Flight of Fear

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Matt Ouimett (sp?) came from Disney and has been slowly changing the culture towards the full experience over Dick Kinzel's rides only focus.

You can see this in how the queue for TT was given a theme instead of generic switchbacks, even at CP they're playing up some kind of story between Maverick and Steel Vengeance. There are now chef-driven culinary programs and craft beverages available in addition to the regular crappy theme park food - the list goes on.

While we're going to have to wait and see what they do for the Safari Village area, I would not but surprised if FoF has a future queue update that may include infrastructure updates, but for now it doesn't make sense to add anything for them to come back and tear it out later.

For all we know (which is incredibly little, so this next thought is not supported by anything from the park), they could tear down the indoor queue and update the indoor ride area to make both fit into some kind of jungle theme, even if they keep the alien abduction angle.
 
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I305Evan said:
Bringing this over here... during my ride this past Sunday, June 13th, the hatch was finally closed.
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That's a good update. Not that the ride wasn't fun, but the sunlight pouring in takes away from the dark experience. Still crossing my fingers that they cut the neon floor lights and give us a PITCH BLACK ride experience again.
 
MikeLovesKD said:
That's a good update. Not that the ride wasn't fun, but the sunlight pouring in takes away from the dark experience. Still crossing my fingers that they cut the neon floor lights and give us a PITCH BLACK ride experience again.
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Though I like the idea of a full-dark experience, I think it's been said on this thread a few different times that CF will not let KD intentionally run this way as it's too unsafe - without a hint of where the track is guests inherently won't know to brace themselves when needed through the various elements leading to discomfort and/or injury.

Unrelated, but does anyone know why the restraints include a shin restraint in addition to the lapbar and seatbelt? Seems to be overkill considering there's not really anywhere for your legs to go if you're properly restrained.
 
Jonesta6 said:
Unrelated, but does anyone know why the restraints include a shin restraint in addition to the lapbar and seatbelt? Seems to be overkill considering there's not really anywhere for your legs to go if you're properly restrained.
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There's a longer answer to this with more context, which I'm happy to share if it's useful.

But the short-sorry-not-short answer is that it is critically important to guarantee the rider's knees stay on THAT side of the lowered lap bar. If your knees can't move, then there's really no way to get them back over to THIS side of the bar, which means you can't leave the vehicle... either accidentally or on purpose. Your lower torso and your thighs form a letter V, pinned into the seat at its lowest point by the lap bar. Neither side of the V can move significantly with respect to the other. With one major segment of your body higher than the bar on one side and another major segment of your body higher than the bar on the other side, you are truly stuck.

So your knees must be prevented from bending to any substantially shallower angle than the one they make when the bar is first lowered fully into your lap. Conservation of V-ness, you might call it. The design of the seat itself has a major role to play here, as the angle between the seat back and the seat bottom defines the minimum degree of V-ness which even the smallest allowable rider will be forced to assume when the lap bar comes down.

FoF has bucket-y seats, but they were originally designed around a shoulder bar restraint, including the small but slightly accommodating footwells. The extra and possibly-not-necessary-but-why-risk-it measure of a shin restraint designed out some risk during the retrofit. If your feet can't move forward at all, then your knees certainly can't unbend enough to effect an escape -- even from a seat originally intended for a different restraint with different potential failure modes.

(Though not entirely different)

It is also important to prevent any really substantial twisting-in-place, which would be another way to get one's knees back over to THIS side of the bar, with possibly disastrous consequences. The shin restraint may allow a smaller-footed and teeny-hipped person to twist their body a relatively small amount, but not much. An adult basically can't do any noteworthy twisting at all.

Other factors contributed as well...
 
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I rode Joker's Jinx at SFA yesterday no fit issues WHT soever and rode FF today and only got the buckle to lock with great effort from the ride attendant any idea why there would be such a fit difference between the two?
 
Trains are slightly different. Jokers Jinx was built with lap bars, Flight was Converted into Lap bars. The difference isn’t crazy but the lap bar positioning is just a touch off when you do a side by side.
 
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RollyCoaster said:
Trains are slightly different. Jokers Jinx was built with lap bars, Flight was Converted into Lap bars. The difference isn’t crazy but the lap bar positioning is just a touch off when you do a side by side.
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Jokers Jinx was built with shoulder harnesses as well. I was there on opening day, waiting for them to literally duct tape foam to the things.
 
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Really? I’ve even been told by maintenance leaders that there is a minor design difference in the seating/restraint from both flight models and the SF models. The more you know I guess. Maybe it has nothing to do with the restraints themselves but the chassis. I’ll do some digging.
 
Yep. Joker's Jinx and Poltergeist both operated for a few years with shoulder harnesses.

Edit: not sure about differences specifically between the vehicles' seats and restraint dimensions, but the Six Flags and (then) Paramount rides definitely did have some differences, despite being the "same" ride system. Many production model coasters saw design evolutions over the years. Maybe all.
 
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I wouldn't have had much of an issue with the shin guards if it weren't that in the right seat in the first row of the last car in the train there seems to be some kind of bump in the floor (guessing for some mechanical reasoning though it's hard to tell) that effectively squashed my right foot when the lap bar was lowered. And my foot isn't all that big either.
 
RollyCoaster said:
Bet that was fun
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Maybe I've told this story before. A friend worked at (P)KD and was offered the opportunity to ride FoF during its employee-and-ride-supplier-only stage of initial operation and testing.

He reported that the ride with its original OTS restraints was "like being punched repeatedly in the side of the head by a gloved fist."

The extra soft padding on the insides of the shoulder bars, added to cushion rather than prevent collisions between noggin and restraint, subsequently got so thick that pulling the restraint down over your head would fold the tops of your ears down until the thickest part of the padding reached your jaw, at which time your ears would pop back up again. Despite that, the ride was still completely unenjoyable after the launch and maybe the first inversion.

Also, the shoulder bar padding from that era was either super permeable to air or otherwise kind of wavy in texture, for a good reason: an impervious, flat flexible padded "skin" forced against your ear violently and repeatedly would form a pretty good vacuum...
 
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Jonesta6 said:
I wouldn't have had much of an issue with the shin guards if it weren't that in the right seat in the first row of the last car in the train there seems to be some kind of bump in the floor (guessing for some mechanical reasoning though it's hard to tell) that effectively squashed my right foot when the lap bar was lowered. And my foot isn't all that big either.
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As someone with big feet, fuck that little bump on the floor. It makes it way harder for me to clear on Flight of Fear when sitting in seats that have it.

Also, I've always found Flight of Fear's seatbelts to be really inconsistent in length. Even when I'm sitting in non-floor-hump seats, from one ride to the next (back to back) I can have radically different experiences in how easily I clear. Meanwhile, I've never had a problem on Joker's Jinx.
 
Zachary said:
As someone with big feet, fuck that little bump on the floor. It makes it way harder for me to clear on Flight of Fear when sitting in seats that have it.

Also, I've always found Flight of Fear's seatbelts to be really inconsistent in length. Even when I'm sitting in non-floor-hump seats, from one ride to the next (back to back) I can have radically different experiences in how easily I clear. Meanwhile, I've never had a problem on Joker's Jinx.
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Any advise to if there are particular ones that large riders should avoid?
 
Unfortunately I have no idea. It probably changes every time they reassemble the trains or replace a seatbelt too. 😕
 
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