Flyer Addicts Research Blog

Flyer Addicts woke up this morning to find we’re prominently quoted in the Press Release for Six Flags Great Escape’s new Flying Scooter. The Screamin’ Eagles will swoop into the park in 2013. While no manufacturer was not disclosed, we’re assuming this will be an 8-car version from modern Scooter manufacturer Larson International. The concept art shows bright red tubs with yellow flames and an aggressive looking eagle.

From the Six Flags Press Release:

If you’re new to flyers and you’re looking for a mild ride, take some advice from the experts at Flyers Addicts Anonymous: Hold the front wing nice and steady throughout the duration of the ride. This creates a nice, smooth flight perfect for sighting seeing over the historic River D.

If you’re a little more adventurous and looking for a more heart-racing, blood-pumping flight, the experts at Flyers Addicts Anonymous recommend you familiarize yourself with and play around with maneuvering your front wing. You will pleasantly discover that strategically positioning your front wing in relation to things such as ride speed, wind direction, and the position in the ride’s natural dive cycle will lead to a much faster, intense, and completely unexpected wild flight with dips and dives!

The Screamin’ Eagles is a new generation of a classic ride rich in history. It harks back to the 1940s and 1950s when it was a huge fan favorite at theme parks across the country, allowing little boys and grown men alike to hop in and suddenly, if only briefly, become fighter pilots over the great Pacific. Even more interesting is that even though the flying scooter was sold and marketed by Bisch-Rocco Amusement Company it wasn’t originally meant to be a theme park ride. According to Flyer Addicts Anonymous, a group of avid flyer enthusiasts that travel the country for what they refer to as their “flyer fix”, the original open-air centrifugal force ride was actually originally developed and built by Alvin Bisch (1888-1965) in the early 1930s as an airplane pilot training device.

You can read the full Press Release at http://www.sixflags.com/greatEscape/info/news_ScreaminEaglesAnnouncement.aspx, plus view the announcement on Great Escape’s webpage. This is Six Flag’s first modern Flying Scooter installation.

We’re happy to see the resurgence of the Flying Scooter continue into 2013 – after a strong 2012 that had seen a new a Scooter at Darien Lake and rescued Bisch-Rocco model at Eldridge Park. This year we’ve  also seen a resurgence in inquiries from other parks, historians and other interested parties.

And, welcome to our new visitors who have found us from the new news. You’ve already found our Research Blog (our most recent research finds and news). On our main site you’ll find pictures, history and trip reports from our avid Flyer Addicts.You can also talk with other addicts about the new addition on our Facebook page!

Occasionally, we receive questions from our readers about Flying Scooters we haven’t discovered yet. Recently, a reader named Richard left us this question as a comment in one of our posts:

Trying to find out about a Flying Scooter that was located at Kiddieland on the property of the former ALABAMA STATE FAIRGROUNDS in Birmingham, AL.

This particular model had very streamlined cars/tubs and were somewhat reflective of a canoe or a 1950s concept of a rocket ship with sail fins. Perhaps you could tell when this model/design was built. I’ve only been able to find a pic of one other one like it; that I believe is in a theme park in Indiana.

The park I believe has closed. Do you know if their scooter was sold and relocated and if so… where?

That scooter was not found in our database, nor the near 1000 pieces of still un-indexed research articles and other information we’ve collected. Nothing turned up in our usual online sources either. Typically, we find some useful information in the archives at Newspaper Archive or NewsLibrary. It intrigued us – and I was determined to find an answer.

So, we took a step back and went simple. We looked up the Alabama State Fairgrounds on RCDB, and under the Comet Jr. coaster found a very interesting and unexpected note: “The Comet Jr. was owned by Fannie Mason in 1952.  The ride and other amusements were previously owned by Bill de L’horbe and Ralph Rocco, operating as Alabama Engineering Associates.”

That caught our attention.
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A delightful surprise arrived in the Flyer Addicts email box Friday afternoon – new pictures of the Eldridge Park Flying Scooter we first told you about a month ago.

The Eldridge Park Flying Scooter being erected on Friday, July 13th.

Eldridge Park Carousel Preservation Society President Robby Robertson sent us these pictures of the former Fun Spot Flying Scooter being erected on Friday. Over the past few weeks, the structure has been cleaned, repainted and prepped for installation. The tubs too have received a good buff and shine – as well as new themed decals.

Up early next week is the running of conduit for power and then final surface grading and paving. If all goes to plan, they expect to announce the ride will run by the end of the month. Robby also clued us into the rides new name. Via email, he says “[we] will likely call the ride The Thunderbirds.”

