What is: Orion
Orion is a steel roller coaster located at Kings Island in Mason, Ohio USA.
The ride opened to the public as the tallest roller coaster in the park, standing a huge
88 m (287 ft.) high.
Though due to the nature of the terrain at Kings Island, Orion features a 91m (300ft) drop.
This allows it to claim the title of a giga coaster; a roller coaster that stands between
300ft (91m) and 400ft (122m) high.
In fact, the ride became the 5th Giga coaster in North America, and the 10th tallest roller
coaster in the world upon its debut.
Though, Orion is only the latest in a long line of unique and record breaking attractions
to grace Kings Island, which begins back with the park’s debut in 1972.
Kings Island opened to guests for the first time with Racer, a twin racing wooden roller
coaster, being its flagship ride.
Racer instantly became a popular attraction at the park, and was even featured in an episode
of the Brady Bunch, a popular American sitcom at the time.
Because of this, it’s credited as helping to reignite the world’s interest in theme
parks after the steady decline seen during the prior decades.
Nevertheless, Racer became the first of Kings Island’s long line of world class rides.
1977 saw the construction of Demon, one of the world’s first launched roller coasters.
While only two years later, the park opened the Beast, the world’s tallest, fastest
and longest wooden roller coaster.
At this point, Kings Island was beginning to be a landmark attraction on the theme park map.
Its status was only improved with the debut of the Bat in 1981, the world’s first modern
suspended roller coaster.
This saw guests swing freely beneath the track as they navigated the course.
Despite closing after only 2 years of operation, due to its unreliable nature caused by mechanical
problems, Kings Island continued to innovate.
In 1984 they introduced North America to the standup coaster, a ride in which guests navigate
the track standing up, rather than sitting down; with the construction of King Cobra.
A single year later, they tore down the Bat to make way for another big addition in 1987, Vortex.
Vortex opened as the world’s first roller coaster to feature 6 inversions, and featured
the tallest drop on any steel coaster at the time.
Just under a decade later, Kings Island, alongside sister park Kings Dominion, introduced the
first magnetic launch coaster to the world.
Outer Limit: Flight of Fear originally opened in 1996
themed to the Outer Limits, a Canadian-American TV series.
Designed to look like a military base, guests would enter through Hangar 18 of the Bureau
of Paranormal Activity.
Inside, they see alien-like figures sealed in chambers, before getting to experience
alien technology for themselves.
Interestingly, it would be this theme that Orion would expand on nearly 25 years later.
But, Kings Island didn’t stop there.
For the 2000 season, they debuted a now infamous attraction, Son of Beast.
The ride shattered the records, becoming the tallest and fastest wooden roller coaster in the world.
On top of this, it was also the first modern wooden coaster to feature an inversion.
Similar to the bat, the ride’s life was relatively short lived.
The loop was removed in 2006, before the ride closed forever in 2009 due to a multitude
of reoccurring issues.
Immediately after Son of Beast the park went for safer, less innovative developments.
Backlot Stunt Coaster, a family multi-launch coaster opened in 2005, followed by the relocation
of Firehawk, a Vekoma flying coaster, from Geauga Lake to Kings Island in 2007.
Diamondback, a B&M hyper coaster, debuted in 2009 as the park’s tallest and fastest
roller coaster; whilst 2014 saw the construction of Banshee, the world’s longest and fastest
full circuit inverted coaster on the former site of Son of Beast.
Then, three years later, Kings Island installed Mystic Timbers, a fast paced modern wooden roller coaster.
But let’s go back a decade.
In 2007, the current owners of the park, Cedar Fair purchased five parks, including Kings Island.
In the years following, the chain began to invest heavily.
Three of these parks gained B&M hyper coasters; Diamondback at Kings Island, Intimidator at
Carowinds, and Behemoth at Canada’s Wonderland.
All measured over 200ft (61m) high and featured a similar design.
Then, in 2012, Canada’s Wonderland opened another ride, Leviathan.
Standing 306ft (93m) tall, their new roller coaster was a Giga coaster, built by the same
manufacturer as Behemoth.
3 years later, Carowinds debuted Fury 325, a second giga coaster, just like Leviathan.
Shortly after, Kings Island began to build a new roller coaster.
Many hoped it would be a giga coaster; instead, Mystic Timbers opened to guests in 2017.
Skip forward to 2018, and the park announced Firehawk, their flying roller coaster, would
be removed for the 2019 season.
Shortly after it’s demolition, something new emerged.
The park began teasing their next attraction, dubbed Project X.
Would this be Kings Island’s long awaited Giga Coaster?
Teasers for this ‘Project X’ were in full force by July of 2019.
Over the period of a few days posters began to appear scattered across the fence surrounding
the former site of Firehawk.
These posters featured multiple rides, all of which operated at the park at one point in time.
Each poster also featured information about the ride, including ‘research partner’,
the manufacturer of the attraction; the amount of tests administered, the amount of riders
that had experienced that attraction; and ‘test purpose’ the description of the
attraction’s defining feature.
