Roller Coasters The Bat (1981) - Kings Island Recreation

[Shaun_DoesStuff]

Hey guys. I just whipped up a mostly accurate version of the first suspended coaster ever built. It was notorious for it's rough abrupt swings caused by the unbanked turns. So naturally, I didn't bank any of the turns. I did my best to scale everything properly but the short segments aren't possible on this ride so I had to make due.

Steam link

The layout.

The lack of banking and harsh swings that made this ride so infamous.

One last shot.

 

[wowman]

That was the first ride like this I was ever on. I believe it was closed down because someone got be-headed on it? Not sure if that is an urban myth or not.

 

[Shaun_DoesStuff]

That was an urban myth. The ride was closed down because it was tearing itself apart. The unbanked turns were hell on the suspension, and they frequently had to do welding work on the cross ties on the track. Arrow ended up giving them an amazing deal for two of their later coasters, Vortex which is on the Bat's footprint and reused the station, and Top Gun which was also a suspended coaster.

 

[Bullethead]

Looks brutal I bet the peep's love it, though. They seem to have rather different tastes than humans.

 

[Shaun_DoesStuff]

I haven't opened it to guests yet, but the excitement is only 4.16 with the intensity and nausea somewhere in the 2s.

 

[cerealfruitcakes]

Looks brutal I bet the peep's love it, though. They seem to have rather different tastes than humans.

The original was just as brutal, a few times you'd think it was going to just snap right off and pop your neck,
[video=youtube_share;Sg-OWKFyp8A]https://youtu.be/Sg-OWKFyp8A[/video]

[shocked]

 

[CommandoSanta1]

Holy crap that video of the actual ride is terrifying!

 

[Bullethead]

The original was just as brutal, a few times you'd think it was going to just snap right off and pop your neck,

❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎, the way the swing arm slammed into the stops on a couple of abrupt right turns, I can see why this ride self-destructed pretty rapidly. The overall impression is of riding in a powerful motorboat cutting a deep wake across a shallow estuary and periodically hitting rocks


This is the last major feature of 1.2 I haven't messed with yet, so I"m off to do that now. My money's still on peeps loving brutal unbanked turns, though. That should provide some spikes to fear and excitement that average out to a nice, family-friendly set of EFNs over the whole circuit. We'll soon see

 

[Shaun_DoesStuff]

[video=youtube_share;sXp9uSUtg2M]https://youtu.be/sXp9uSUtg2M?t=29m29s[/video]

I timestamped the POV for those interested.

 

[n9rrm]

I, too, tried recreating The Bat. I used a few photo's to try and gauge the turns and slope of the track. Tricky since there are not a whole lot of good photographs that exist.

 

[Shaun_DoesStuff]

How did yours turn out? I'd love to see it.

 

[NoxObscuras]

The original was just as brutal, a few times you'd think it was going to just snap right off and pop your neck,
https://youtu.be/Sg-OWKFyp8A

[shocked]

Wow that seemed brutal. I like that a woman on the ride even said "That bruised my body!" at the end before going back into the station. I'm not surprised it had to be replaced so quickly.

 

[LN]

Can you believe they even experimented with this ride to have an inversion..... [wacky][shocked]

[video=youtube;miERaeQZYZQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miERaeQZYZQ[/video]

And this one is even more insane (and closed 2-3 years ago)

[video=youtube;E7oMkBYr2es]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7oMkBYr2es[/video]