Eagles Flight/Delta Flyers and Southern Cross

[Iron Wolf 90-11]

I was wondering why Eagles Flight/Delta Flyers and Southern Cross closed and is it possible that Six Flags Great America will ever see a ride similar to Eagles Flight/Delta Flyers and Southern Cross?

[Chitown]

From what I have been told, the frequent high winds of the area caused the ride to close down quite a bit. I usually know about the accidents that have happened at the park, but this one I am not quite sure of, but one of the buckets broke free from the cable and caused injuries.

That is all I have heard for why both rides were removed.

[Luxornv]

Southern Cross was also added prematurely. When it was built, it ended up in what is now the Southwest Territory (around the ampitheatre), but at the time was nothing. This resulted in one way and pointless rides for a ride that's supposed to be a transportation ride. With another skyride in the park that actually went somewhere, I think the popularity of Southern Cross never justified keeping it. There were plans to add a western themed area, but those seemed to fall to the back burner and never came about while Marriott owned the parks.

[tribar]

It might have happened back then as well but think how much garbage would be thrown outside those. Also you know how much people would spit out of those things

[UWW-10]

It's one thing if it the ride to you to the entire other side of the park.....which the ones at Great America did, but there was also a train station that went to the same general area, which kind of defeated the purpose of them.

I look at the one at Cedar Point in a similar fashion, and their Sky Ride practically takes you nowhere!

[tribar]

^Just down the Main Midway. A "convienent" service from Raptor to Wildcat

[[jonrev]]

From what I have been told, the frequent high winds of the area caused the ride to close down quite a bit. I usually know about the accidents that have happened at the park, but this one I am not quite sure of, but one of the buckets broke free from the cable and caused injuries.

That is all I have heard for why both rides were removed.

I never heard of that one unless you're thinking of the deadly one at St. Louis which started the mass removal of these rides. Not sure about DF/EF but I recall hearing about events where Southern Cross had to be stopped and evacuated, which took hours for a tall-enough ladder truck to make it to the park, then evac the cabins one-by-one. This claim might be lurking on GreatAmericaParks' forums somewhere but Im not positive...

[FParker185]

Friend of my parents was a chicago firefighter for many years, and he told me about a time when the park lost power and the backup system on Southern Cross failed, Chicago had the only ladder trucks tall enough to reach the cabins. People were stuck on the ride for hours and hours while they fought rush hour traffic to get to the park, then besides that with the park crossing across the center road and all the barriers to block peoples view of the center corridor along with it crossing over quite a few rides, some cabins were in really hard to reach places.

I forget what year that was, and the guy is dead now, but he did say the ride was gone within a year or 2 of that happening. I gotta assume that was a factor in getting rid of at least Southern Cross.