Six Flags readies to set more coaster records with Bakunawa

This is what drives me crazy about Six Flags. They spent all this money in 2005 building Golden Kingdom, a really well themed area by seasonal park standards, and over the years they took everything out piece by piece to save money, and what was their best themed area (and not even old) is abandoned. They stopped doing the tiger show years ago, if I remember correctly they also took out the kids play area, and then they took out Kingda Ka and Zumanjaro. So now there is nothing there other than some janky little stores and restrooms. Six Flags parks are always in this one step forward, one step back situation. Six Flags can’t expect to be taken seriously as a destination, in the biggest market in the country, when they have this perpetual problem with whole areas of their parks looking neglected and depressing.

Also the Boardwalk area was long overdue for a complete rebuild/upgrade, and they did it quick and on the cheap to have it open for this year, when they should have taken the time and money to do it correctly and open it next year. I don’t think this area is built to last another 20+ years. The rides are old, janky, Ragin Cajun has engineering flaws that severely limit its capacity. It was too low capacity for Great America (hence why it was moved to a much smaller park) and they just hastily moved back to a major market park just to say they got something new this year. There was so much potential here with this land, anchored by a new record breaking coaster, and Six Flags botched it.

Dear Six Flags, please think LONG TERM when you do things. Ragin Cajun is not going to last at this park. Why did you build a new coaster that looks just like the last coaster you built a couple years ago? People look at Ragin Cajun and think "that is just like Dark Knight??" and then people look at Okinawa or whatever its called and think "that looks like a bigger version of Flash, which is also brand new??" Nothing makes sense.

What I don't understand is SF turning to foreign mythology and obscure, difficult/awkward to pronounce names for their new attractions. Siren's Curse was such a great pivot that was well executed, yet the last 3 "big" additions from SF are Wrath of Rakshasa, Tormenta, and now Bakunawa. At least Tormenta is located in an area of the park that fits the theme, but what in the world does a Filipino legend have to do with the Jersey Boardwalk?

I also can't comprehend why SF is once again designing/building coasters that are deliberately low capacity. How much more would it have cost for Mack to make this a complete circuit that could allow for 3-4 trains to operate at the same time? With over 3,000 feet of track to traverse, there's no way this is going to be able to dispatch faster than every 3 minutes even with a split load platform or other switch track that will allow for just 2 trains to run. It makes absolutely no sense to build a record breaking attraction designed specifically to draw coaster fans from around the world yet you can't spend the extra money to do it right so lines aren't outrageous.

It's always one step forward and 2 steps back with this chain, and it doesn't have to be that way if there was any leadership, foresight, or simple common sense.

Although I have the deepest respect for Mack Rides (Time Traveler, Copperhead Strike and to a lesser extent, Cobra's Curse, are coasters I found outstanding), this latest creation is not one I would expect to draw people to the park. It looks frankly nauseating. The presumable rationale for adding this is that with Kingda Ka gone, they had to add something huge, no matter what it was.

I'm with you Bobbie, after tearing down Kingda Ka (and Green Lantern), SF was almost obligated to build something BIG, but this just seems to lack ingenuity, creativity, originality, or intelligence. It's tall just for the sake of being tall, and while I like the idea of the floorless trains, I don't think it's a differentiator worth standing in a 3+ hour long line. I'm somewhat intrigued by the free-spinning cars (instead of controlled spinning), but how much are the cars really going to spin when 95% of the track is straight? Will there be a mechanism on the first launch to initiate spinning and then the weight balance in each car will take over from there? If not, I just don't see enough angular momentum generated by the inversion and the curve up the tower to make the cars spin like they're shown in the POVs. It's possible some spinning will be generated by the curves and outward-banked track at the top of the tower, but the train will be slowed to a crawl by that point, limiting the amount of energy to rotate the individual cars. While SF is billing this as a unique feature of this coaster (which is not different from other Mack launched spinners like Ride to Happiness and Time Traveler), I think not having controlled spinning (like F&FHD) will result in very little actual spinning along the course, again unless they're initiating the spinning at the beginning with a brake or some other mechanism.

