Park section Safari Village Cost $20 million Height 47 m Acceleration 0 to 75 mph | Status Operating Replaced Smurf Mountain Max speed 121 km/h | |
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Opening date August 3, 1998 (1998-08-03) Type Steel – Inverted – Launched Address 16000 Theme Park Way, Doswell, VA 23047, USA Hours Open today · 8AM–10PMTuesday8AM–10PMWednesday8AM–10PMThursday8AM–10PMFriday8AM–10PMSaturday8AM–10PMSunday8AM–10PMMonday8AM–10PMSuggest an edit Similar Dominator, Anaconda, Shockwave, Rebel Yell, Grizzly | ||
Volcano the blast coaster front seat on ride hd pov kings dominion
Volcano, The Blast Coaster, or simply Volcano, is a launched inverted roller coaster at Kings Dominion in Doswell, Virginia. Designed by both Paramount Parks and Werner Stengel and built by Intamin, Volcano was the world's first inverted roller coaster to feature an LIM (linear induction motor) and is the only one of its kind that completes a full circuit. Since its opening on August 3, 1998, Volcano has been one of the more popular rides in the park. Most of Volcano's circuit is located inside a man-made volcano, making it an enclosed roller coaster.
Contents
- Volcano the blast coaster front seat on ride hd pov kings dominion
- Volcano the blast coaster off ride hd kings dominion
- History
- Ride experience
- Incidents
- Future
- Records
- References
Volcano the blast coaster off ride hd kings dominion
History
Volcano was designed around a dormant attraction originally known as The Lost World, and later as Smurf Mountain. Declining popularity towards the end of the 1980s led to the removal of the mountain's last two rides in 1995 and cast doubt on the area's future. On July 22, 1997, Paramount Parks announced plans to revitalize the mountain by making it the future site of a new roller coaster.
In late 1997, Volcano, The Blast Coaster, was announced. LIM technology was still somewhat new and the ride had many bugs in the launch system. This issue wasn't new to the park, having encountered similar problems with the nearby Flight of Fear. Volcano had a soft opening on August 3, 1998. The ride officially opened on August 15, 1998. During the 1998 season, the ride operated at half-capacity, with every other row loaded. In 1999, the bugs were fixed and Volcano was running at full capacity. In 2005 and 2010, Volcano's structure was given a fresh coat of paint. In 2014, Volcano's queue line was improved.
Ride experience
Volcano's layout simulates the path of a volcanic eruption. Upon boarding one of two trains at the base of the mountain, riders make a slow turn left out of the station. The train then moves into its first of two launch tracks, which accelerates the train to 70 miles per hour (110 km/h). After making a sweeping 200-degree turn behind the mountain, the train enters the second launch tunnel, followed by a vertical section ending in a "roll out" element. The "roll out", similar to a sidewinder, is a vertical section of track followed by a quarter loop to bring the train completely upside down, then a loose half-corkscrew. According to Roller Coaster DataBase, the roll out element is unique to Volcano. The highest point of the roll out is 155 feet (47 m) above ground level, making it the tallest inversion at Kings Dominion, taller than Dominator's 135-foot (41 m) vertical loop. After the roll-out, the train makes a sweeping turn around the mountain followed by a heartline roll in midair. The train makes another turnaround and passes through a second heartline roll, which is embedded into the side of the mountain. After another turnaround and a third heartline roll, the train makes a turning 80-foot (24 m) drop into the final brake run.
Incidents
On June 23, 2006, the roller coaster experienced a launch failure when a train carrying 15 passengers stalled and rolled back slightly. Some were stranded for more than two hours. One rider reported hearing a loud pop and getting hit in the chin with flying debris.
Future
In 2015, a Cedar Fair employee mentioned in a post on Reddit that Matt Ouimet wanted to have a section of each park reflect its home state's history and folklore; according to the post (which was taken down shortly after is went up), Matt personally expressed interest in re-theming the entire Safari Village (then known as the Congo) area of the park to various aspects of Virginian/Appalachian culture. As part of this, Matt discussed the possibility of transforming the Volcano coaster and the area around it into a coal-mining and forest themed area, with the Volcano coaster being themed to an ill-fated trip into an abandoned coal mine inside the structure, which would have been renamed and partially rebuilt; in addition, the Flight of Fear coaster would have been re-themed as a trip into a supposedly haunted logging operation (the employee claimed that Kings Dominion's general manager immediately rejected this idea because he was worried people would accuse them of copying the idea for Busch Gardens Europe's Verbolten coaster, which had a very similar theme and was also a partially indoor launched coaster). According to the original Reddit post the general manager of Kings Dominion does want to remove the jungle/African theme from the area but no plans for the rides or the area have surfaced as of early 2017; the proposed name and theme of the Flight of Fear replacement was re-used for the Mystic Timbers coaster opening at sister park Kings Island in 2017.
Records
Volcano, The Blast Coaster once held the record of the highest inversion in the world at 155 feet (47 m). In May 2013, GateKeeper at Cedar Point took the record with an inversion that stands at 170 feet (52 m).