Osian » USA 2003 Day 1 - Six Flags Astroworld

Day 1 - Six Flags Astroworld

The Park

Only a nine-and-a-half hour plane journey from the UK, Astroland is a well-established amusement park in Houston, now of course owned by the Six Flags group. Standing proud opposite the park is the Astrodome, famous for being the first indoor sports stadium, using 'astroturf'. There is now a second stadium too, a slightly more modern and bigger (and squarer) construction that dwarfs the original stadium. Anyway, onto the park...

This was an extremely hot and humid day, I have never sweated so much in all my life. Apparently, Houston is like that. The park is nicely decorated, but I did find getting round it a bit hellish. Maybe it was because of the heat, but probably because it's one of those parks where you can see what you want to get to, but can't find a way to do it. You can be standing right next to Swat, for example, but to get to its entrance there's a 10-minute walk along the winding pathway to get to the other side of the ride. I do feel there should be more shortcuts!

The Coasters

The Texas Cyclone. A woodie based on the Coney Island Cyclone but bigger and, yes, better. The first ERS of the trip provided a great start. A twisted first drop with airtime leads into a series of hills and turnarounds, with other moments of air during the ride. It's quite violent laterally in the front, and I found the best ride to be in the back. All in all, I found this a much better ride than the Coney Island Cyclone, which I must admit I found a bit non-descript. This, however, is a fun ride - probably due to the increased height and speed. The hospitality afforded to us by the park was completely unexpected and welcome - a stall at the entrance to the ride giving out free muffins, and cold drinks (see photo!). And we were also given a souvenir t-shirt each, commemorating 35 years of the park.

Ultra Twister. Only a handful of these Togo pipeline coasters were built, and this is the only one operating outside of Japan. It's a coaster that I'd been wanting to ride for years, being somewhat legendary. It's called a pipeline because the car sits between the rails, with its wheels on the side - it's like travelling down a pipeline. You'll notice in this picture of the loading platform that the right hand set of wheels disengages from the rails (in fact, there is no right-hand rail on the platform) - otherwise it would be difficult to get in! It's also referred to as heartline, because the rotations that it's able to do are taken around the car's centre of gravity, i.e. the heartline. First impressions were that it's, erm, not very comfortable. The seats are not very ergonomically designed, very cramped, very hard, and the equally hard overhead restraints have a habit of pressing down too hard. Most of us perfected the technique of keeping the restraint up with our knees.

The ride itself starts by travelling backwards, underneath the lift hill. As you pass underneath, you can see what appears to be the remains of the vertical lift system. This is shown in the photos. I believe that originally the car lifted itself up a vertical shaft, pointing straight upwards. But the lift hill has been redesigned to be at an angle of about 45°. At the bottom of the lift the car points upwards and changes direction and moves gradually up the lift hill. At the top, a very sharp apex to leave the car pointing straight down an almost vertical drop, then it falls rapidly. Tremendous airtime to be felt!

Then up and over an apex into a second drop. Again, nice floaty airtime (if you've kept those knees against the restraint!). And into the first heartline spin. A complete 360° rifle-barrel roll down the middle of the 'pipeline', like the inline twists on Colossus at Thorpe Park. And feeling very similar too, except at a much higher speed. The car then comes to a halt at the end of the track, this track segment tilts upwards, then the car falls backwards and engages onto the second section of track which runs underneath the first section. A further two heartline spins, taken backwards of course, then back into the station. I must say this was a fun ride and I'm glad I've ridden it at last, but maybe just that little bit too painful for repeat riding.

ultra_twister.mpg 313K

Batman: The Escape. An Intamin/Giovanola stand-up coaster, of the same ilk as Shockwave at Drayton Manor Park, although a lot bigger. It only has one inversion, but a lot more track after that including some severe twists and turns, and a very nice airtime bunny-hop that catches everyone by surprise (and by the restraints too...). It also has the same rather violent nature as Shockwave!

Serial Thriller. An off-the-shelf Vekoma SLC. Not the worst I've ever been on (that accolade goes to the ones at Six Flags Holland and Paramount's Canada's Wonderland) but still a rough and mediocre ride. I have to say though that the padding on the offending overhead restraints was much softer than normal, and was like a pillow!

Viper. A Schwarzkopf Looping Star, and as such a great ride. A drop into a vertical loop then a series of shallow drops and corners taken at high speed. Unfortunately, it also provided the first Six Flags Moment of the trip.

