Blue Fire Megacoaster
| Blue Fire Megacoaster | |
|---|---|
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| Data
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| Location |
Europa-Park ( Rust , Baden-Wuerttemberg , Germany ) |
| Type | Steel - seated |
| model | Launch coaster |
| category | Launched coaster |
| Drive type | LSM |
| Manufacturer | Mack Rides |
| costs | 20 million euros |
| opening | April 4, 2009 |
| length | 1056 m |
| height | 38 m |
| Dimensions | 170 × 80 m² |
| Max. speed | 100 km / h |
| Max. acceleration | 3.8 g |
| Travel time | 2:30 min |
| capacity | 1450 people per hour |
| Trains | 5 trains, 5 cars / train, 2 rows of seats / car, 2 seats / row of seats |
| elements | 38 m high horseshoe turn , 32 m high loop , twisted horseshoe roll , heartline roll |
| Inversions | 4th |
| Subject area | Iceland |
| Theming | Technology, energy, science |
The Blue Fire Mega Coaster (proper spelling blue fire Megacoaster powered by Nord Stream 2 , often only Blue Fire ) in Europa-Park ( Rust , Baden-Wuerttemberg , Germany ) is a steel roller coaster from the model Launched Coaster - Megacoaster the manufacturer Mack Rides that the It opened April 4, 2009. The train was the first attraction in the Icelandic themed area, which was also newly built in 2009, and is the first roller coaster in Europa-Park with inversions . Blue Fire trains are accelerated to a top speed of 100 km / h within 2.5 seconds with the help of a linear synchronous motor (LSM). The route has a total length of 1056 meters with a height difference of 38 meters.
history
According to coastersandmore.de, a roller coaster with inversions was ruled out as a possible new attraction in Europa-Park until 2005, as it was believed that such a track would be too exciting and intimidating for a family park. As before with the Silver Star , which opened in 2002, coastersandmore.de is said to have commissioned several third-party manufacturers to develop a design. However, the roller coaster was then built by the Mack Rides company , which is in the same family ownership as Europa-Park and from which around 90 percent of its rides come. The foundation stone was laid on October 22, 2008. In December 2008 the last section of the track was used on the looping. Blue Fire opened on April 4, 2009.
In addition to the main planning by Mack Rides himself, various work was carried out by external companies. The engineering office Stengel optimized the layout. Weiss Ingenieure from Freiburg drew the supports for the railway and the train station, and the finished LSM drive comes from the company Intrasys from Munich.
In October 2009 the amusement park announced that it would be working as a sponsor with the Russian energy company Gazprom . Since then, the roller coaster cars have had the company's logo. In 2010, a three-story event and information hall was opened on the site, which contains parts of the queue for the train and in which the company presents itself.
For the 2012 season, Europa-Park had the railway's onboard soundtrack replaced. The new musical work, adapted to the course of the journey, comes from the composer Andreas Kübler of the music production studio IMAscore . In contrast to the previous work, Kübler used more classical orchestral and less electronic elements. In this way, he musically adapted the roller coaster to the mainly mystical atmosphere of the Icelandic themed area since the opening of the wooden roller coaster Wodan - Timburcoaster .
The roller coaster has had a new sponsor since 2020: Nord Stream .
Theming
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Blue Fire is located in the Iceland themed area . This newly built section is directly connected to the Scandinavian one . When it opened, Iceland consisted of the roller coaster, two restaurants and two shops. In 2010, at the end of the starting section, the so-called Gazprom Adventure World of the eponymous sponsor was built. In the same year, the adjacent Splash Battle Whale Adventures - Splash Tours opened . In 2012 the wooden roller coaster Wodan - Timburcoaster was added. On the main path, which was already completed at the opening, which runs parallel to the launch route and which connects the thematic areas of Scandinavia and Portugal, the restaurants and shops are disguised as Icelandic buildings in the manner of a fishing village.
The outer area of the railway will lead through the rugged landscape of Iceland. For this reason, several artificial rock formations made of special shotcrete were formed in the entire railway area , with which the railway interacts several times. The rocks, for which an additional 48 tons of steel scaffolding were built, take up an area of 5000 square meters.
