RE: Project 2015: 156ft Tall Festa Italia Attraction
Disregard the location (which is awful), the ride itself (which is thoroughly mediocre at best), and pay attention to what the real problem with this rumor is: Capacity. In light of what a travesty it is, the rest is completely and totally inconsequential.
Superman Ultimate Flight can only run a single train that holds twelve riders per train. Assuming they can get a train unloaded, loaded, and launched all in 30 seconds and every seat on every train is filled, by my calculation, taking into account that the ride cycle itself is 50 seconds, that gives
Superman Ultimate Flight a theoretical operating capacity of
540 guests per hour. That is
absolutely, laughably abysmal.
For comparison using my same 30 seconds for unload, load, and the all-clear,
Verbolten does over 2,200 riders per hour. Plus, because trains load and unload simultaneously and my calculation doesn't even attempt to take that into account, my estimate is actually quite low.
Lets look at some of the park's other coasters, shall we? Again, all using my 30 second unload, load, and all-clear number and assuming full trains with all trains running.
Loch Ness Mosnter: 1,680 guests per hour
Alpengeist: 1,820 guests per hour
Apollo's Chariot: 1,760 guests per hour
Griffon: 1,800 guests per hour
Grover's Alpine Express: 720 guests per hour
Let me say that again: Assuming full trains and 30 second load times,
Alpine Express' capacity is vastly higher than that of Superman Ultimate Flight's at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. Look, if the park is, in fact, going this route, they have clearly lost all care and consideration for guest experience.
There is simply no excuse for installing an Ultimate Flight clone at an even slightly notable theme park.
I hope BGWfansite is lying through their teeth- I really do- because, to be completely and 100% honest with you all, it matches perfectly with everything we know and, furthermore, I really don't have much reason not to believe them. What makes it all the worse is that a Superman Ultimate Flight clone has popped up as a possibility time and time again- I had heard whispers that it would be just that during Howl-O-Scream last year but, believe it or not, I didn't believe them because I sincerely believed that Busch Gardens Williamsburg would never actually stoop that low. I'm known to be consistently negative about many things, but even I thought the park still held themselves to some bar above that of a Six Flags park. I guess this is my miniscule amount of faith I had left in the park coming back to bite me in the ass. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised- I've been predicting it from the sidelines for years- even I hate to believe it to be true though.
If this isn't a complete fabrication (which I'm inclined to believe it's not) the park is in an unimaginably bad place- not even I, with my notorious cynicism, could have ever seen this coming.