So we essentially have a shuttle coaster that will take 137 seconds to run the course that carries at most 20 people at a time. Rough math and reasonable dispatch times of 3 minutes would suggest that they will push at best 400 people per hour on a record breaking coaster. That's worse than most mid-sized flat rides, and even if they can somehow get up to 150-second dispatch times (13 seconds between one train returning and the next going out), they'd only get up to 480 pph. Imagine if one train goes down or the park is incapable of operating both trains at the same time, you'd probably be looking at 5-7 minute cycle times, putting the throughput at 175-240 pph, which is the equivalent of most bumper car or kiddie attractions. I think this could be one of the most frustrating roller coasters on the planet to ride, at least for the first 3 years it's open.

It should have wound back down the tower. What are they doing???

i got nauseous just watching the video...can't imagine how rough the actual ride will be.

Project Purple was a better name. Or Purple Nurple.

I'm surprised by the negativity here. Yes, a shuttle coaster like this is going to have long wait times. Yes, this ride is going to be nauseating and overall too intense for a lot of people. Yes, it's not as cool as Kingda Ka (which it's sort of spiritually replacing)

But, honestly, this looks sick. Extremely unique, and I love how much emphasis there is on hangtime. I'm just glad that Six Flags is taking a swing on something new/innovative.

Is it really new/innovative Juan? Mack spinning coasters have been around for decades, and are already held in high regard with Ride to Happiness consistently ranked among the top 10 best coasters in the world and Curse of the Werewolf debuting last year at Epic Universe. Sure, the hangtime and inverted launch look cool, but that hangtime is not terribly novel when you look at Velocicoaster, Pantheon, and even the newest coaster at SFGAdv (Flash - Vertical Velocity).

This just feels like the tiring refrain from SF building coaster ill-equipped to handle the demand it's intended to draw and breaking made-up records simply to grab headlines. The worst of this is that SF fooled everyone with the teaser campaign that they were going to do a decent job at least providing a backstory/theme for this new coaster (pivot away from widely-rumored Phantom Spire), and like Wrath of Rakshasa, drawing on some vague, foreign mythology that nobody knows about to give them an out when they run out of budget to actually put thematic elements into the queue and station. While I think early POVs are not always the best ways to glean how much effort will be put into theming a coaster, Tormenta provides a very recent template for how SF is going to approach theming with an extremely limited/vague approach as conveyed in the POVs. The POV for Bakunawa shows an extremely plain-looking station and absolutely NOTHING along the course to convey the myth of the Filipino dragon.

I also stand by my criticism of the free-spinning cars and predominantly straight track, which appear to be mismatched to capitalize on the train's key feature of creating a highly variable experience. Also, some others have pointed out the height of the seats above the track, which is likely to increase the potential for uncomfortable vibrations and shaking if there are any track imperfections or irregularities, particularly when moving at 100 MPH. I just don't see the advantages of this coaster (height, speed, hangtime, and promise of spinning) overcoming its many faults (low capacity, potential lack of spinning, and otherwise mediocre layout), including the fact that it doesn't even break the US heigh/speed record. I just feel that SF could have gotten a lot more bang for their buck if they didn't chase records that aren't even worth breaking, and a custom Mack Stryker coaster would have been a much better choice for this park.

FWIW, Six Flags' trademark application is for "Bakunawa Serpent's Wrath."

I think this looks like a pretty good ride and would be surprised if it isn't best or second best in the park for most enthusiasts. No, it isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, but an inverted launch and 380 ft. tower on floorless spinning cars is one of the more unhinged things I've seen done on a coaster. The theme is a bit strange, but I much prefer Bakunawa Serpent's Wrath to Gargantuan Vertical Vengeance and it's a heck of a lot easier to pronounce than Rakshasa. Capacity will be a concern on this ride, but it's entirely possible the actual throughput winds up being comparable to a full circuit xtreme spinner depending on the station setup and how efficiently crews can load trains.

"Capacity will be a concern on this ride, but it's entirely possible the actual throughput winds up being comparable to a full circuit xtreme spinner depending on the station setup and how efficiently crews can load trains."

I'm not sure how you can say that AJ. They've already detailed that the ride will take 137 seconds, so as I noted above, even if they operate with Soviet-era efficiency with a perfect station setup that puts the second train on the launch track within 10 seconds of the first train clearing the block, they'd be lucky to reach at best 480 guests per hour for what is being billed as a record-breaking, must-ride coaster (with just a 48-inch height requirement that increases the audience, unlike Kingda Ka, which was a more limiting 54" and could theoretically handle 1,400 pph). It is estimated that Time Traveler has a throughput approaching 600 pph at a park that is in a market a fraction of the size of SFGAdv (similar for Ride to Happiness at Plopsaland Belgium). I see that as a MASSIVE issue for the park and SF on the whole. You can't build a giant beacon for thrill seekers and then deliberately kneecap the capacity so the coaster you're using to draw people to the park can only optimally accommodate about a third of guests that come to the park each day. Bakunawa is going to frustrate and annoy more people than it thrills.