Check out the construction gallery below and pencil in those Elmira, NY travel plans. It won’t be long before they will say “Thunderbirds are Go!” (Ok, not the real source of the theme)

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To honor our nation’s birthday today, we present Kings Island’s Flying Scooters all decked out in their patriotic best as the “Spirit of 1776″ during the 1976 season. Photos from Jack Larimore’s family archive.

Another scooter SAVED!

In conjunction with Eldridge Park, in Elmira, NY (Google map), Flyer Addicts Anonymous is happy to be able to confirm the rescue and pending reinstallation of a vintage Bisch-Rocco 10-tub Flying Scooter!

The Eldridge Park Carousel Preservation Society and President Mike “Robby” Robertson announced the addition today during a press conference. Several months ago, the park emailed Flyer Addicts looking for assistance in finding an 8-car portable unit similar to one that ran in the park until its closing in 1989. While we scoured sources for a suitable portable unit, the park inspected and decided to buy the park model scooter that has been stored at Fun Spot Park in northern Indiana since that park closed in 2008. The park also announced it has purchased an Allan Herschell Pony Cart Ride from Fun Spot.

Eldridge's new scooter just prior to removal from Fun Spot. (Image Courtesy Eldgridge Park)

Eldridge Park has roots back to the early 20th century, where it was known as ”Elmira’s Famous Free Resort.” A 1915 ad showed the park offered “free entertainments, moving pictures, band concerts, carousel, [and a  Figure-8] roller coaster.” More rides, including the Speedway out-and-back coaster, were added throughout the next 50 years. But, like so many small amusement parks, hard times crept in during the 80s and the park closed forever in 1989. Many of the rides and attractions, including their portable Bisch-Rocco scooter, were sold for scrap – although the tubs were sold to private citizens.

Undated picture of park's previous Flying Scooter. (Image Courtesy Eldridge Park)

The next chapter for the park began over 10 years later, when the EPCPS was created to begin a 3 year journey to restore the park’s historic Looff Carousel. Since then, the park has added a couple other attractions reminiscent of the park’s heyday – including Miniature Golf, their Jasper the Dragon boat ride and Paddle Boats.

Park thanks Flyer Addicts for assistance and expects the ride to be operational soon

In the park’s press release, Robertson said, “We were able to locate the ride because of the tremendous database kept by Flyer Addicts Anonymous, a group of enthusiasts dedicated to the history of, and tracking of, the Flying Scooter, Queen of the Air Rides”.  While the original ride was located along the lakeside and allowed the tubs to swing over the lake, the new ride will initially be land-locked. “At some point in the future, plans are to expand the shoreline of the Lake to relocate the ride lakeside,” read the press release.

Via e-mail the Robertson says the ride arrived last week, and is in excellent condition. Parts of the ride were already being cleaned, buffed, repainted and prepared for reassembly. The park hopes to have the ride operational within a few weeks – pending a smooth installation and inspection process. Updates will be posted on Flyer Addicts website and Facebook page. The park operates Friday evenings, plus weekends starting at Noon through Labor Day. Full information at http://www.eldridgepark.us/calendar/. The park is located in South-Central New York State, and a convenient stop between Knoebels and Darien Lake for those planning a Flying Scooter weekend trip.

Their new scooter will initially be land-locked, while their former scooter swung over the lake. (Image Courtesy Eldridge Park)

History of the new Eldridge Flying Scooter

The scooter is actually a hybrid of two flying scooters that have had crossed paths for years. It was acquired from Fun Spot Park in Angola, Indiana – which fell victim in 2008 to the economy and the loss of local industrial picnics that the park relied on for a majority of their business.

The current center structure sweeps operated at Fun Spot from 1993-2008, Fantasy Farm in Middleton, Ohio from 1972-1991 and is believed to have been first installed at Riverside Park in Indianapolis during the 1940 season.

The motor, gearbox and scooter tubs are from the Flying Scooter that operated at Lesourdesville Lake from 1944 to the park’s final closing in 2002. It is unknown whether the scooter was new in 1944, or operated prior at another park. The origin of the unique fiberglass tubs that will be used on the Eldridge Park installation are still unknown. While stories point to scooter tubs burning in a 1991 fire in a storage building at Lesourdesville Lake, Flyer Addicts has uncovered pictures dated back to 1979 that feature the fiberglass tubs.

Fantasy Farm was located immediately next door to Lesourdesville Lake and the two scooters were almost within sitelines of each other.

The flying scooter operating at Fun Spot Park in 2008. (FAA Archives)

The two scooters were melded together in 2007 when the Fantasy Farm motor and gearbox failed. At that time, the old Box-type tubs from the ride were sold to collectors – including a few FAA members.

[UPDATE 7:00pm]: Stories beginning to show up online.

• WETM-TV reports on the additions.
• A picture from today’s unveiling and some 1980′s photos from the Star Gazette’s photo archives.

