Kennywood Announces Black Widow for 2012

I'll be the first to tell you, spiders are not my cup of tea - but I make an exception for new rides named after them!  Kennywood has finally announced Pitt Fall's replacement, the venomous Black Widow.

The towering ride is a Zamperla Giant Discovery, a huge ride that both spins and swings guests in a dizzying pendulum motion.  A total of 40 riders can experience Black Widow at once, sitting in outward facing seats with their legs dangling on a giant ring at the base of the ride.

At the start of the ride the ring slowly starts spinning in a counterclockwise direction as the pendulum starts to swing.  At full swing the ride will be more than 120 degrees from the center point, and reach an amazing height of 146 feet.

The base of the ride stands 90 feet tall, so you can imagine how far up the ride will swing to reach 146 feet!  As if the height statistics weren't impressive enough, the ride also reaches a maximum speed of 68 miles per hour as it swings - faster than all the park's coasters aside from Phantom's Revenge!

To see a preview of the Black Widow, check out this video of similar Zamperla Giant Discovery rides:



Flat rides don't get much bigger than this, that's for sure.  I have a feeling that Black Widow will quickly become one of the park's most popular attractions when it opens at Kennywood next season.