pkiknex25

Good spotting! This morning: Today, around noon:

It's the last lift support, then as FloppyDisc said, one more support for the drop. Hopefully they get the next track segment up this afternoon! After this next lift segment, we should see them start building up backwards on the drop. Only after that can the top it off.

From King's Island Facebook:

Not my picture, not my Istagram account.

To further clarify, the first lift support (in sequence) is below the treeline.

^ Nitro at Adlabs Imagica in India in 2013. Though Rougarou and CGA Patriot have been converted from stand up to floorless since then.

Do you have any non-emotional logic to back that claim up?

EDIT: Nevermind, McSalsa explained it nicely.

It's not all about uptime vs downtime. Like I mention before, how about steel integrity in the track and supports?

But who is to say that Vortex could safely operate for a few more years? Surely not us.

Just to try to get some logic mixed in with the raw emotion right now: Vortex is over 32 years old, and stressed materials break down with time and repetition. Now I know that older Arrows are still operating, but no one coaster is the same as any other, especially from an age where computers weren't used in design yet. The reason that Universal had to rebuild Hulk and remove Dragons was because the integrity of the track and supports was beginning to fail with 20ish years of near daily operations, and that was with computer assisted design. For a more apples to apples comparison, Vortex significantly outlived SFGAm Shockwave and SFGAdv Great American Scream Machine, plus still has 3 years on SFMM Viper and 4 years on Anaconda. To combine some thoughts, after removing Firehawk last year, I think KI wasn't exactly sure how much longer Vortex, but had to take a gamble on it. KI wanted to build its giga, and Vortex's land isn't suitable for it. I'm repeating myself here, but I think something came up recently after KI already committed to Orion. That's the only logic I can see that results in two coasters being removed in consecutive years. The timing is very unfortunate, but risk management is a continuous gamble in the business world, and I can't and won't blame KI on the decisions they have made.

And this is why I think that losing Firehawk and Vortex in back to back years wasn't planned by KI and CF. Firehawk clearly was, but something had to have come up on Vortex recently.

Either this was a short notice decision with something coming up in the downtime since daily operations ended, or they want to keep the focus on Orion, or they don't want the focus on it since there's no short term replacement.

Late on this topic, but per the blueprints scanned and uploaded by @Bansheeback, there are 122 "normal" track pieces, 16 lift and drop structure, 9 brakes and station, and 1 for the transfer. That adds up to 148 pieces of track.

Does anybody know what's going on with Diamondback right now? It's been closed for a good chunk of yesterday and today.

Flight of Fear got changed from Sequence 5 to Sequence 7. (I think yesterday?)

Yukon Striker carries your stuff from the entrance side of the station to the exit side, with the bins on a conveyor belt crossing over the track. There's no stepping across the train required.

The water fountain is on the exit side of the station, so no. I think it's simply for employee use.

Maybe they figured out the logistics of construction and concluded that they need this area as a path for equipment.

According to the blueprints, L16 is the base of the spine on the drop-side.

Yeah, SeaWorld San Diego has already confirmed a B&M dive coaster. It'll be the smaller 6-seats across with normal size track model. Regardless of where it goes though, that's a pretty color.

Is it possible that he's just a business guru with little knowledge of the engineering field?

Not exactly new. It came from the demolished Stinger at Dorney Park.

Our turnaround does look similar to Leviathan's hammerhead from the top angle, but the top point of ours is about 90 degrees away from Leviathan's, which is almost perfectly centered. I think our turnaround is something different.