Tac Talks Coasters - Post 72: #98
Photo Sources: All photos are mine
Flying Turns at Knoebels!
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Opened: 2013 Manufacturer: Built in-house by Knoebels Height: 50 ft (15 m) Speed: 24 mph (39 kph) Length: 1,300 ft (400 m) My most recent ride: 2022
Flying Turns is easily one of the most unique roller coasters ever built, and the fact that Knoebels stuck with this project for so long to make it a reality really is amazing. The bobsled coaster concept dates back to the late 1920s and early 1930s with the original wooden bobsled Flying Turns coasters, however all of these were closed and removed by the 1970s. When Intamin and later Mack Rides revived the bobsled coaster concept in the 1980s, both of those designs were made of steel.
Starting in 2006, Knoebels, a park renowned for acquiring, maintaining and preserving vintage amusement park rides, decided they wanted to resurrect the Flying Turns design. What followed was a long period of construction, tweaks, and design changes that pushed the rides opening farther and farther back. When the ride finally opened at the end of the 2013 season, it made for a total of 8 years of construction, design changes, delays and tweaks by the park. But Knoebels stuck with it, didn't give up on the ride, and ended up with something that you can't find anywhere else in the world today.
As for the ride experience itself, Flying Turns does feel unique as bobsleds go and that is primarily through the smoothness. Of the three bobsleds I've done, this one is easily the smoothest. It doesn't feel like it goes crashing into the brake runs like the Intamin Swiss Bobs did, and it doesn't have the slatted trough design and vibration feeling that the Mack bobsleds have. The wooden track makes for a very smooth almost gliding feeling you get as you go around the turns. You do ride up fairly high on the trough as you go through the turns, but I didn't get that sensation of feeling like you were going to flip over like Disaster Transport had. The ride experience is fairly mild, but it really is fun all around.
A fun little anecdote about Flying Turns for me is a running joke with my family. My family has been going to Knoebels since 2007, the year after construction started on Flying Turns, and because it was delayed for so long, we had doubts about if it would ever open. But now, even after it's been open for over 10 years, my dad still upholds the bit of it still not being open as a joke lol. Like I'll tell him I've ridden it and he'll joke "no you haven't it's not open yet" lmao. Just a fun thing to think about with the ride for me haha.
Thanks for checking out today's coaster post! Keep an eye out for tomorrow's coaster!