When viewed from Scandinavia, the entrance to the queue was originally behind Blue Fire, but has led through the building since the adventure world opened. Parts of the old queue that are created between the rails are also released as a circular route for visitors who do not want to drive. In front of the entrance and the adventure world there is a rock terrace along the acceleration route, which serves as a photo point for non-driving visitors.
The normal queue first leads over a pool with several fountains into the Gazprom building with its three 360 ° cinemas, under the driveway of the Horseshoe and finally into the station building parallel to the acceleration section. At the entrance, the queue is divided into one for the first row and one for rows two to ten. The station building is designed in the style of an old warehouse or laboratory. The official name is Orka Rannsóknarstofa - International Institute for Energy Research . For example, several machine parts are placed in steel cages as theming elements. The first part of the trip should show the inside of a power plant or the test area of the institute. Since Blue Fire introduced the system of supervised seat allocation for the first time as a novelty for the park, there is a separate single rider line in addition to the normal queue , which is only intended for individual passengers. These individual persons are assigned to these seats in order to prevent journeys with individual empty seats.
journey
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After the train has been loaded with passengers, it drives out of the station in a left curve into a dark ride section . The front part of this is designed as a cave with bare stone walls and several puppets as technical employees and in the rear part as an industrial hall with a massive ventilation system and several incinerators. The rear part of the route inside the building is also the first part of the start straight. The train comes to a stop within the building and an alarm signal sounds in combination with the electrical noise of a short circuit. Since 2014 there has also been an animated worker figure at this point, calling out to the passengers on the train “Sorry, now we have a problem!”. Usually a cloud of smoke that appears to come from ventilation pipes is generated by a smoke machine immediately in front of the train. Before the train is finally accelerated by the linear synchronous motor , the view of the rest of the acceleration distance outside of the building becomes visible by opening a high-speed door, which serves as a privacy screen.
The train accelerates with 1 G on the 80-meter-long straight to 100 km / h in about 2.5 seconds. It is followed by a horseshoe , an over-sloping 180 ° curve in combination with a hill, to the left. With a height of 38 meters, the train overcomes the highest point of the route and only reaches the following end of the track by gravity. After a short drive through a tunnel made of artificial rock, the vehicle enters a 32 meter high loop . This is followed by an over-sloping right-hand bend in combination with a small hill, which ends in a long right-hand bend and thus forms another 180 ° turn, at the end of which the raised block brake can be found, on which the train can be stopped in an emergency .
After a descent which, similar to the letter S , leads slightly to the right and in the lower section to the left, the train goes through a twisted horseshoe roll . This element is a combination of two corkscrew-like inversions that are connected by a 180 ° right curve. After a 90 ° right-hand bend, there is a small hill with a passage through the inside of the loop. After another 270 ° left curve, the train travels through with a heartline roll , a roll around the heart line , the fourth and last inversion of the path. Before the train pulls into the final brake, there is a 180 ° right-hand bend in which the driving photo is taken, which the guest can purchase.
A ride through takes about 2 minutes and 30 seconds. A maximum of 3.8 G acts on the passengers.
technology
rail
The steel track is 1,056 meters long and has its highest point at the apex of the horseshoe at 38 meters. The rails are light blue and the supports are silver. The rail is a three-belt rail. This means that in addition to the two main pipes on which the vehicle drives, a third pipe has been added for stabilization. These main pipes are arranged in a triangle and connected to one another by welded steel struts. About 600 tons of steel were used for the entire railway structure, which consists of 130 pillars and 120 rail segments.
In addition to the main line, there are three sidings that run parallel to the actual station in the station building, onto which the trains can be pushed by a movable platform in the final brake.
Trains
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The Blue Fire Megacoaster has five trains with five cars for a total of 20 passengers. Four people (two rows of two people) can be seated in each car. Passengers must be at least seven years old and 130 centimeters tall. The specially developed low-floor trolleys are designed in such a way that they do not have any constricting cladding apart from a front border and are almost stepless with the floor edge of the station, so that easy entry and exit is guaranteed.
