Crazy Bats, formerly Space Center and Temple of the Night Hawk is an

enclosed roller coaster An indoor roller coaster or enclosed roller coaster is a roller coaster built inside a structure. The structure may be unrelated to the ride, or it may be intended solely or primarily for the ride. Many indoor coasters are custom made and place ...

located at

Phantasialand Phantasialand is a theme park in Brühl, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany that attracts approximately 2 million visitors annually. The park was opened in 1967 by Gottlieb Löffelhardt and Richard Schmidt. Although starting as a family-oriented p ...

History

Opened in 1988 after 18 months of construction, the ride was originally called ''Space Center''. It led passengers past models of rockets and emulated asteroids and the darkened hall was dimly lit with thousands of tiny spots of light resembling stars. Due to the construction of neighbouring Wuze Town in 2001, the roller coaster was redeveloped with a fantasy jungle theme and renamed ''Temple of the Night Hawk''. The coaster is now completely dark. Until 2006 there were green moving lights and strobe lights in the first

lift hill A lift hill, or chain hill, is an upward-sloping section of track on a roller coaster on which the roller coaster train is mechanically lifted to an elevated point or peak in the track. Upon reaching the peak, the train is then propelled from th ...

, which are still present today but not operational. In 2008 the lights on the coaster trains were turned off or broke down and have not been repaired. Till 2010 there was a green laser projection with the outlines of a flying hawk, and until June 2012, there were red strobe-lights at the final

brake run A brake run on a roller coaster is any section of track meant to slow or stop a roller coaster train. Brake runs may be located anywhere along the circuit of a coaster and may be designed to bring the train to a complete halt or to simply adjust ...

. In 2011, the park installed new strobe lights in the first lift hill, which broke down after about two months, and never repaired. The ride has four

trains In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives (often know ...

and one spare train for repairs, each with seven cars. Each car has two rows of seats, each holding two people. During the four-minute ride, the trains are lifted by three

chains covering of track. The roller coaster is therefore one of the longest indoor roller coasters in the world, slightly beaten by ''Mindbender'' in Galaxyland Amusement Park, Canada. The building containing the track is around ; it rests on 180

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wi ...

pillars buried deep in the ground. The building's basement level contains the ‘'Hollywood Tour’'

dark ride A dark ride or ghost train is an indoor amusement ride on which passengers aboard guided vehicles travel through specially lit scenes that typically contain Animatronics, animation, sound, music and Special effect#Live special effects, special e ...

. The total investment for the ride was around 15 million DM. With the redevelopment of the ride in 2001, the park tried greening the roof of the hall by installing an irrigation system, but the results were not as good as expected. As an interim solution camouflage nets were installed on the roof, which, however, were removed after the major fire in the park and the resulting stringent fire regulations. Until 2014 the song "The Egg Travels" from

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

Dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

was played by several speakers placed inside the hall. In the station of the roller coaster, the song "Inner Sanctum/The Nesting Grounds" and the intro of the song "The End Of Our Island" from Disney's Dinosaur were played. By 2015 these songs were replaced with custom songs produced by IMAscore. Originally, the coaster was about to be manufactured by BHS/Zierer, with linear induction motors as transport elements. After the track layout was already developed and models were created, the park finally decided to work with Vekoma and scrap the idea of linear induction motors, because of financial reasons.

References

{{Phantasialand Roller coasters in Germany Roller coasters introduced in 1988