Flying Roller Coaster
A flying roller coaster is a type of roller coaster meant to simulate the sensations of flight by harnessing riders in a prone position during the duration of the ride. The roller coaster cars are suspended below the track, with riders secured such that their backs are parallel to the track. History The flying roller coaster is a relatively new concept. The world's first flying roller coaster was ''Skytrak'', built in Manchester, United Kingdom at the Granada Studios Tour in 1997. The ''Skytrak'' used a single-passenger car. Riders would climb into the car in much the same fashion as climbing a ladder, then the car would be raised up to the track before being dispatched. The single-passenger design kept the ride's capacity low, at only 240 riders per hour. The park, and ''Skytrak'' itself, were short-lived; both closed in 1998. Design Vekoma Dutch roller coaster manufacturer Vekoma constructed the first large-scale flying roller coaster, '' Stealth'', for California's Great A ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Manta (SeaWorld Orlando)
''Manta'' is a steel flying roller coaster at SeaWorld Orlando. The attraction allows guests to encounter numerous species of ray before boarding a manta ray-shaped train that takes them on a roller coaster ride above the park, reaching top speeds of . Designed by Swiss firm Bolliger & Mabillard, ''Manta'' restrains riders in the prone position and features four inversions. The well-received attraction officially opened to the public on May 22, 2009. Their slogan is "Dive deep, fly high…". History SeaWorld Orlando revealed the concept that was to become ''Manta'' to a gathering of travel industry representatives and community leaders on April 2, 2008, although it had been in the planning stages for years. The exact specifications were not immediately revealed, but the park said it would be their largest single investment in an attraction and that it would open sometime in 2009. The park also announced that the attraction would include a roller coaster, but that it would ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Firehawk (roller Coaster)
Firehawk was a flying roller coaster located at Kings Island in Mason, Ohio. Manufactured by Vekoma, it originally opened as X-Flight at Six Flags Worlds of Adventure on May 26, 2001, billed as the Midwest's first and only flying roller coaster. Cedar Fair purchased Worlds of Adventure in 2004 and began efforts to downsize the park. X-Flight was relocated to Kings Island following the 2006 season, where it reopened as Firehawk on May 26, 2007. The roller coaster's layout was identical to Batwing, another Vekoma Flying Dutchman model from Vekoma, located at Six Flags America. Firehawk closed permanently on October 28, 2018, and was later demolished. On August 15, 2019, it was announced that Firehawk would be replaced by a new Bolliger & Mabillard coaster named Orion, a giga coaster that opened in 2020. History Six Flags Worlds of Adventure, Geauga Lake (2001–2006) When Geauga Lake was previously called Six Flags Ohio, plans for a new roller coaster known as X-Flight were rev ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical region. Italy is also considered part of Western Europe, and shares land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and the enclaved microstates of Vatican City and San Marino. It has a territorial exclave in Switzerland, Campione. Italy covers an area of , with a population of over 60 million. It is the third-most populous member state of the European Union, the sixth-most populous country in Europe, and the tenth-largest country in the continent by land area. Italy's capital and largest city is Rome. Italy was the native place of many civilizations such as the Italic peoples and the Etruscans, while due to its central geographic location in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, the country has also historically been home ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Wardley
John Richard Wardley (born 6 June 1950) is a British developer for theme parks in the UK and Europe: an innovator of special effects, dark rides and roller coasters in the themed attraction industry. Career Wardley started his career as a stage manager at Windsor's Theatre Royal, then moved on to the film industry creating special effects, including several of the James Bond movies. He was later hired by the Tussauds Group due to his experience in designing animated figures and rides for amusement parks. His first project with Tussauds was the development of animatronics for the 'Royalty and Empire' exhibition at Windsor, Berkshire. After this he was employed by the Tussauds Group to transform the declining Chessington Zoo in London to become the Chessington World of Adventures theme park. There, Wardley oversaw the production of attractions including The Vampire suspended coaster and the Dragon River log flume. In 1990, Wardley collaborated with attraction developer K ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Galactica (roller Coaster)
Galactica (formerly known as Air) is a flying roller coaster located in the Forbidden Valley area of Alton Towers amusement park in Staffordshire, England and is the first flying coaster manufactured by Bolliger & Mabillard. Guests ride in a prone position and experience the feeling of flight by "flying" close to the ground, under footpaths, and narrowly past trees and rocks. The roller coaster originally opened as ''Air'' on 16 March 2002. Following the close of the 2015 season, the ride underwent refurbishment and reopened as ''Galactica'' on 24 March 2016. It features an track, reaches a top speed of , and debuted a dedicated virtual reality experience, although this has since been removed. History Air (2002–2015) Alton Towers conceived the concept of a flying roller coaster in 1990, twelve years before Air eventually opened. Following the opening of Nemesis in 1994, a flying coaster was planned by the park to open in 1998, but was delayed due to technological li ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel, St. Gallen a.o.). , coordinates = , largest_city = Zürich , official_languages = , englishmotto = "One for all, all for one" , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , religion = , demonym = , german: Schweizer/Schweizerin, french: Suisse/Suissesse, it, svizzero/svizzera or , rm, Svizzer/Svizra , government_type = Federalism, Federal assembly-independent Directorial system, directorial republic with elements of a direct democracy , leader_title1 = Federal Council (Switzerland), Federal Council , leader_name1 = , leader_title2 = , leader_name2 = Walter Thurnherr , legislature = Fe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Air (Alton Towers) 01
The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing for liquid water to exist on the Earth's surface, absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation, warming the surface through heat retention (greenhouse effect), and reducing temperature extremes between day and night (the diurnal temperature variation). By mole fraction (i.e., by number of molecules), dry air contains 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases. Air also contains a variable amount of water vapor, on average around 1% at sea level, and 0.4% over the entire atmosphere. Air composition, temperature, and atmospheric pressure vary with altitude. Within the atmosphere, air suitable for use in photosynthesis by terrestrial plants and breathing of terrestrial animals is found only in Ea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and borders fourteen countries by land, the most of any country in the world, tied with Russia. Covering an area of approximately , it is the world's third largest country by total land area. The country consists of 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities, and two Special Administrative Regions (Hong Kong and Macau). The national capital is Beijing, and the most populous city and financial center is Shanghai. Modern Chinese trace their origins to a cradle of civilization in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. The semi-legendary Xia dynasty in the 21st century BCE and the well-attested Shang and Zhou dynasties developed a bureaucratic political system to serve hereditary monarchies, or dyna ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Suzhou
Suzhou (; ; Suzhounese: ''sou¹ tseu¹'' , Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Soochow, is a major city in southern Jiangsu province, East China. Suzhou is the largest city in Jiangsu, and a major economic center and focal point of trade and commerce. Administratively, Suzhou is a prefecture-level city with a population of 6,715,559 in the city proper, and a total resident population of 12,748,262 as of the 2020 census in its administrative area. The city jurisdiction area's north waterfront is on a lower reach of the Yangtze whereas it has its more focal south-western waterfront on Lake Tai – crossed by several waterways, its district belongs to the Yangtze River Delta region. Suzhou is now part of the Greater Shanghai metro area, incorporating most of Changzhou, Wuxi and Suzhou urban districts plus Kunshan and Taicang, with a population of more than 38,000,000 residents as of 2020. Its urban population grew at an unprecedented rate of 6.5% between 2000 and 2014, which ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |