Eurosat - CanCan Coaster

Roller coaster in Germany
Watch the on-ride POV
The onride POV's where shot with the maintenance lighting turned on.
Eurosat - CanCan Coaster
Europa-Park
Location Rust, Baden Wuerttemberg, Germany
Coordinates 48°16′03″N 7°43′15″E / 48.267417°N 7.720862°E / 48.267417; 7.720862
Park section France
Status Operating since 5 August 1989
Rider height
  • Minimum: 120 cm
  • Maximum: 195 cm
Statistics
Manufacturer Mack Rides
Designer / calculations Ing.-Büro Stengel GmbH
Type Steel - Enclosed - Virtual reality
Riders per train 14
Hourly capacity 1600
Propulsion Spiral lift
Height 25.5 metres
Top speed 60 km/h
Length 922 metres
Inversions 0
Drop angle 32°
Duration 3:18
G-Force 4
HELP

Eurosat - CanCan Coaster is a Mack Rides steel enclosed roller coaster located at Europa-Park in Rust, Baden Wuerttemberg, Germany. The ride has been in operation since 1989.

Design

Elements

The roller coaster is inside a 45 metre high geodesic dome, similar to that of Spaceship Earth, and it is themed to spaceflight.

Colour scheme

Red track and black supports. The ride opened with black track and supports.

Trains

7 trains with 7 cars per train. In each car, riders are arranged 2 across in a single row, for a total of 14 riders per train. Individual lapbars are being used as restraints.

Ride Experience

Eurosat

After leaving the station, the train was transported upwards in a spiral lift. At the end of the countdown which starts when reaching the top, the ride started with a curved drop to the right. The layout consisted of many helices, banked curves and quick changes of direction. It ended with a rather hard braking accompanied by a loud crash sound.

Big parts of the ride where in darkness, but there where several special effects on the ride, such as lasers, glowing asteroids (illuminated by blacklight) and a tunnel with blue lights inside.

The soundtrack In a Second Orbit by Stark Fader and the Cosmic Sound Heroes played on the ride through speakers inside the dome.

Eurosat - CanCan Coaster

The ride starts with a scene featuring bottles, with fireworks escaping as the train passes by. This leads to the spiral lift, which has been decorated as the Parisan skyline. This is supposed to simulate the train flying over Paris as it eventually reaches the top of the Eiffel tower. The entire lift features the music of the old EuroSat, before switching to the CanCan once it leaves the lift.

The riders are greeted by cutouts of CanCan dansers just before the first drop. The rest of the layout contains the ride passing though clouds, past well known Parisan buildings, lampposts etc. The ride eventually ends once the train 'crashes' inside of the Moulin Rouge, being greeted by CanCan dansers as the train comes to a stop.

The ride's soundtrack is now produced by speakers inside of the trains.

Refurbishment

In June 2017, Europa-Park announced that they would be refurbishing Eurosat in a project code named Eurosat 2.0.The refurbishment would entail a complete retracking of the ride, the addition of a virtual reality experience with its own separate station, the addition of some new theming and some changes to the ride's layout. The trains would be replaced by new, shorter trains. The refurbishment started during Winter Season 2017, with the ride eventually reopening on 12 September 2018.

An old train from Eurosat was donated to the National Roller Coaster Museum.[1]

Trivia

  • The roller coaster uses the rare "barrel-lift" which is a special kind of a spiral lift. Inside of the spiral of tracks there is a big rotating cylinder, which has vertical steel beams on the outside. These "catch" the train and carry it up the spiral.
  • The soundtrack inside the lift changed slightly as the train ascended. In the bottom section, the background synths were the most prominent, in the middle section the beats were the loudest instrument and in the top section the lead synths were prevalent part.
  • The countdown was inspired by the Apollo 11 mission: "10, 9, ignition sequence starts, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0 - all engines running!"

References

  1. Frank, Thomas (2022-04-28). "Zug der alten „Eurosat" aus Europa-Park wird Teil von Achterbahn-Museum". Parkerlebnis.de. Retrieved 2022-05-03.

External links


Articles on Europa-Park