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What is the most surprising airtime moment you’ve experienced in your enthusiast career?

Hyde said:
It's funny you ask, because it makes me realize my most surprising moments are on lower ranked coasters; kinda makes sense, where you expect nothing and suddenly have airtime coming at your face!

A few surprising airtime moments:

Steel Force (Dorney) Third Airtime Hill - This is a double dip hill headed into the turnaround helix; there is a specific, loooooong sustained floater airtime hill here. I'm trying to recall exactly where I was sitting in the train, as that was most likely a culprit, but it was quite pronounced!


Timber Wolf (WoF) Second Airtime Hill - This one I'm sure was a glitch in the Matrix - I had a zen ride, riding in the second-to-last row of the train. Having all of the weight of the train ahead of me cause a massive "yank" of the final car, which generated a weird ejector experience that really took me off guard on an otherwise tame woodie.


Steel Curtain Banana Roll - dude, this is a weirddd element, on par for this coaster, and has some majority floater/ejector at play during the Banana Roll. The Serpent Roll too had a surprising "tug" in the back of the train while exiting - definitely ride far from what I was expecting, with some great surprise airtime!


Big Dipper (Camden Park) Second Drop - Getting airtime in a NAD train shouldn't be surprising (a la Thunderbolt). Getting big ejector airtime on a 35 ft. hill is.

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To add another mention to my previous post - Fury's turnaround is a fascinating piece of engineering, that delivers a huge, power floater; especially those sitting on the left side of the train.

Most surprisingly airtimeless moments?

  • Every Morgan Hyper Ever - it is a marvel how little airtime Morgan worked into their designs, considering they directly emulated Arrow. :p
  • Raging Wolf Bobs - the slow creep this coaster operated at meant each and every hill was utter ruin.
  • Thunderhawk (Dorney Park) - there is an extremely unfortunate trim on the return airtime hills, which result in the train barely coasting back to the station. Bummer, as they would deliver some nice old-school Schmeck airtime!
  • Wildcat (Frontier City) - a likewise slower-than-it-appears coaster, there is virtually no airtime in it's hills. A bummer, as it is a very good looking coaster with neat heritage of being relocated from Fairyland Park in Missouri, and required significant modification to fit.
 
Hyde said:
Every Morgan Hyper Ever - it is a marvel how little airtime Morgan worked into their designs, considering they directly emulated Arrow
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Bit of a sidenote, but I really wonder what happened to Morgan. They had only 8 coasters under their belt, but six of those were Hypers. Morgan was behind the biggest coaster ever with Steel Dragon 2000. They really appeared to be industry leaders around the turn of the millennium. Then in 2001 they were bought by Chance, and then promptly vanished from the industry. Chance Morgan (nowadays just Chance Rides) appears to have built five coasters since that fusion in 2001, and most of them are family coasters. It's weird for a company to just evaporate like that after having built several of the biggest coasters around.
 
Pokemaniac said:
Bit of a sidenote, but I really wonder what happened to Morgan. They had only 8 coasters under their belt, but six of those were Hypers. Morgan was behind the biggest coaster ever with Steel Dragon 2000. They really appeared to be industry leaders around the turn of the millennium. Then in 2001 they were bought by Chance, and then promptly vanished from the industry. Chance Morgan (nowadays just Chance Rides) appears to have built five coasters since that fusion in 2001, and most of them are family coasters. It's weird for a company to just evaporate like that after having built several of the biggest coasters around.
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Likewise find their history perplexing. I know the tragic death of Mike Chance derailed some of the "recent" momentum behind the GTX model (after it's positive reception at Kentucky Kingdom). When does a coaster manufacturer become classified as "non-coaster" manufacturer?
 
plain and simply:
my first RMC.

Done a whole bunch of renowned air time machines but i still vividly remember being launched over that first drop and literally thinking 'im gonna land in the car park'. Of course, not at all surprising that it happened, but the sheer intensity of it was completely unpredictable.
 
witchfinder said:
A thread of this nature already exists ;)

What is the most surprising airtime moment you’ve experienced in your enthusiast career?

As enthusiasts, we can see where airtime should be. We look at those beautiful hills and hope for violent ejection or blissful floater, satisfying the negative G force addiction many of us have. Often these deliver exactly how we want but also similarly they have the ability to disappoint and be...
coasterforce.com coasterforce.com
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Hixee said:
Indeed it does. I won't spite Matt's decent post though - topics merged.
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Ah right, sorry guys! When I get an idea, I’ll admit I don’t always search before posting; I kind of like to get my thread ideas written down and posted while they’re still there, if you get what I mean…
 
I wouldn't have considered Nemesis to have any airtime at all but the first time I went on it, I definitley got lighter on the first "drop". I certainly wasn't expecting it given how the drop looks from the ground.
 
Even two decades after I first rode it I’ve got to give this to The Ultimate. After you’ve been physically and psychologically battered by the high speed, barely-banked turns of the insane forest run after the second lift hill, you start to gently coast as you come out of the forest along the access road, grateful for the respite, needing a chance to process what the hell just happened.

“Wow, that was absolutely bonkers,” you think, gazing at the passengers around you, some in tears, some unconscious. “Thank god it seems to be basically over!”

But no! Approaching on the horizon is an inoffensive-looking little bunny hop, just a few metres high. You approach it on the gentle curve at probably around 30mph or so - what’s the worst that can happen - but somehow enter a space-time vortex and get launched skyward at around -6G, shattering both kneecaps in the process. Most people had given up bracing after the emotional onslaught of the forest section, the unconscious riders are the lucky ones. Some get completely ejected out of the train and have to wander back the 15 miles through the fields. As you go through the unnecessary tunnels built through the terrain at a cost that would bankrupt the park, you can only assume you imagined the whole experience. Surely such an unassuming coaster wouldn’t have the most unexpected, ridiculous airtime hill in Europe?

That’s how I remember it at least.

—-

Honourable mention for Coney Island Cyclone too - I didn’t expect how ridiculous that would be, I was expecting it to crawl over the hills not try launch you with barely-there restraints
 
The Legend at Holiday World's speed hill (this one) particularly comes to mind here - only heard one other person mention it in the entire coaster community. For a famously laterals-filled coaster, I didn't expect much from it in terms of airtime, but Legend was a shocker. That hill caught me completely off guard on my first ride, delivering standing ejector air and a true "WTF" moment.
 
For me, I’d say it’s Comet at Hersheypark. @Kw6sTheater and I had a bonkers front row ride in the rain, and there was one hill near the end that gave some crazy ejector air that definitely wasn’t there before or after the rain.


(If the timestamp doesn’t embed, it’s at 2:02 in the video)
 
Eyebrows said:
For me, I’d say it’s Comet at Hersheypark. @Kw6sTheater and I had a bonkers front row ride in the rain, and there was one hill near the end that gave some crazy ejector air that definitely wasn’t there before or after the rain.


(If the timestamp doesn’t embed, it’s at 2:02 in the video)
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I also remember there being ejector here too. That lap was full of surprises!
 
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