The seats are mounted on the car by means of solid bolted steel beams, with a connection in the middle of the car securing two seats or a row. The seat structure attached to this steel beam consists of two individual parts: the seat shell and the backrest. The ergonomically shaped seat shell, which has wings protruding upwards to stabilize the thighs on the sides, is leaned back slightly so that the passenger sits in a hollow. The backrest also encloses the arms of the passenger with laterally protruding parts and has a flat headrest.
At the level of the neck, the lap bar with its hydraulic cylinders is attached to the paneled back part of the backrest , which can only be moved when there is a power supply in the station. When open, the bracket is folded up by 90 °. If the bar is closed, its special shape prevents passengers from falling out of the vehicle by fixing their thighs on the seat. Here, the cushion attached to the end of the bracket construction forms a negative profile of the passenger's thighs. The arrangement of the seat shell, the backrest, the bracket and the ability to bend and stretch the human joints make it impossible to get out of the seat when the bracket is closed. A heart rate monitor and an LED display are also integrated in the lap bars, which show the current heart rate while driving. Each seat has two stereo speakers at head height that play specially composed music while driving. Cameras are installed on the respective middle structure of the previous row or the front boundary of the car to record the journey. The passenger can purchase the video on DVD after the journey . The rear row of seats in each car is slightly raised to ensure better visibility.
When fully occupied, each train has a mass of around 10 tons. On the underside there are permanent magnets as a counterpart to the LSM and the eddy current brakes. The cars are painted blue and white. The logo of the sponsor Gazprom is painted on the side panel of each car. The seat shells themselves are red, with the back and technical cladding of each seat being silver. The wheels are also red.
drive
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The Blue Fire trains are accelerated from a standstill at around one g to 100 km / h over a distance of around 80 meters using a linear synchronous motor (LSM) from Intrasys . This corresponds to an output of around 3000 hp. This is possible because a number of stators are attached along the acceleration line . During the acceleration sequence, these form a moving magnetic field in the part in which the train is located, which acts on the magnetic field created by the permanent magnets attached to the underside of the train. Since different magnetic poles attract each other and the same ones repel, the train moves along with the moving magnetic field when it is synchronized and is thereby accelerated. A very precise system for determining the train's position is therefore required in order to adjust the magnetic field to the train. With a deviation of just a few millimeters, the acceleration is no longer synchronous and the transmitted force is lost.
All stators that are currently not in the effective range of the train are short-circuited by default . As a result, if the train starts incorrectly, they also serve as emergency brakes, since without the traveling magnetic field, as with an eddy current brake, eddy currents flow through the stators, whose opposite magnetic field slows the train down. This ensures that if the train does not overcome the first hill, it is slowed down slowly while reversing and comes to a stop in the launching house. Since the LSM modules heat up due to the electrical power loss converted into heat, they have to be cooled by fans .
In contrast to other roller coasters, the block brake after the first section of the journey is also equipped with wear-free stators instead of mechanical friction brakes or hydraulically lowerable eddy current brakes. As standard, these are short-circuited and stop the car using the eddy current brake principle mentioned above if the next block of the route is occupied. If the next block is free, however, a voltage is applied as at the start and the carriage passes the section without loss of speed. Only two friction brakes are installed at the end of the braking section to fix the standstill of the train, since an eddy current brake can only brake the train, but not hold it in position.
At the end of the journey, the train is braked in the final brake by normal eddy current brakes.
reception
Blue Fire was largely positively received by the audience. In particular, the new bracket system was highlighted due to the associated freedom for the passenger. On the other hand, it was viewed critically that in favor of orienting the journey towards family-friendliness, greater intensity or liveliness was dispensed with.
Due to the success in their own park, Mack Rides has now built eight more Blue Fire models.
More locations
| Roller coaster | operator | country | opening |
|---|---|---|---|
| Battle of Blue Fire | Quancheng Euro Park |
 People's Republic of China
|
April 27, 2014 |
| Launch coaster | Colorful Yunnan Paradise |
People's Republic of China
|
5th July 2018 |
| Serpent Dragon | Sochi Park |
 Russia
|
2014 |
| Steam Racers | Wuxi Sunac Land |
People's Republic of China
|
August 25, 2019 |
| Velikolukskiy Myasokombinat | Wonder Island |
Russia
|
May 15, 2015 |
| Velociraptor | IMG Worlds of Adventure |
 United Arab Emirates
|
August 31, 2016 |
| unknown name | Lotte's Magic Forest |
 South Korea
|
2021 |
| unknown name | Xuzhou Paradise |
People's Republic of China
|
April 18, 2020 |
Importance to the park
Blue Fire is one of 13 roller coasters in Europa-Park. Due to the mixture of family-friendliness and thrill, the track, which is also the only track with inversions in Europa-Park, is one of the main attractions of the park. In the opening year 2009, Europa-Park was able to increase its visitor numbers by 6.3% to 4.25 million visitors. In 2010 this number was maintained, although the number of visitors to the 20 most visited theme parks in Europe fell by 1.8%.
literature
- Justin Garvanovic et al. a .: Blue Fire in First Drop # 85 . Club magazine of the European Coaster Club , pp. 8–11 (English)
Web links
- Blue Fire Megacoaster in the Roller Coaster Database
- blue fire - "Megacoaster" à la Mack. coastersandmore.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c blue fire Megacoaster - Europa Park (Rust, Baden Wuerttemberg, Germany). Entry of the RCDB; Retrieved July 27, 2013
- ↑ a b bluefire-megacoaster.com - website for the railway; Retrieved July 27, 2013
- ↑ official website - [1] - official website for the railway; accessed on May 3, 2020
- ↑ About us - MACK Rides. MACK Rides, accessed on June 20, 2018 : "Over 90% of the rides come from MACK Rides."
- ↑ a b Blue Fire Megacoaster - Please freak out! In: Europa-Park, leisure and family park Mack KG, V. i. S. d. P .: Roland Mack (Ed.): Europa-Park news . Kresse & Discher Medienverlag, Offenburg 2009, p. 4-7 .
- ↑ a b c d e f g h blue fire - "Megacoaster" à la Mack. coastersandmore.de; Retrieved August 13, 2013.
- ↑ Europa-Park steps on the gas , Badische Zeitung, October 15, 2009
- ↑ New onboard soundtrack for Blue Fire Megacoaster. IMAscore, March 28, 2012, accessed March 23, 2019 .
- ↑ Park plan summer 2013 . Map on the official website, accessed on August 13, 2013
- ↑ Blue Fire Roller Coaster On Ride POV - Europa Park, Germany HD . themeparkreviewTPR (YouTube). September 11, 2010, accessed November 26, 2013.
- ↑ blue fire Megacoaster powered by GAZPROM . Official website for the railway, accessed on March 25, 2015
- ↑ a b Blue Fire. ( Memento of the original from April 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. lifthill.net April 2009; Retrieved November 26, 2013.
- ↑ Dirk Neubauer: In Europa-Park, BeNNi meets Ed Euromaus. Badische Latest News , May 11, 2019, accessed on July 18, 2019 .
- ↑ a b Linear Induction Motors - With full steam on the magnetic shaft . coastersandmore.de; Retrieved November 26, 2013.
- ^ Jeremy Thompson: Europa Park (Part 2). rollercoasterphilosophy.com, March 30, 2010 (English); Retrieved January 17, 2014.
- ↑ Blue Fire. freizeitpark-welt.de; Retrieved January 17, 2014.
- ↑ Europa Park . RCDB entry, accessed on November 26, 2013
- ↑ Global Attractions Attendance Report 2009 ( Memento of the original from September 4, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 3.4 MB). Official report on the number of visitors to various theme parks in 2009, accessed November 26, 2013.
- ↑ Global Attractions Attendance Report 2010 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 3 MB). Official report on the number of visitors to various theme parks in 2010, accessed on November 26, 2013.
20. https://www.europapark.de/de/attraktionen/blue-fire-megacoaster-powered-nord-stream-2
Coordinates: 48 ° 15 '44.7 " N , 7 ° 43' 6.5" E