Skyhawk
made its debut at Great America in 1989. Manufactured by Intamin, this “Flight
Trainer” model carried riders approximately 60 feet in the air in “flight
cabins.” The cabins were attached to arms, and riders could rotate their cabins
manually 360 degrees. Riders could flip themselves upside down nearly the
entire ride, or just enjoy the view in an upright position.
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| Skyhawk's control panel, with queue in the background. |
Skyhawk
was removed either in 1999 or 2000, and was replaced by the Three Point
Challenge game that sits in Celebration Plaza today. The reason for its removal
is unclear, although rumors have circulated that the clear canopies on the
cabins would frequently fall off mid-ride. Very few Intamin Flight Trainer
models exist in theme parks today.
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| Skyhawk from a 1991 Great America brochure. |
Check out a commercial for Skyhawk during its first year (skip to the 8:15 mark):
Pictures
and other info for Skyhawk are hard to come by. Share your memories here!
Love the commercial post too. I remember the rumors about skyhawk. If I correctly recall, it was shut down for a while because a person had fallen out. After that, they took off the plexi covers and re-opened it.
ReplyDeleteThe ride experienced always a lot of down time I'm pretty sure it ran from 1989 to 2000
ReplyDeleteI have the Skyhawk souvenir mug from Great America, still has the 5.95 price tag on the bottom.
ReplyDeleteThe skyhawk "cars" are still in use as part of a kiddie ride on the outside of the snoopy kids area at CGA. No longer mounted by an arm on the back.
ReplyDeletewhat ride, the name?
DeleteWOW! I first went to the park in 1980 in 6th grade as a feild trip. I was hooked from that point on. I would go back a lot until I went into the US Coast Guard.
ReplyDeleteI loved the Wizzer ride, the Pictorium, The Demon, if I I recall Grizzly was the wooden coaster.
One of my fave rides was Skyhawk. And, I remember my friend and I went on all the rides, he was so sure he would find one I would not like... What he didn't know was I loved going upsidedown and man this ride really let you do that. He would never go on Skyhawk again after that.
What a fantastic place it was. When I think back on it it feels like earlier this afternoon I was just enjoying it.
Awesome to find sites and posts about this.
Oh, I forget the name of that huge three cage farris wheel...
I was just randomly thinking about my first high school job (which was at Great America) and googled some of the rides I worked on. Skyhawk was one of them. I worked in Hometown Square, and this ride was the new addition while I was working there in the late 80s. It was a super cool ride, but it did tend to break down more that most.
ReplyDeleteAlso, despite all the warnings we would give the guests during our safety spiel to make sure all your loose items were secured, like keys and change, many people clearly didn't listen. It would often rain coins while the ride was running, as the canopies had sizable gaps between the rest of the car. More than once I had to rummage through the landscaping around the ride to find a guests lost keys or wallet.
However, more than one lunch was paid for in full from all the change I'd find back in the bushes after closing.
I also worked on the Whizzer (I believe it was originally called Willard's Whizzer before my time there). They never should have closed that one, it was so rad. I was there the day the computer that operated the safety brakes "exploded". I think that was the event that basically did it in, they could have either dumped a bunch of money into updating it, or just close it. Too bad they chose the later. But I guess time marches on.
Also sad to see Triple Play and Bottoms Up are both gone.
Anyway, great site, enjoyed taking a walk down memory lane.
From what I heard the whizzer didn't pass a inspection because they found hairline fractures in certain parts of the track and also some maintenance issues basically led to its removal
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