- July 4th, 2009, 1:34 pm
#29747
I got a last minute trip to Carowinds Thursday night and all day Friday. Had to try the flyers to see what the fuss is all about. All I can say is WHAT A BLAST. Kind of embarassed to be waiting in line with all those kids and parents, but who the heck cares! The ride operators were ALL encouraging everyone to fly as high as they could, "who can go over the roof?" etc. etc. They were calling out numbers of people "#6 knows how to fly theirs, you all need to watch him and learn how to fly" and one was even giving instructions over the PA of how to get the most air. They wanted to know your name after it was over, and I thougth it was cause i was in trouble, but it was so they could read out the names of 1st 2nd and 3rd place of who flew highest.
Several other people were on there who knew really how to fly it. Most were Dads with kids or adult men without kids, but there were quite a few children and everyone was laughing who was really flying them hard. I would get back in line and be with other parents who were trying to console their children after watching the chaos and heard this:
1) "Children we are NOT going to be riding ours like that" or
2) "It's OK Johnny, you don't have to go that high, some of them are going really low"
People call it "snapping" them on this thread, although I would definitely use a different word. More like "pop it" or "yank it" because when you time it right, you get slack in the line, then it catches and yanks you back up.
I learned how to throw my weight into things at the top or bottom of the trajectory, and it would get some extra twist to help me go back the other direction.
For someone who'd never done it before, like me, I would say you try and get as high as you can, then dive bomb straight back down and try and go back up from the bottom. The momentum you get from the swinging motion back and forth high and low just builds on itself and it makes some really loud noises (I guess that's why they call it "snap"). When you are at a certain height, push the sail handle to the right, pointing the front towards the center of the ride, then when you drop to the center, wait till the lowest point and push the handle to the left quickly, and you'll go even higher and farther out. The key is not to chicken out. I felt like I was horizontal! The ride operators complimented me, and it was funny to hear people's reaction under the roof and watch people stare at me and others who knew how to fly them.
Best ride at Carowinds after Afterburn, rode Flyers 10 times.