A letter could also be found beside this information, which in order spelt TEOTWAWKI.
This was later discovered to be an acronym for “The End Of The World As We Know It.”
Later that month, the park created a change.org page which demanded answers about what is
happening behind the fence.
The website stated that the area was suspected to be storage for extra-terrestrial space flight technology.
It also claimed that aerial imagery of the site showed cryptic messages of the “end” approaching.
A comment on the petition page exclaimed there had been an incident in Hangar 18, the building
home to Flight of Fear.
Finally, the park made a statement to reveal their secret on the 15th August 2019.
On that very day, Kings Island announced that Project X was in fact Orion, a brand new B&M
giga coaster, which would be built on the former site of Firehawk.
Worth 30 Million USD, the new ride would cost as much as it did to construct and debut the
whole of Kings Island back in 1972.
The park also announced the re-theme of the X-base area of the park, now home to Flight
of Fear and Orion, into Area 72 - a secret research facility studying the effects of
flight on humans.
To reflect the theme of the new attraction, flight of fear’s exterior was given burn
marks; while meteor debris was created on the ground outside.
New elements were also added to the ride’s queue line, further linking the two roller
coasters together.
The overall area was also adjusted to appear more like a military outpost with buildings
being renamed and reimagined to fit the space theme.
Additionally, at the entrance to Area 72 a station wagon broadcasts WERD Radio, a fictional
radio station with hosts discussing conspiracy theories about what’s occurring inside the base.
Finally, on the 2nd of July 2020, Orion opened to the public.
To experience the ride, guests first traverse through the entrance portal, which has been
built using Firehawk’s old photo booth.
Part way through the queue line, guests enter a quonset hut.
Here, riders are briefed on their mission.
Visitors are actually volunteers, ready to test the outpost’s latest technology, Project
X, formally known as the ‘Orion Sequence’.
This is the tenth test in a line of other space flight experiments, all of which are
references to the attractions used in the initial teasers.
Within the hut, guests see a range of theming, including schematics of the new ride as well
as old rides at the park; astronaut-like jumpsuits for volunteers, and more.
Following the briefing, guests then navigate through the remainder of the queue and enter
the station building.
At this point, it’s time for them to partake in the Orion Sequence.
Visitors board one of three different vehicles.
Each one consists of eight cars, which seat guests in single rows of four.
This leads to a total of 32 riders per train.
The large vehicle capacity allows Orion to achieve a high throughput of 1650 riders per hour.
Once they're ready, guests immediately leave the station building.
A small segment of straight track later, and the trains begin their climb.
Volunteers ascend 88m (287ft) into the air on what has become the park’s tallest roller coaster.
At the top, guests then stare down the giant 91m (300ft) tall drop.
A natural dip in the terrain below the ride allows visitors to fall an extra 13ft, giving
Orion the Giga coaster classification.
Nevertheless, the trains plummet towards the ground at the maximum vertical angle of 85 degrees.
As they do this, visitors reach the top speed of 147 kmh (91mph).
After traversing the drop, riders then climb into a heavily banked turn to the left.
A second drop later sees the trains climb once more, and fall back towards the ground
through a spiralling banked turn to the right.
Riders then bank quickly to the left and power through a low to the ground speed hill.
At this point, they climb into another airtime hill.
As the trains descend the hill, they bank right, and begin to enter an upward right hand helix.
At the top, visitors continue their right hand turn while dropping towards the floor.
They then climb an upward left hand turn, traverse a small drop, and ascend into the
final brake run.
Over the entire ride, guests travel across 1622m (5321ft) of track, making Orion the
park’s longest roller coaster.
Most of this takes place within approximately 53 seconds of actual ride time, measured from
the top of the lift hill to the final brake run.
The debut of Orion was met with great excitement by many fans of Kings Island.
Over the years, the speculation surrounding a giga coaster being built at the park grew,
with many hoping one would open soon.
Management at the park stated they’d carefully chosen 2020 as the best time to introduce
Orion to the world.
Though, it was nearly given a different name.
Kings Island’s parent company, Cedar Fair, filed two trademarks for potential names;
Orion and Polaris.
Both names referred to celestial objects with Polaris being the North Star and Orion referencing the constellation.
Overall, Orion has quickly become a beloved ride at the park.
Many enjoy it’s fast paced nature, quoting it to be extremely re-ridable.
Although it isn’t the world’s tallest giga coaster, it is an excellent roller coaster.
Orion provides a fantastic all round experience, and compliments the other attractions at the park perfectly.
Interestly, it’s the 2nd new roller coaster at Kings Island to receive a somewhat detailed
backstory and theme.
Now, both Mystic Timers and Orion are more than just roller coasters.
Would you like to see the park continue this trend, or perhaps put even more effort into
theming in the future?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Thank you for watching, and we’ll see you all next time.
If you enjoyed this video, consider subscribing and pressing the bell icon so YouTube actually
tells you when I upload.
Perhaps a follow on twitter and instagram would be cool too?
I’ll put the links in the description below...