Industry Announcements: Cedar Point announces Skyhawk

Posted at 1:41 PM EST (1841 GMT)

Oct. 31st, 2005 -- Cedar Point has announced their new addition for 2006: Skyhawk. Skyhawk is a 40-passenger S&S Screamin' Swing.

The ride stands 103 feet tall and the arms will swing out to be more than 125 feet high, making it one the highest of its kind. The ride will cost $6 million and will debut at the opening of Cedar Point's 137th season on May 6th, 2006.

There are two arms, each arm holding 20 people, with a total of 40 riders per cycle. The ride will be two minutes long, and the capacity will be about 800 people per hour. The top speed of Skyhawk will be 60 mph.

Riders will get a front view of every swing with nothing blocking their view. They will feel weightlessness on the backswing and a "push" on the way up to the sky. It will drop like a roller coaster, but has no track to support itself.

John Hildebrandt, vice president and general manager of Cedar Point, commented on his childhood when speaking of Skyhawk. "All of us have ridden swings as kids. Imagine riding a swing that is higher than a 12-story building and goes faster than many roller coasters."

ValleyFair!, one of Cedar Point's sister parks, will be receiving the same type of ride. Xtreme Swing will debut at the opening of ValleyFair's 30th anniversary in May 2006.

Construction began just shortly after the park closed on Oct. 30 in the area between Snake River Falls and Cedar Creek Mine Ride. You can keep track of all the progress of this ride on Cedar Point's web cams, and you can see the streaming video on their site at http://www.cedarpoint.com/.

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