Just because you haven’t seen new content on the Flyer Addicts Anonymous blog lately, doesn’t mean that we’ve abandoned our work here.

Quite the contrary, We’ve been working behind the scenes, sifting through thousands of newspapers, magazines and websites to update and expand our Flying Scooter database.

We’re also working to bring enhanced search and database functions to our website. Look for more information real soon.

And, check out the Flyer Addicts Anonymous page on Facebook. Occasionally we post some anecdotal research finds in real time.

With a simple post on its blog, Fun Spot USA announced that their new Larson Flying Scooter – called the Screamin’ Eagle – opened to the public on Friday, February 4th:

The Screamin Eagle took its first flight with TJ and Alexis Arie as the first passengers on Friday February 4th. The Screamin’ Eagle is now open to the public and is included in the Rides or Go Kart armband.

From Fun Spot USA's blog: the first lucky riders of the Screamin' Eagle

Fun Spot USA is the larger of the two Fun Spot parks in the Orlando area. The park and the scooter are located in Kissimmee along US 192, which is also home to the 300-foot tall Skycoaster. The ride takes the former spot of the Cobra flat ride.

Installation of the ride was quick, as according to a blog post the ride was delivered in late January and went from arrival to operation in just about a week. Their blog also has a few pictures of the unassembled ride. In December the park had announced it purchased the ride during the annual IAAPA trade show held in November. As you can see, the sail graphics are quite stunning, melding the classic image of an eagles head found on several scooters with the flames you might find on a muscle car (or maybe an Air Crow). This scooter is the first new Larson installation since the Dragon Flyer opened at Castle Park in 2009.

Since none of the Flyer Addicts team has plans to travel to Florida soon, we’re looking for help from our fellow addicts. Are you going to Orlando for Spring Break? The ACE Spring-Con (they will be next door at Old Town as part of the itinerary)? Help us by filing a trip report…How does it fly? Any ride policies? Pictures or Video? We’ll feature your information right here on our research blog.

As a follow-up to our post last week on Burns Park Funland’ s Flying Scooter – The Butterfly – Flyer Addicts has put together a 4-minute video on our August 2010 visit.

The video shows Jack Larimore and Chris Clark during 10-minute cycles on the scooter after a rain storm cleared out the small park of patrons just before close.

It also visually shows 2 of the scooter modifications previously described in our first article about the Butterfly. View that article here.

View on this video and others on in HD and full screen on Youtube: Flyer Addicts Invade Burns Park Funland (2010)

Get a group of Flyer Addicts together and talk will eventually gravitate towards epic snapping sessions at Knoebels during Phall Phunfest, or the still stinging loss of Kings Island’s Flying Eagles (remember, they still run just as great at Carowinds!). But how many times has the Butterfly at Burns Park Funland been mentioned? Probably a bit more often – after you read this in-depth review of this out-of-the-way scooter during an addict visit from August 2010.

Entrance to Funland at Burns Park in North Little Rock, Arkansas

We first posted some pictures and a simple video of our visit on the Flyer Addicts Anonymous Facebook page. (Hint, click here to like us…really really like us.) Now, the full story…
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We’ve been talking with Alvin G. Bisch, son of Flying Scooter inventor Alvin (No Middle Initial) Bisch for a couple of months. During that time, we’ve been sitting on a number of great pieces of Scooter history he’s sent us. It’s now time to change that, and we start with a cool 4-page Flying Scooter advertising brochure that dates to 1939 or 1940.

Let’s take a close look at the front cover of the 2 color brochure. (Click on the images for a much higher resolution image).

From a circa 1939 flyer - "Flying Scooters always in the top money!"

Start with the Flying Scooters font. We’ve previously seen this same font on the “Instructions for Erecting Eight Car Flying Scooter Ride” that we posted in 2009, as well as company letterhead in the 70s and even stenciled on tubs from various park.

Next, the car pictured in the front cover appears to be from Riverview Park in Chicago and is what we’ve referred to as the “1st Generation Box Tub” type. While this is the most common tub type seen in remaining Flying Scooters (and the inspiration for the Larson version), it was replaced in 1939 by a more rounded tub referred to in advertising as the “streamlined” tub (as on Holiday World’s Eagle’s Flight). After WWII, surplus fuel tanks were used to create elongated tubs (as on Canobie Lake’s Rowdy Roosters). Sometime in the 1950s or 1960s, these original design tubs returned to new and refurbished Flying Scooters.

Take a look at the selling points of the ride as well:

• Every Car has Individual Flying Control
• You can complete 24 rides an hour
• ALWAYS IN TOP MONEY!
• 100 % SAFETY RECORD!

Finally, a bit of trivia from Alvin G. Bisch himself – sitting on the right side of the scooter is his sister June.

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