I agree more with Russel than Bobbie, I do think it will draw people and it will get a very long line. Remember we were all wondering if it would be worth re-opening the Smiler after that huge accident, and it turned out the day it re-opened it drew huge crowds. It was like the PR from that accident (which was absolutely brutal in the UK, it was all over the news for months), made the ride more popular. Especially in the NY/Jersey/Philly market, it will get long lines and it will draw enthusiasts from around the world. I think a lot of people are going to get FOMO and show up to ride it.

My worry of course is that since its SFGAdv people will go there for the ride, have a miserable experience at the park, and then not want to ever go back. Kind of a huge issue and why SF is stuck in this loop of having to discount heavily while also spend so much money on new rides to get people back.

Russell, here's my logic...

The station setup for this attraction will not be like a conventional coaster station, but will instead feature two loading platforms with a sliding track. One train will load while the other traverses the course, then the track will slide over and repeat with the other platform. It is a very similar setup to what is used on Mack's PowerSplash model, but sliding linearly rather than rotating on a turntable. I am making the assumption that 2:17 is the platform to platform duration, and includes the time when trains are sliding between positions. Since both trains are linked during that motion, a portion of the cycle time is overlapping, and thus it should be possible to launch trains more frequently than the cycle time provided there are no loading delays. From the POV, it appears to be just a little over a minute on the run track itself, so presumably the rest of the ride duration is accounted for by a show scene and/or the switching process.

Let's say the ride were to launch trains at exactly the 2:17 interval, which would give 26 trains per hour. At 20 passengers per train, that's 520 riders. If the coaster were able to reduce this interval to two minutes, they'd be able to run 30 trains per hour, upping the count to 600 riders. Could they get that number higher? Potentially. If loading was super efficient and show elements were trimmed significantly, it's theoretically possible they could get more than that, though I would probably consider 35 trains (700 riders) the absolute max due to the time required to load and check a 20 passenger train.

Now, how does that compare to Time Traveler? I happened to record the interval on that coaster on my visit a few years ago, and with two trains (I've never seen it running with all three), they were averaging a 34 train per hour pace. That coaster only seats 16 riders per train, so it would have been running a maximum throughput of 544 riders per hour at the time of my visit, which is in the same ballpark as I'm expecting for Bakunawa. With three trains and a good crew, I'd guess they could probably run at a 40-45 train pace, which would yield a throughput of 640-720 riders per hour, which still is not that much better than the shuttle design will probably get.

I think Russell knew it was a dual-station and factored that into his calculation (hence why he said it was possible for 13 seconds between a train returning to the station and the next train launching out).

Regardless of whether its 400 or 600, its still absurdly low for a marquee record breaking coaster at the biggest market seasonal park in the country. I'm going way back here but I remember Raging Bull when it was relatively new, we would get like 1300-1500 per hour, and the line was still always at least an hour and often closer to two. Now granted there is a lot of "self-selection," like if the line is too long people won't get in line, and if the ride is super high capacity than more people will get into the line...but that just proves Russell's point that a lot of people won't ride because of the capacity.

AJ - SFGAdv has already announced that there will be just 2 trains, so I'm expecting a setup similar to Ice Breaker at Sea World Orlando, which loads trains and dispatches them to a slide track once the train ahead clears the course. Based on the brief looks at the station in the POVs, it does not look like there will be a setup like Mr. Freeze where there are 2 slide tracks where each of the trains can load, creating a double-sided loading platform with complicated queuing, leading to delays because guests enter/exit trains from the same side and creating mixing that slows the load/unload process.

