Few rides can compare to this masterpiece of awfulness. Its sheer presence is one of a giant buzzsaw ready to inflict suffering upon anyone daring enough to ride. Its combination of broken lights and long crusty light tubes are simply sickening to ones sight. Its tiny caged cars are like little prison cells with the sole purpose of making you nauseous over the next two or more minutes. Yes…that perfectly describes our number one WTCR…enter the Sky Diver.
The Sky Diver is a Chance Rides monstrosity that was seen virtually everywhere back in its heyday and up until 1994 or so when they went through a mass extinction of sorts. For all intents and purposes the Sky Diver is a ferris wheel…a ferris wheel thats design may have been outsourced to Satan by Chance Rides that is. The Skydiver sports small caged cars that are able to rotate horizontally while the wheel turns vertically. The ride has copious amounts of lighting; unfortunately the original color scheme is the equivalent of a rainbow from the 1970s puking. The small caged cars that riders are squeezed into are able to roll upsidedown; the cars were even equipped with a steering wheel that allowed riders to rotate the cars as they wish! Sounds like fun, huh?
Welllll….according to some riders, the steering wheel was very tough to move. If you couple this with the fact that the cars are a bit top heavy, riders may find that the cars will remain upsidedown for much longer than any normal human being can stand. The riders might be able to flip their car right side up, but it’s likely that this will occur seconds before blacking out after they, due to an endorphin rush, manage to muster superhuman strength to flip the car.
As far as appearance, other than the retchid tube lights, a Sky Diver looks kind of like a surgeon’s instrument. The two supports on either side of the wheel are extendable, hinged X supports which look very cheap and machine like. As mentioned before, the wheel itself looks like a saw blade which completes its baneful appearance.
The Ride
I have never been on this ride, but I will ride a Sky Diver…one day. Instead of a commentary on how the ride is, here is a comment from DoD3 reader Brooke G. about her experience with the Skydiver’s diabolical restraint system.
“The way up isn’t bad, you’re laying on your back (kind of like a Toboggan [Note: a Chance made 'Toboggan' ride] lift hill). It would have been a lot more fun if the way down wasn’t so uncomfortable — Your car is pointed straight down, so you are literally hanging over the lap bar on your stomach. No matter how much flipping around you do (my friend and I tried), you can’t make it any more comfortable. Plus, you get stopped on the way down while they unload and load everything, so you are constantly stopped hanging over the bar. When I went to Lakemont and realized that they had one, I stayed away from it as much as I could.”
Video
Here’s a video of a Sky Diver at the 2011 St Bart’s Italian Festival in Scotch Plains, NJ; ride is owned by Majestic Midways:
Here’s a nice on-ride video by JamminJay1986. It’s about what I assumed a SkyDiver to be like, right down to the screams of “oh shit”, “ow that hurts”, and “oh my nuts.”
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y52F4LjDTIs
Back to WTCR
I know of one of the carnival companies that still has one. I’ve been on it many times and I would be receptive to attempting a two hour non-stop on this. If anybody wants to take me up on this my e-mail is bdbell1940@yahoo.com
I think the last time I went on one of these was in the early 90′s. It actually wasn’t that scary. If you hold on to the wheel and don’t let the car spin mindlessly (and you’ll need your friend’s help for that), it’s actually pretty cool.
I want to say though that this list needs the addition of one more WTCR: the Gravitron. Gravitrons are the ultimate WTC staple. I’d been avoiding them since the fatal accident involving one at my local county fair, but I went on one last month at a Halloween carnival. I swear to you, the entire center console where the carnie sits looked like it was being held together by duct tape. I nearly kissed the floor when it was over.
I was thinking about putting Gravitron on the honorary list’ I’ve seen some pretty rough looking ones! However, I’ve also seen some insanely nice looking ones recently, like the one in the NJ State Fair 2010 trip report or Cygnus X-1 at Morey’s Piers.
Are you kidding, this ride can be a blast. I was a kid the first time I rode this by myself at a traveling carnival in the 70′s. There used to be one at the old Elitch Gardens in Denver, CO in the early 90′s. I had a best friend back then who thought he was really tough, so I convinced him to ride this. I spun the wheel as fast as I could the whole ride, it took him a half hour to walk straight and stop dry heaving. It’s one of my fondest memories. You have to spin the wheel or you shouldn’t bother getting on it. I loved the feeling that ride gave me, a kind of euphoria, but I’m strange that way.
I was only brave enough to ride the Sky Diver once back in the early eighties. It wasn’t a very pleasant experience. Very similar to the description in the above article. Not very comfortable, but I had finally gotten up the nerve to try it and if nothing else could/can say that I actually rode it.
While it may not be the most comfortable ride on the midway, I always thought it was the best looking piece out there. I still think it is one of the most aesthetically pleasing rides ever created. The multi-colored cars, the perfect symmetry of its design. It always made a great centerpiece for the fair that came around here back in the 70s and 80s.
Chance made some great rides back in the day. Absolute classics like the Tobaggan, Music Fest, Rock n Roll, etc.
But I think the Sky Diver is their most perfect machine. Simple but elegant. The article mentions the long light tubes; there are a few Sky Diver out there still, but the ones I’ve seen recently were fitted with turbo lights. A definite improvement in its original lighting design, I think.
I actually saw some YouTube video recently of a refurbished Sky Diver fitted with sequenced LEDs along its sweeps; I want to say its Powers Great American Midway’s piece. The ride looks absolutely amazing though! Here’s the vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkRndUFfMFA
This is a fitting choice for number one, all the more so because Chance seems to have retrofitted the pods from the Toboggan for use on this ride. You have to love the fantastically inane restraints which employ Chance’s signature feat of engineering: attaching the part that is supposed to hold you into the ride to the swinging hatch that lets you out of the ride. If a you’re a skinny guy like me who’s manning the wheel and therefore unable to brace yourself inside the cage, you might find the restraints sometimes catching you just above the knees and sometimes closer to the chest.
The scariness of this ride, while considerable, has for me more of giddy hilarity to it than the more panic-inducing terror the old Zippers could evoke. At the the intersection of fear and absurdity, you will find the SkyDiver. It is truly a can’t-miss experience for devotees of the carney classics.
My only ride on the Sky Diver was at Lakemont a few years ago with a die-hard enthusiast who talked me into being the second rider while he “piloted” the car. And he did manage to get that thing spinning. The most intolerable element for me, though, was going upside down at the bottom of the wheel – the positive G-force almost made my head explode.