Cool Little Coasters
The latest First Drop gave me an opportunity to have see some cool little coasters. I'd seen them before, but it was nice to have a good look.
The first is Sierra Sidewinder at Knotts Berry Farm. This is a Mack spinning coaster, like a compact version of Euro Mir but free-spinning.
It's only 62ft tall, with 4-train cars. The cars themselves are extremely cool, as they're circular and look like flying saucers! As far as I know, this is the first "large" spinning coaster to have multi-car trains, and it rather reminds me of Arrow's design, which also used trains instead of single cars.
I have to say, going purely by looks and the fact it uses short trains, it may just have pipped Gerstlauer to the best type of spinning coaster. I do believe if I had a park this is what I'd want to build. My one reservation is that the seating faces outwards, so you'd briefly be facing people from another car - not so good if they're the typical theme park clientel!
The 2nd coaster is Hankatten at Bon-Bon Land, which I think Cal has mentioned before. It's basically a clone of Gerstlauer's "Aqua Wind" (a very compact Bobsled) but with spinning cars.
Surely a clone of Aqua Wind, Hankatten or Sierra Sidewinder would be perfectly affordable?
PS - I couldn't find any dedicated pictures, but there are some on RCDB:
