HUGE Announcement From Busch Gardens Tampa
Busch Gardens Tampa: The park gets "SheiKra," a Bolliger and Mabillard dive machine along the lines of Alton Tower's Oblivion.
Busch Gardens Tampa has unwrapped its plans for its latest coaster and park enhancements. The new roller coaster called SheiKra will be the first "Dive Machine" in the western hemisphere. For those who don't know what a dive machine is, it is a coaster type invented by Bolliger and Mabillard (B&M) that takes riders up a hill, and drops them straight down at a 90 degree angle. There are only 2 such coasters in the world, Oblivion at Alton Towers, and G5 in Taiwan. However SheiKra will be the first to incorporate an Immelman inversion element, water feature, and a second 90 degree plunge into an underground tunnel. The 3188 foot track length is more than the Oblivion and G5 combined. The ride will reach heights of 200 feet and speeds of up to 70 MPH.
In addition to the coaster, the newly themed Stanleyville area will be receiving shopping and dining enhancement. A new 500 seat restaurant will be right next to SheiKra, allowing diners to watch riders plunging past them.
The full press release can be found at buschgardens.com
I'm sure more concept drawings and videos will be posted soon!
Russell,
I just saw the video of Sheikra on BGT's web site and this looks like a real winner. If BGW's new attraction is as good as anticipated, the Busch Garden's theme parks will deliver a nice one, two punch.
The great thing about BGT's new coaster is that it is being built by Bollinger & Mabillard. B&M has an outstanding reputation. Their roller coasters are extremely smooth and very reliable. You can almost guarantee that there will be little down time with this coaster. I doubt the same thing will be said of the Intamin built Kingda Ka launched coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure.
B&M is also building for Knotts Berry Farm, Silver Bullet, an inverted roller coaster and for Dorney Park, Hydra, a floorless roller coaster. Silver Bullet is scheduled to open on December 7, 2004 and Hydra will open next spring. Since I live in the DC area my first trip to Dorney Park appears to be a real possibility next year.
Nor are those the only theme parks building first class attractions. Paramounts Kings Island's new Premier built Italian Job appears to be a ride well suited for family members and thrill seekers. Hersheypark looks to continue their hot streak with first class rides by adding the Turbulence roller coaster, scheduled to open next spring.
On top of all this, Screamscape reported a rumor that Universal's Islands of Adventure may be adding a new attraction in 2006. If this is true, I can't help but think that these new attractions, particularly by the Busch Garden's theme parks, may be the impetus for IOA to move on building one of the attractions they have had on the shelf for some time.
Checked out the vid myself. It looks rather impressive. I ridden many many Beemers, and while some are better than others, I have yet to ride a bad B&M coaster. You can bet your bottom dollar that this one will be a good one as well. BGT will be high on my to visit list for next year. I'm glad to see them continue with the coaster building.
This looks to be a big year for coasters. I wouldn't be surprised to see another big year next year. The question is, if IOA is gonna build...what's it gonna be??
Can someone explain what an "Immelman inversion element" is?
I agree that I think IOA's next attraction will be another coaster. Their relatively cheap, easy to maintain, and people love them. The good thing about this new coaster is that it raises the bar for everyone.
From Joe Lane
Posted October 28, 2004 at 8:00 AM
Named after German WWI pilot Max Immelman, an Immelman inversion starts off as a regular loop, but at the height of the loop, the track becomes inverted, making the coaster right-side-up again and continues back in the direction it came from instead of looping completely around.
I agree another coaster at IOA would be an easy fix for the park, but what Islands of Adventure has achieved is the distinction of being technologically advanced and unique in its attractions. With the recent opening of the dark ride/coaster hybrid Mummy, and considering the minimal room for expansion at IOA, I think the odds are a type of simulator--possibly a dark ride hybrid similar to Spider-Man--will be in place. Now that Universal knows how to make ride vehicles fly through the air without ever leaving the track, the chances of creating an attraction with minimal actual movement but extensive sensations are pretty good.
Why is it that Busch has press releases, web videos, etc. about their new, expensive ride going in at Tampa, but they won't say a word about their new, expensive ride coming to Williamsburg? Aren't the two rides opening at about the same time?
Well, B&M is very, very good at PR. Does anyone know who is building the BGW attraction?
Second, B&M is also very, very good at hitting deadlines. The "Universal Studios Florida" rule of theme park PR says that you don't announce an attraction until you are darn sure it's gonna be open on the day you say it will be.
