Menu
What's new
By:
Filters

Six Flags Over Texas | Original Mr. Freeze is back

This is a bit off topic but on the topic of comfort collars, I’m surprised Six Flags never installed more Sky Rocket II’s considering they’re cheap and compact, and they literally built the first one.
 
Hyde said:
Waitttttt if this is a retrofit; does that mean they’d swap the trains for comfort collars too?
Click to expand...
Not necessarily. After all, SF was the one who purchased the prototype in Superman, and that one has operated with lapbars only just fine. Maybe SF won't ruin the ride with comfort collars unlike SeaWorld.
 
oriolat2 said:
Not necessarily. After all, SF was the one who purchased the prototype in Superman, and that one has operated with lapbars only just fine. Maybe SF won't ruin the ride with comfort collars unlike SeaWorld.
Click to expand...
They put comfort collars on West Coast Racers despite Full Throttle running without them at the same park, though, so I wouldn’t bet on it.
 
cookie said:
They put comfort collars on West Coast Racers despite Full Throttle running without them at the same park, though, so I wouldn’t bet on it.
Click to expand...
California (apparently, and part of the MonteZOOMa retro discussion) has a newer OTSR requirement for coasters with inversions. Haven't looked into it myself.

Ultimately, a train 'retrofit" would feel in-bounds if this plays out to be a broader TLC project. And I fear throwing comfort collars onto a new train to be too easy a move as part of "improvements."
 
EthanCoaster said:
This is a bit off topic but on the topic of comfort collars, I’m surprised Six Flags never installed more Sky Rocket II’s considering they’re cheap and compact, and they literally built the first one.
Click to expand...
Prototypes are double edged swords though. On one hand, you get a very unique product. On the other hand, there are usually a lot of teething issues that the park ultimately has to deal with. Depending on how things play out, a park might want to hold off on buying more in the immediate future. Prototypes are hard sells because few parks want to take the risk and they often get burned.
 
Indy said:
Prototypes are double edged swords though. On one hand, you get a very unique product. On the other hand, there are usually a lot of teething issues that the park ultimately has to deal with. Depending on how things play out, a park might want to hold off on buying more in the immediate future. Prototypes are hard sells because few parks want to take the risk and they often get burned.
Click to expand...
Also, you get a very unique product for a year or so if it's a good product worth iterating on, after which a lot of parks may build a more exciting version of what you've got. Alternatively, you get to be the first to find out why the product isn't worth iterating on. Either way, being the first to buy something often means you're stuck with the beta product.

I feel like Six Flags Magic Mountain got burned quite hard by this a number of times. Many of their biggest coasters ended up being among the last before a big paradigm shift happened, and made SFMM's coaster outclassed in some way.
 
Hyde said:
California (apparently, and part of the MonteZOOMa retro discussion) has a newer OTSR requirement for coasters with inversions. Haven't looked into it myself.

Ultimately, a train 'retrofit" would feel in-bounds if this plays out to be a broader TLC project. And I fear throwing comfort collars onto a new train to be too easy a move as part of "improvements."
Click to expand...

While I'm not an expert, I believe the California requirement is that any ride that has inversions must have a redundant device. A seat belt would also work... which is what they did for The New Revolution when they debuted those trains.

In my opinion, the reason why the parks prefer the comfort collars is that they are much, much faster for ops to check. One of the biggest ops issue with FT, which has seatbelts rather than comfort collars, is that the seatbelts are near impossible to see and check once the lap bar is down as it's so thick it basically covers the belt. They try to encourage guests to leave the lap bars up when boarding, but you can imagine how that goes. Accordingly, dispatch times for FT are pretty dismal.

I don't think it's as much of an issue with TNR, as the lap restraint there are much smaller, so seeing and checking the seat belt is much easier.
 
Last edited:
giphy.gif
 
...So all that hoopla just to flip the trains forward again?

I don't recall the backward launch even being unpopular, so I'm not sure what the point is here.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top