Again, the park was super specific when they revealed the experience would take 137 seconds - why use such a specific number if that was not the actual time on the track? Knowing the way most Master Control Panels work, if 137 seconds is the circuit time, there is absolutely no way they're going to be able to cycle faster than that, so pumping 26 trains per hour is the absolute MAXIMUM they're going to be able to achieve. The thought that a more efficient crew or somehow getting trains to complete the course faster than 137 seconds is a pipe dream, and would assume that the very specific information the park announced is flawed or merely an estimate(unlikely given the specificity of the cycle time). Suggesting that the park will somehow be able achieve cycle times that are actually faster than outlined in the initial stats (when has that ever happened?) not only defies what are almost certainly rosy estimates for throughput, but neglects the company we're talking about, which has a long history of lazy, indifferent, and haphazard ops. Sure, there are plenty of recent examples of SF improving their ride ops, but those are still the exception to the rule. The problem with Bakunawa is that even if they have the most efficient crew, queue, and station layout, the fact that it will take 137 seconds for the train to run its course on a blocked-out track, all of those efficiencies to load, check, and dispatch the second train cannot overcome the inherent design limitations of a shuttle coaster that takes 137 second to run its course.

Russell, I encourage you to take a look at the construction pictures for this coaster because there are some clearly showing the station setup. It is similar to Mr. Freeze, but with the two tracks moving in tandem rather than independently. The POV released is very bare bones and likely doesn't represent the full level of detail to be found on the final product.

ElToroRyan put out an analysis on the coaster and his belief is that the 137 seconds is not the actual track time and thus the interval will be much less than that. While I do not believe his estimate of 46 trains (920 riders) to be realistic, I'm also not confident in the duration number provided by the park given how far off it is by what is represented in the POV video they released. Obviously, we won't know for sure until we see the ride in actual operation, but I'm just not convinced this is going to be any worse than something like Jersey Devil Coaster or Joker. Yes, this is a whole different scale, but if those rides generally only get 20-30 minute waits I'm thinking Bakunawa will likely settle into the 45-60 minute range after the newness wears off, which is reasonable for a park's newest headliner.

Related but tangential to this discussion, I'm not sure how much of a concern capacity actually is for parks in this day and age given that long lines sell Fast Lanes. I recorded a half dozen throughput numbers at Six Flags Over Georgia on my visit last weekend, and only two of them actually exceeded 500 riders per hour (granted, two of them were on one train, but that's a separate issue). By comparison, Dollywood (which does not upsell to nearly the extent of Six Flags) was cranking through 780 rph on Big Bear Mountain, which coincidentally operates with two 20 passenger trains.

I read that analysis, and can't get my head around their estimate of 77-second dispatch intervals - even if you assume the 3,163 track length includes the track traversed twice, there's absolutely no way you could cover that distance in less than 2 minutes when there's a stall in the middle. For me, they immediately lost ALL credibility in my book with that ridiculous assumption. If a park is saying a ride is going to take 137 seconds, why would anyone with any ounce of common sense interpret that the park could magically dispatch on 77-second intervals? Do you really think SF/Mack pulled that 137-second number out of their behind, or a full minute of the ride time will be on some mysterious block they've not shown on the POV?

You have stumbled onto the primary motivation for SF to not properly engineer a record-breaking coaster to meet anticipated demand, and that is $$$. Why spend another $3 million creating a complete circuit coaster that can handle 4+ trains (maybe even a conveyor belt load platform to keep the line moving) when a lower capacity attraction will sell more FastLanes because guests don't want to stand in line for 3+ hours. It's ruthless, and as I said when this was announced, Bakunawa is going to frustrate more guests than it thrills. FWIW, Flash still carries over 2-hour lines on most busy days in its second season (and TT2 at Cedar Point logs close to 3 hour waits in its 2nd full season), so unless SFGAdv somehow adds another world class attraction that is as good or better than Bakunawa, I don't see lines shrinking below 2 hours for the rest of this decade.

I know I'm turning into the old man yelling at the cloud, but this saga is still frustrating me as an enthusiast. Even if you want to argue that Bakunawa is not the official replacement for Kingda Ka, it will be perceived as its spiritual successor. So, the park lost what was arguably the world's most iconic roller coaster and will gain something that is slower, shorter, arguably less attractive to the general public, and is a shuttle. I know the ride could very well be very good. But, it comes across as a half-hearted effort that does very little to turn this place back into a true destination park.

This comes on the back of Barrels O' Fun, an objective downgrade from Green Lantern in a park that already had Dark Knight.

When Cedar Point had to close Dragster, that park gave us a worthy replacement that I personally believe is better than the original. We know what can be done. This does nothing, for me, to help the reputation of the "Six Flags" brand, even within the larger SF Company.