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| Manufacturer | Vekoma | ||||||||||||||
| Product | Custom MK-900 | ||||||||||||||
| Designer / calculations | Ing.-Büro Stengel GmbH | ||||||||||||||
| Type | Steel - Enclosed - Virtual reality | ||||||||||||||
| Riders per train | 28 | ||||||||||||||
| Hourly capacity | 1600 | ||||||||||||||
| Propulsion | 3 chain lift hills | ||||||||||||||
| Area | 80 metres × 75 metres | ||||||||||||||
| Height | 11.7 metres | ||||||||||||||
| Top speed | 46.5 km/h | ||||||||||||||
| Length | 1303 metres | ||||||||||||||
| Inversions | 0 | ||||||||||||||
| Duration | 4:00 | ||||||||||||||
Crazy Bats (formerly known as Space Center and Temple of the Night Hawk) is a steel enclosed roller coaster located in Phantasialand in Brühl, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the first Custom MK-900 installation from Vekoma and was the longest enclosed coaster in the world until Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind opened in 2022.
History
From its opening on April 1, 1988 until the end of 2000, the ride was known as Space Center. The building was originally painted white, and possibly inspired by that of the Horizons attraction at Epcot. The station and ride were very similar to the original Space Mountain at Disneyland, with the most notable theming inside being a UFO, laser shooting space ship and various crashed asteroids the train would travel trough. At all times the sound of firing lasers could be heard. In 1990, the dark ride Hollywood Tour and a restaurant were added in the basement of the building.
For the 2001 season, originally the heavily themed Wuze Town indoor area was supposed to open next door. The opening had to be delayed, but as a compromise Space Center was rethemed to Temple of the Night Hawk (the Night Hawk being the God of the Wuze people). The building was covered with green nets as to appear overgrown, while the space theming in the station was stripped and replaced with a jungle. Unfortionatly, the ride itself was just stripped of all effects and no theming was put back in (aside from a single laser projection of the Night Hawk). The laser sounds were replaced by the track The Egg Travels by James Newton Howard taken from the Disney movie Dinosaur. It is unknown of this was supposed to be the final design of the ride.
During the 2001 season, a massive fire broke out at the Gebirgsbahn on the other side of the park, completely destroying it.[1] Due to new fire regulations, the nets had to be taken off the building. During the 2008 season, it was painted red, yellow and grey and for 2015 the music was replaced by one specially made for the park by IMAscore, possibly due to the high costs of licencing the Dinosaur soundtrack.
Crazy Bats
In early 2019 the park announced Temple of the Night Hawk would receive another upgrade in the form of a virtual reality application. The jungle theme was removed and replaced by Crazy Bats, based on the Happy Family IP. The ride opened again on June 25th to mixed reviews. The film was produced by Ambient Entertainment and the soundtrack once again created by IMAscore.
Design
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Colour scheme
Trains
4 trains with 7 cars per train. In each car, riders are arranged 2 across in 2 rows, for a total of 28 riders per train.
References
- ↑ Mayntz, Melissa. "Amusement Park Ride Fires". lovetoknow. Retrieved 6 November 2019.
External links
- Crazy Bats on the Roller Coaster DataBase.
