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Busch Gardens Tampa | Falcon's Fury | Intamin Drop Tower

Re: Busch Gardens Tampa | Drop Tower

Busch Gardens Tampa is renaming "Timbuktu", the area of the park where the drop tower, Phoenix, Scorpion and Cheetah Chase/Sand Serpent are located, to "Pantopia" when Falcon's Fury opens next year.
 
Re: Busch Gardens Tampa | Drop Tower

I like the new name and from the pictures I've seen the re theme will look awesome!
 
Call me strange but I've always loved the Timbuktu theming as it's so unique and has such a nice feel to it, so this news comes as a bit of a blow. However, I have no doubt that they'll do a good job on it as their theming always seems to be top notch. To be fair I think it might grow on me with time.

Are we seeing a drift away from the whole Africa concept? I know they lost that name in 2008, but the park's always had the foundation of being African themed. It seems odd having this area surrounded by Morocco, Nairobi, Egypt, Stanleyville and Congo. I suppose it follows on from Jungala as being more generic, but does it spark a change to the park's overall theming to more general/imaginary themes? It kind of says to me that they felt like that had to put in something new and do a re-theme rather than there being a real reason to. Similar to the penguin re-theme at SW. Although the building needed updating the whole project seemed to be huge for what it was and a lot of people said that they were disappointed considering the hype. I also wonder whether the inclusion of masses of ice outside potentially ruin the "flow" between the different areas. I guess this is the problem with the Florida parks, they are constantly competing for business so they need to keep refreshing things regardless of whether they require it.

I think it's a shame that parks have to go for "imaginary" theming rather than say, country theming as the imaginary theming can often can come across as tacky and child-orientated if not done just right. "Cultural" theming seems to be a lot easier to create and make immersive, but I suppose as times change and people travel further more parks see it as less exciting for their visitors.

It also screams "Aquatica"! to me! The name is also quite strange.
 
While I'm sure this will be an amazing ride, my only complaint is that it seems somewhat similar to Dive Machine drops (and possibly better). On this ride, the rider's are dropped 90 degrees, with a "holding brake" at the top. Sheikra sort of already offers this: a 90 degree drop with a holding brake at the top (the main feature to DMs).

I'm not saying this will be better than Sheikra, or that it will be redundant (because I technically can't yet ;)), I just feel that both concepts are very similar, and that's it's interesting that they're both in the same park.

(I could be wrong though, as none of us have ridden it yet ;))
 
The only complaint that I have with this ride is that they say that the seats will go back to normal position like at the last 1/3 of the tower. I was hoping that they would stay in position then revert back to normal once the ride is done. Like a flying coaster. And like a flying coaster, you shouldn't put the seats back to normal half way thru the ride!
 
Exactly. Otherwise the brakes would have to be a lot higher up the tower and of a more gradual deceleration. I'd rather the seats fold back half way through the ride rather than the brakes hit soon as you start to drop.
 
So the seats are going to flip into position as it's dropping?

I can't see there being an issue with this at all, what with it being an Intamin and a prototype product.
 
^ Yeah, the rumours are that they're going to return back into the upright position from 90º as it's dropping. Which, the other tilting drop towers do, soon as they hit the brakes, the seats slowly start to retract.
 
it could work if the tilt was done with control rails like a 4D, or if the tilt was integrated with the release mechanism and controlled with some sort of eddy current device....In other words it the seats would swing back by gravity, but a small magneticbrake on eeach set of seats would retard the tilt for just long enough to give you a couple of seconds of face first dropping...As the seats hit the start of the main brakes that would then give the seats enough of a nudge to quickly become upright again.
 
4 of 8 pieces are up, 3 more drop pieces and the top to go. Considering it's been going vertical for over a month we might not see completion until feb. God knows when testing will start, they say spring 2014 opening so anytime late march onwards, anyone heard anything concrete date wise yet?
 
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