The Williamsburg park does not have year-round visitors, so tons of things can happen without anyone knowing, which seems to be the way a lot of theme park companies like to do things. There's already track on-site in Tampa, so to keep it under wraps would be silly. However, with the BGW attraction, no ride elements have actually arrived at the park, and the attraction is merely a shell of a building with only some lights and walls inside. BGW doesn't need to unwrap it's new attraction until it's time for people to start thinking about next season. Remember, Tampa is a year-round park, and it's much better to explain exactly why all the coaster track and construction is going on. BGW doesn't have to explain to anyone, because the park will be closed from Halloween until St. Patrick's Day. BGW has made it clear that a new ride is coming, but it's better for them right now to keep it secret to spur interest, because none of the ride will actually be seen until BGW wants us to see it. BGT, and for that matter, other year-round parks don't have that luxury. It's just better to let things out than to let speculation run wild with people snooping around the construction areas to get the scoop. If parks could, they would not announce attractions until a couple of weeks before they open, because they don't want competition stealing their ideas. It is also possible that the agreement reached between B&M and BGT to prohibit building another dive machine in the US for a "few years" was not reached until recently, and the need to keep the project secretive was no longer necessary. I would not expect an announcement from BGW until later this winter, when they start pushing 2005 passports. It is all together possible that the BGW attraction is so advanced that BGW does not want anyone know their plans until right before it opens, so competing parks will be 2 years behind. It is also possible that BGW has not been able to sign a "no build" contract with the designer, so keeping the specs of the ride secret is the only way to protect them.
St. Patrick's Day? Doesn't BGW usually open at the end of March? Do they open early for passport holders?
Yes, they typically have a passport member preview day on the first Sunday after March 17 for passport members only...They've done this for the past 4 or 5 years at least. However, whether the new attraction is completed for passport member preview day is anyone's guess. The park maps and signs all say "Spring 2005," which could be pretty much anytime up to Memorial Day weekend.
I would suspect that the Williamsburg ride is something uncommon or new. If it were say a B&M coaster, than there wouldn't be any mystique about it. BGW is hamming up the anticipation because it's good for business. Also, I would expect that Tampa would get the PR machine rolling as soon as possible in the Florida marketplace. Lots of big time competition there, while BGW doesn't have quite so much. I'm sure there is a method to Busch's madness here.
This sounds pretty cool. I'm hoping to go to Alton Towers sometime soon and ride Oblivion. If Busch Gardens do well with this, this could rival some of the world's best in extreme rides. Kudos to them. The only thing I'm worried about is when the ride will open. They just suggest that it may be open for the park's re-opening in Spring. We don't want this to turn out like Space Mountain at Disneyland.
From Jon Wely
Posted November 1, 2004 at 6:36 AM
It has to be great because B&M have the best coaster, Montu, so I'm sure it will be great.
While checking out the press release on the new BGW ride, I looked again at the video for Sheikra. Could somebody explain to me exactly what a dive coaster is and why it's classified as a separate coaster type?
Don't get me wrong; Sheikra looks to be a very cool ride, but I don't get what makes it a new coaster type (well, the third of its type). Is it because it has a 90 degree drop? There are others out there with vertical drops (e.g. PKD's Hypersonic). Is it because the vertical drop is the first drop of the ride? The only other thing that seems unusual about this ride is that it has very wide, short trains, but I'm not sure what that has to do with the dive element.
The Dive Machine is a coaster type currently exclusive to B&M. It involves the use of wider coaster trains (8 seats wide) and a drop at a 90 degree angle. Unlike many other coaster which typically drop at 50-70 degrees on the first drop, the dive machine plunges riders straight down face first. On the two current dive machines and the first drop of SheiKra, there are brakes at the crest of the first drop so that riders are suspended momentarily over the edge before the brakes release and send the train hurdling to the bottom.
There are a couple of other coasters that posses 90 degree drops, or close to it, in their layout (X, Dragster, Kingda Ka, Xcellerator, and Storm Runner), but the dive machine is centered around the 90 degree plunge and the patented wide cars, which is why inversions on this type of coaster are very limited (SheiKra is the first of the three, Oblivion and G5 are the others, to have an inversion, an Immelman).
Russell, maybe I'm being a little pedantic here, but the last time I checked, Alton Towers was in the UK and therefore in the western hemisphere.
I guess it depends which side of the Greenwich meridien it's on! :-)
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