It’s no secret that NightFlight Expedition at Dollywood has had some up-time challenges in its early days. I experienced this personally earlier this week with it opening late and shutting down early. It appears we may have some indication of one of the issues in that Dollywood released a notice on social media sttating, “As part of on-going ride rehearsal, the manufacturer has asked for additional time to adjust the timing of the ride’s turntable to ensure a quality experience for this unique part of the attraction.” This has now been removed as everything is about Dolly Parton’s passing (and rightfully so).

As part of on-going ride rehearsal, the manufacturer has asked for additional time to adjust the timing of the ride’s turntable to ensure a quality experience for this unique part of the attraction.

This “turntable” is the heart of the “flying” simulator of the ride and carries three vehicles at a time rotating them from its entrance to the next section on the ride. This turntable is so large and moves so slowly that it’s essentially imperceptible to riders. On Monday I was lucky enough to get a ride and apparently was the last boat without issue before this prolonged shutdown. The boat after mine said that shortly after entering the turntable everything went black as the ride appeared to effectively shut down and I don’t believe it ever reopened that day or before this announcement.

We can glean some information about the turntable from Mack’s patents as well as comments from Dollywood personnel during construction. There were also a few pics of pieces from construction, but the majority of it was probably assembled inside the building. Dollywood President Eugene Naughton said in an IAAPA article that it was, “the world’s largest turntable within an attraction” and there’s a tremendous amount going on during this turntable sequence. First the vehicle needs to transfer off of tracks and onto the table. Then the table and vehicle need to engage and run the simulation. Finally the table must realign with the next set of tracks so the vehicle can exit. I would imagine getting track alignments, locking sequence and all the associated timing with the video, motion and effects correct is no easy feat.

“The world’s largest turntable within an attraction.”

-Dollywood President Eugene Naughton

The “flying” section is a huge portion of the ride, both in time and in imparting the story of “Hidden Hollow Aviation”. I also like that rather than declaring the ride “open” that they’re now referring to this time as “technical rehearsals” as I think it lowers expectations for guests and is a bit of a fair warning to those potentially looking to schedule trips specifically to experience NightFlight. Hopefully Mack and Dollywood can figure this out quickly and get this ambitious ride up and going reliably soon.