It’s been the joke for years… Dollywood is just gonna give up and make the launched wooden coaster (that isn’t even a wooden coaster anymore) a chain lift coaster…
Well… it’s happening. The launch will be removed in favor of a “high speed chain lift”
In addition to the article, Dollywood posted a video on Twitter regarding this change: https://twitter.com/Dollywood/status/1701611625071919200?s=19
From what I understand, the LSM fins require perfect alignment to launch (hence the constant issues from the shifting wooden structure), while a chain lift will have a much higher tolerance. I do agree that the should just replace the entire thing with ibox track, and a steel structure for the lift, at this point, but anything that gets it to be reliably operational is certainly welcome.
I never even thought about that aspect of things. I had always assumed it was just a safety system trip where the worry was the structure was compromised but yea the fin segments not being perfectly in line would be horribly bad in many ways.