Star Flyer -- a most horrific ride

[Carlucci]

I go all over the country riding coasters and thrill rides.

Top Thrill Dragster in Cedar Point....loved it!
The Beast in King's Island brutalized me....and I went back for more!
Shiekra at Busch Gardens, Tampa...one of the best!

So, why did a glorified swing ride at Magical Midway scare me nearly witless.

The chains were unbelievably tiny. From a distance, they look like normal swing-ride chains we've all seen before. But once I sat down and buckled up, I realized that the chains extending from the arms, holding your seat (a two-seater seat) were only about 1/4 inch thick! And they are supporting the > 300 lbs combined weight of me and my DW.

I'll put it to you this way: You know the chain your average Harley rider uses to secure his wallet to his pants? That's about 4 times thicker than the chain used on this ride.

This wasn't the good kind of scary. This wasn't the adrenaline pumping, heart-pounding thrill I was looking for. This was HORROR, as I imagined if just one of these tiny, dog-chain-for-a-schnauzer sized links failed, it's all over, and my kids are witnessing my DW and I plummet to certain death. You can just feel the strain on those chains as the g-forces ramp up when you start spinning faster and gaining altitude. It also doesn't help that there's a live alligator farm below you.

Had this ride been secured by thicker chains or a cable, I would have felt safe, and I would say it was just an okay thrill ride, nothing special, probably quite fun. But because I was aghast from fear of the chain breaking, it was a horrible, gut-wrenching minute or so up in the air.

Here's a pic of the ride: http://www.magicalmidway.com/parkinfo.htm

My kids loved it, though. Maybe I'm just getting too old for this sort of thing.

 

[inkkognito]

I go all over the country riding coasters and thrill rides.

Top Thrill Dragster in Cedar Point....loved it!
The Beast, also in Cedar Point, brutalized me....and I went back for more!
Shiekra at Busch Gardens, Tampa...one of the best!

Are you sure you mean the Beast? If so, it must have been teleported recently because it's at Kings Island! Could you mean Magnum? Gemini? Mean Streak?

Oh, and I wouldn't go near that Star Flyer thing.

 

[DOOM1001]

I've ridden Top Thrill Dragster and that's just fun,sure you go up 420 feet,but you get there in like 3 seconds,now Millenium Force's lift hill is 310 feet,110 feet less and even though it's a fast lift hill the first time I rode it and seeing how much higher than any previous coaster I had ridden before was one of the few times I've felt nervous on a coaster.Another ride that had the same effect was Acrophobia at Six Flags in Georgia,a drop ride with no floor and that tilts so you look down when you get to the top right before you drop.That Star Flyer every time someone talks about it they mention the tiny chains holding you up and how unsafe they felt and I'm 200 pounds.Even though I'm in Orlando all the time and usually stay in I-Drive these reports have been one of the reasons I probably haven't ridden it yet.

 

[Natasha&Matt]

Thanks i have made my descison i will not be riding this

 

[Carlucci]

Are you sure you mean the Beast? If so, it must have been teleported recently because it's at Kings Island! Could you mean Magnum? Gemini? Mean Streak?

Oh, and I wouldn't go near that Star Flyer thing.

I meant King's Island. When we drove to Ohio on 2007 we were at King's Island one day and Cedar Point the next, so I tend to blur those parks together. I'll fix my OP.

 

[Brian Noble]

I haven't done the Star Flyer yet (and now, won't bother to). But, I also travel far and wide to enjoy thrill rides and coasters, and Mount Olympus in the Wisconsin Dells is another place that gives you that "I might just die" feeling. From a trip report I wrote for another site:

* I got off Hades wondering what the hell just happened. The rest of the train had pretty much the same reaction. If you like your wood to give you that I-just-might-die feeling, then Hades is your ride. For comparison purposes, Thunderhead at Dollywood is perhaps more "fun", but never, ever makes you feel like you've taken your life in your hands. Hades does.

* To a lesser extent, so does the rest of the wood at Mt. Olympus, excepting Pegasus, which is small, but still fun without the I-might-die quality.

 

[inkkognito]

I've never had an "I might die" feeling on a coaster, but in restrospect I should have at Sauzers Kiddieland in Indiana. They had a little Galaxy on which the tires didn't work to push you out to the lift hill. All the riders had to literally pull themselves along to the lift. If it was that badly maintained, I probably shouldn't have been riding it...never really thought about it then, but it gives me the shudders now. All their rides were in pretty bad shape the last two years they were open.