#intamin

[chroniccoasters]

Accidentally took the most ethereal photos of TT2

[ironrattler]

Expedition GeForce • Plopsaland Deutschland // Haßloch, Germany

[flojector]

Olé Olé Olé!

[rushthehollow]

a year to think about all we've lost at the hands of bad business practices

🐅 kingda ka - six flags great adventure 💚 cinestill 400D / pentax iq zoom ezy-r

[altonkacey]

An updated full body drawing of my Th13teen oc! (That I also did on the flight..)

Her design is mostly based off the girl from the advert, just a bit more green. I will make a lore up for her soon, just wanna enjoy my holiday first so I will most likely update this post eventually :v

I really need to learn to draw feet

[astrollacium15]

Superman and Wonder Woman

[holosticker]

I stole this from Instagram it was too relatable

[tacoma-narrows]

Tac Talks Coasters - Post 148: #22

Photo Sources: All photos are mine

Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure!

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Opened: 2005 Closed: 2024 Manufacturer: Intamin Height: 456 ft (139 m) Speed: 128 mph (206 kph) Length: 3,118 ft (950 m) My most recent ride: 2017

Well, this day had to come eventually. I'm gonna be honest with you guys, this will probably be the hardest of these posts for me to write aha. Both because there's not a whole lot to the ride itself, but also because (as I'm sure you can all agree with) this is still a very hard removal to deal with.

There are very few coasters that were as famous across the world as Kingda Ka. Other than like, maybe the Coney Island Cyclone, there are no other coasters I can think of that were as well known as Ka was. Yeah there are a lot of famous rides in coaster enthusiast circles, like Millennium Force, Fury 325, X2, Formula Rossa, etc., but Ka seemed to break through and be just as famous to the general public as it was to enthusiasts. I think that was mainly because when people want to learn about roller coasters, the natural first question will be "well, which one's the tallest?". Since Kingda Ka held that record for it's entire lifespan, as well as the record for the fastest coaster in the world until Formula Rossa opened in 2010, it had the time to really build up that reputation as The Tallest One.

From a layout standpoint, there really wasn't a whole lot to Ka. It was a launch, a 456 foot tall top hat tower, a large airtime hill and then you hit the brake run. Over 3,100 ft of track covered in less than 30 seconds at 128 mph. As my dad put it when talking about Ka's sister coaster, the original Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point: "It's roller coasters boiled down to it's key components: heights, speed, and falling". That really is the best way to describe these stratacoasters. Even though they didn't have a lot to offer in terms of elements, the ones they did have were some of the best of their kind.

Easily the standout part of both Ka and Dragster was the launch. These were hydraulic launches, meaning they were some of the most powerful feeling out there. They were so fast and the feeling of acceleration and power on them was just like nothing else I've ever done. Even the compressed air launch on Maxx Force at Six Flags Great America, even though that one had a faster acceleration, didn't feel quite like these hydraulic launches did. Now, to be fair, I don't remember Ka's launch being quite as punchy as Dragster's, but it still was absolutely no slouch. These hydraulic launches seem to be a dying breed with how many coasters using them seem to be either getting retrofitted with other launch systems (Top Thrill 2, ThunderVolt at PNE Playland in Vancouver, etc.) or getting taken out altogether like Ka, so if your local park has one, get on it while you can.

For two rides that are on the surface so similar to each other, you might wonder why I rank Ka so far behind Dragster (which we well get to towards the end of TTC), and that really comes down to two factors: the smoothness and the restraints. The launch on Kingda Ka, although awesome and super powerful, did have a noticeable downside and that was that the whole track kind of shuffled from side to side as you went hurtling along. This was even visible from off-ride as you watched the train launch. The launch was the shakiest part of the ride, but even outside of that, the ride didn't track perfectly smoothly. It wasn't anything super bad by any means, but when you're going that fast, any roughness is gonna come through. Then the restraints were the hard plastic over-the-shoulder restraints that you could get some head- or neckbanging from at times. Compared to how open and free Dragster's T-bar restraints felt, these restraints were not quite as good.

Another thing I loved about Ka, especially in hindsight, was its theme. It was themed to a mythical Bengal Tiger and anchored its own area of the park called the Golden Kingdom. It was such a neat atmosphere back there and after going to the park earlier this year after Ka was removed and that whole area was closed off, it really is a huge hole in the park's layout now. But as I'm sure you guys know, it was this ride and it's theme that really supercharged my love for tigers over the last few months, which by extension, led me to create my character Sitka <33

But of course, nothing lasts forever, and in summer of 2024, rumors began circulating about Ka being removed at the end of the year. At first, I did not even give these rumors any consideration. Why would Great Adventure remove their most well-known and arguably signature coaster? But as the season went on, more and more rumors came up and things started sounding increasingly worrying. Then, after the park and the ride closed for the 2024 season, Six Flags broke the news that no one wanted to hear. Kingda Ka is closed permanently and will be removed for future expansion. It was a devastating loss for the coaster world, on top of the fact that the ride was not given any kind of official, proper send-off, or even an official forewarning to its closure, by the park. It was by no means the only coaster removed with no prior warning across the Six Flags chain last year. Or even at just Great Adventure, which lost seven other rides in addition to Ka. But this was easily the removal from the chain that far and away hut the most.

I'm so grateful I got the chance to experience this ride and I so wish I got to ride it again more recently than 2017, but I will miss it so dearly. It's my second highest ranked defunct credit and god I hope things stay that way. I don't know if I can stand to lose another coaster out of my top 25 like this.

Forever and always, long like the King.

Thanks for checking out today's coaster post! Keep an eye out for tomorrow's coaster!