead of myself.
Things were very disorganized for this commercial shoot. We were told to be there by 8am. I got there at 8, and ended up in the "D" group (apparently signing actually started at 7:30). Now, due to the nature of commercial shoots (lots of "set this shot up, roll them, now set this one up..."), I didn't expect a lot of rides anyway. I was there to help out with a warm body to fill in a seat, adding X-Flight to my track record in return.
At around 8:30, they tried dispatching the first train. It stopped on the lift. Then it went. Then they sent another. Stopped on the lift. Sent over. I was busy chatting with various RRC and CoasterBuzz people (including Matt Lynch and Lori Uhing (loriu)) during this process (and I was approached by a number of people asking "Are you Greg?" -- cool, but somewhat disconcerting ;) ) so I didn't note how many such cycles went through, but it took a while. It got to the point where we were afraid we wouldn't get on before lunch.
Then, miracle of miracles, they lined us up and said we were going to ride. Finally the "A" train went out. Then the B train. At which point we noticed that while the train capacity is 24, at least one of the groups had been assigned 28 people. This started a trend of miscounting. When they finally got to the "D" group, they started letting us in, cutting off the loading after me. So theoretically I'm #24, right? Nope, they'd let 25 in. To make up for that, one of the directors said I could pick any seat I wanted on the NEXT ride. Heh.
Ride #1 (finally), about 12:45pm -- Front Seat left. My first reaction to X-Flight was "neat gimmick, Ok ride, not going to be eager to reride it." The G's through the loop and final helix are pretty strong, I wouldn't be too surprised of SFWoA has problems with people passing out in the summer heat when trying to ride this. The feeling of hanging is DEFINITELY interesting, though, especially in the front where it REALLY feels line there's nothing in front of you (many times you can't see the track at all, since it's "behind" you from your perspective).
Then it was time for lunch. The food was VERY good, much better than the standard "hot dogs and burgers" fare I'm used to from various cons :) I opted for the Greek "vegetarian" selection for something different, and it turned out to be VERY good tabouleh and hummus, with pitas, serviceable stuffed grape leaves, and a rather dry (but still welcome as a change-of-pace) piece of baklava.
By this point it was already 2pm, and I'd gotten my ride on X-Flight. I was considering leaving for Cedar Point for the rest of the day, but while talking to various people found myself thinking "Cedar Point will be there, how often do I get a chance to do something like this?"
So I opted to stay. Over the course of the day, enough people drifted off that I ended up getting promoted from "D" group, to "employee group" ("we need to fill in this train, any volunteers?" Silly question ;) ), to "B" group. By the end of the day I'd gotten 8 laps on X-Flight, including front row, back row, and 3 rapid rerides in the 2nd row. Not a LOT, but honestly more than I'd expected, and considering "admission" was free (actually they gave us tickets for a return visit as "payment"), I won't look a gift horse in the mouth...
There WAS one annoyance I do want to comment on, though. Around 6:30pm we were told we were going to take a break. They emphatically asked us to PLEASE not leave, because we'd be getting back on and they were running out of people. Finally around 7:30 they called us back up into the station. Where they proceeded to load the "A" train (which was about half original "A" members, and half promoted people), run it once, and then say "Ok, that's a wrap, thank you everyone!" Leaving those of us in the station saying "so we just stayed here an extra hour, for NOTHING?" Like I said, I won't complain much, because I DID get free rides on X-Flight out of this day, but I was a bit annoyed that they'd been SO insistent on us not leaving, only to not put us on again. Sigh...
At any rate, during the rides I did get, I decided that the G's seemed MUCH stronger towards the front of the train than the back. X-Flight also strikes me as a coaster that most people will NOT be able to reride much. I have some serious bruises on my biceps from the restraints, and that's from a mere 8 rides over ~5.5 hours.
I may be done with X-Flight for the season, unless someone I'm with REALLY wants to ride. Don't get me wrong -- it's a good coaster, and everyone should try it. But SFWoA has other coasters that appeal to me more (Villain, S:UE, Batman:Knight Flight), and I'd rather get bruised legs than bruised upper arms and shoulders ;)
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--Greg
http://www.pobox.com/~gregleg/
*** This post was edited by GregLeg on 5/18/2001. ***
