Surely the final façade's not done on those yet? I mean, even the crappy obviously-Six Flags train design from the (p)recreation video show what the train should look like.

huh... an ugly B&M.

it honestly wouldn't surprise me if they left it like that. after all, they are the people who brought us such genius park designs as "the car park effect".

They've clearly got structure sufficient enough to have a façade bolted onto it - look at the holes in the main framework of the train's body. This is what all the Wing-Rider trains looked like before their façades were attached.

But facades add weight, so surely they have to be attached for it to pass safety checks?

They've still got to add the keyhole effect which will have to go through clearence tests. I think Six Flags just wanted to use their new toy straight away as it opens in 6 weeks. We'll see facades just with very little detail to us as we've been spoilt with The Swarm's trains.

The layout doesn't appear to be very economical on speed after the low turn into the second Zero-G. I mean, on any old B&M yes it'd be absolutely dandy and this wouldn't be a problem, and I'm certain B&M done the right calculations but perhaps, like their trims, they and Six Flags are just testing the water because of how comparatively enormously heavy the Wing-Rider trains are - and X-Flight in particular is B&M's biggest and heaviest ever train. They probably want to see that it'll make it back to the station maintaining sufficient speed throughout (that inline is probably going to be slower than Raptor's, hence the downward incline to get the train through it and then the final helix, which in itself could easily kill any residual speed with such a heavy train). It's also possible that this is just a period of choosing the wheel material combination to decide which is the best to offer the most acceptable forces and speeds at different parts of the circuit.

But I'm no expert really. X-Flight is looking very good though.

I think Six Flags just wanted to use their new toy straight away as it opens in 6 weeks.

Yeah, when you think Inferno runs without some of its 'bodyshells' I.e. wheel covers half the time, I imagine they just wanted to make the thing move as soon as they could. Granted adding the bodyshells will add mass and so change how the ride runs a bit, but so will the inevitable wheel balancing, changing weather conditions etc so it's no biggie.

Progress on Shambhala is great! The station and splashdown are almost completely themed.

The Skyline also looks fantastic!

Credit to the member 'Kebab' from CoasterForce.

Testing video of X-Flight has appeared...

Looks alright, too early to tell as we know like with Swarm, it looked rather slow on the original videos... Looks good though if lacking theming #typicalsixflags

That's even slower than I thought! Looks practically pensionable after the Immelman... I knew this was going to happen - it's the eighth car that does it. It adds so much weight and extra drag to the train that it just lumbers through the elements. I know Six Flags need the throughput but are those extra four seats really necessary? On a coaster that's roughly the same height but 400ft longer than The Swarm, how is an extra car going to help?

Six Flags' pre-creation video was so optimistic about the speed of this thing I watch it again now and laugh at how they thought it would sustain a speed much over 30mph for the second half. What looked to be the most interesting Wing-Rider layout looks so dull now do to a lack of speed. I realise speed isn't what the Wing-Rider is meant to give primarily but of course, this Wing-Rider doesn't even compensate on themeing or near-misses well, and the lack of speed looks like it will actually be quite forceless after that ground-hugging turn, so I doubt it'll be rated as high as Wild Eagle, Raptor or The Swarm by those who have ridden them.

That first inversion doesn't look as good as The Swarm's either. I'm sure it will speed up a bit but at the moment, not that excited if I'm honest.

Edit - Having watched it again and really focussed on it, I don't think it's tragically slow right until the end. Between elements it still picks up a decent turn of speed, and the fact that the inline is so drawn out doesn't help how it looks either. I'm sure it'll ride quicker than we would think watching it. However, there is no denying it crawls up to the brake run at a truly laughable pace.

There doesn't seem to be any hang time on the first inversion which is one of the best things about The Swarm. Being on the 8th row will provide a great pull through the first drop though and exit to the first zero-g. I don't get why the drop on this seems less dominating than The Swarm at only 7 feet smaller in height. At least we know there's a bit of theming on the way so it's not a traditional Six Flags car park theme.

That first inversion seems slightly faster than Swarm's? Or is that just me? (At least it's slightly different as well).

I speed of this doesn't really bother me; speed isn't everything of course. However, I'd be more interested to hear review of the finished product, especially as the ride seems to have a lack of theming compared to other B&M wingriders...

To be fair to it, the track section is about as themed as Wild Eagle... The difference being that Dollywood have an amazing landscape and trees to hide it...

And a detailed and intricate station building, the station for X-Flight will n doubt be a steel box

It actually isn't though... It's a large piece of curved steel.

Close...

It's a hanger... Which fits the theme...

It's rather open when compared to Swarm's station

Which has no roof!?

Weren't people complaining about The Swarm's speed in the first off ride videos? Complaints about an unfinished ride not having theming is a bit petty, even if this is Six Flags. It's not like The Swarm has sorted out all its effects.

My thoughts against X-Flight,

1) get rid of the 8th row, the train barely leaves the the inversion before getting to the bottom of the drop

2) Why have you not built the thematic feature the inline twist was meant to go through.

other than them two things it could be a dandy ride to go on!

By the way, X-Flight has a different drop to swarm, swarm as a more horizontal inline twist before dropping but X-Flight starts dropping halfway through the inline.

X-Flights twist is also the other direction to The Swarm's meaning that the drop starts before the train is fully inverted.

Oh, and the key-hole tower thingy looked the best part of the ride...

And it looks like they have scrapped the only themed thing on the ride!

Or it's just yet to be added? Like the thematic parts of the train?

To be fair the foundations are actually there for the tower, so I think it will be built.