Six Flags Moment #1
The ride operators on Viper were extremely slow at loading the ride. With no sense of urgency, they would remain motionless in the control booth or on the platform with nothing happening. They might decide at some point to allow riders into the train, whereupon the queue-weary passengers would hop eagerly into their seats but.....nothing again. Only until he was absolutely ready would a single operator walk leisurely from the front of the train to the rear, and then start checking the restraints one-by-one. Why he couldn't have checked them from the front of the train as he was walking down I don't know. Hours later, he would reach the front of the train and satisfy himself that everything was OK. The riders still wait expectantly for the despatch signal to be given, but they wait in vain. A lot of nothingness happens. And just before they fall asleep, the riders are awoken by some movement. Yes, the train is on its way up the lift hill! Seriously though, with cycle times of between 5 and 10 minutes, the operation of this ride was appalling and made waiting in line very tedious.

XLR-8. Pronounced, erm, "accelerate"! This is, I believe, the very first Arrow suspended/swing coaster and is another one I've been wanting to ride for years after first seeing it on the 'legendary' QED episode in the early 80s. Well, it's certainly a very tame ride, and to beef it up a little, the second half of the train has now been put on backwards. Unfortunately, I didn't get to ride it backwards as the machine was down for half the day and the queues were too long.

Serpent. Very small kiddie mine train built by Arrow.

Mayan Mindbender. A Vekoma indoor coaster, a reasonably fun ride. The theming of the station was very well done, very Aztec.

Greezed Lightnin'. A Schwarzkopf shuttle loop, and another coaster from the QED programme. As always, these coasters are fun and intense, the catapult launch start catching unseasoned riders by surprise. And in front of the ride could be seen a plaque presented to Astroworld by the American enthusiasts' club, ACE, in recognition of their collection of Schwarzkopf coasters...

Other attractions

Apart from the usual assortment of log flume and static rides etc, there is a 230ft Intamin Giant Drop called Dungeon Drop. Very nicely themed tower, the base of it being surrounded by castle walls, and the queue line winds its way inside the dungeons where there are several surprises lurking round each corner (grisly ghouls, and doors that knock on their own...). Unfortunately, it did suffer from slow operation, and...

Six Flags Moment #2
The operators on Dungeon Drop were even more obsessed than normal with The Yellow Line, stopping all loading procedures instantly on spotting a foot daring to touch a yellow line that, in this case, was two feet behind the air gates (i.e. people aren't even allowed to queue right up to the air gate) which themselves were yards from the loading platform. The yellow line is supposed to prevent people who are waiting in line from entering places where the ride might be in operation. However, as usual, Six Flags have trained their staff to treat The Yellow Line as a sacred object in itself, instead of using their own judgement to work out when a guest is behaving in a manner that is likely to put them in danger by walking into the ride operation area, or if he has just carelessly positioned his foot while safely behind the air gates. There is no danger as far as I'm aware of putting your foot one millimetre over a painted line on the floor. I don't even understand the need for a Yellow Line two feet behind the air gates. If the immediate area of the air gate is so dangerous to people in line, why don't they just install another gate before the air gate to actually prevent people from walking within two feet of it?! (That shows you how ridiculous the situation is) If it's not dangerous, why bother having a Yellow Line in the first place, that the operators spend most of their time obsessing and caring over so tenderly? This obsession is likely to have been the reason for the painfully slow cycling of the ride, as even when I was due for the next ride, the operators stopped two or three times until everyone was way clear of The Yellow Line. Considering that Intamin Drops are low-capacity rides anyway, and for some reason Six Flags prefer operating only two of the five carriages, I think there should be more effort made to get people through the system to give them a happier day.

Another noteable ride at the park was a double-down Splash (Shoot the Chutes) ride. It seems that this ride has now become one of the standard installations that every park must have, along with the Log Flume, the Rapids, and the Enterprise. However, no matter how many times I've seen them, they're always great fun to watch!

Finally, Swat. A new ride this year, in fact I think it's the very first installation of this Sky Swat attraction. Although it looks absolutely evil, it actually isn't too bad at all and feels like a tame Top Spin. I though that the position you sit in would cause some nausea, but all it did was to give some nice airtime in places and a very surreal head-first drop!

[Swat #2 - riders are either on their backs or on their fronts]

swat.mpg 185K

Also visit the official Astroworld web site.

Next Page: Day 2

USA 2003 - The Mystery Machine

Day 1 - Six Flags Astroworld

The Park

The Coasters

Other attractions

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