Barcelona will enter 2024 challenging a new vertigo. The enthusiasts of theme park Tibidabo will have a new incentive to climb the mountain in a year and a half. The park will have a new type of attraction that promises to become one of its main attractions: if the schedule is met, the installation will have a free fall in January 2024. If all goes very well, even at the end of 2023.
The new attraction will be manufactured by the company Funtime Handels GmbH and will be located where the ‘Hurakan’ used to be. The free fall of Tibidabo It will have a height of 50 meters and an ability to 24 people per shift. The gondola that will transport them will be able to 360º turns during the tour. The main tower will feature LED lighting.
less height
To compare with the closest one, which is 92 kilometers from the Catalan capital, in Vilaseca, the free fall of Port Aventura, the Hurakan Cóndor, has a height of just over 100 meters and allows entry to people over 1 .40 and less than 1.95 as maximum height. Anyone who has tried it will know that feeling of who has sent me to get into this mess when slowly climbing to the top and scaring the hell out of screams on the descent.
The free fall of Barcelona will have a peculiarity in terms of access that families will appreciate. Because surely there are many who have experienced the slow wait that is sometimes required for a creature to reach the necessary height to enjoy some facilities.
The creature often grows more slowly than its interest in experiencing speed and vertigo. And sometimes you try to force when you have almost reached the minimum lower limit, with thick-soled shoes or a double sock that allows you to reach the desired 140 centimeters. In Barcelona, thanks to the design of the safety harnesses and the seats, it will be enough with 1.25 height to be able to access the free fallwhich will expand the potential public, The maximum limit to access will be 1.95 centimeters.
Break system
One of the main features of the attraction will be the braking system. A magnetic braking system last generation. The design, manufacture, installation and commissioning of the attraction will be carried out under the EN13814:2019 certification. The necessary electrical power will be around 300 kW, one of the lowest in similar installations.
The head of maintenance of the amusement park, Joan Manel Esquius, affirms that the new attraction will be the “most exciting & rdquor; along with the roller coaster. “You will experience the force of gravity in a real way & rdquor ;. Esquius relates that despite having half the height of the free fall of Port Aventura, in the case of Tibidabo the effect will be very intense: “Here it does not have to be so high because being on top of a mountain the views They will be very spectacular. Both from Barcelona and Baix Llobregat and Vallès”.
The image of the lower entrance of the park, where the new attraction will be, will be modified, says the head of maintenance
There are two types of free falls, continues Esquius. One, by means of a gondola that is hooked to a cable that raises it and that once up, separated from the cable, falls. This is the case of the one that will be in Tibidabo. It will rely on magnetic braking to stop. Magnetic, “for safety, because it is always magnetized & rdquor ;. That is, it does not work with an electromagnet, which is given and removed electricity. Let there be no cable, underline, intensify the free fall. The other system is the one that works with cable both on the way up and on the way down: “Like a very fast elevator”.
Two 360º turns
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Much remains to be done: “We have to redo the theming of the space. How will we paint it, how will it change the input image bottom of the park, which will be modified. We will open an ideas contest & rdquor ;, says Esquius. What does seem clear now, although the definitive conclusion is yet to come, is that the gondola will make two 360º turns, one halfway up and one when it has reached the top.
As for the attraction that dies so that the new one is born, the ‘Hurakan’, began to withdraw in December. At the end of February, the square that will host the free fall was already prepared. It was decided to close the ‘Hurakan’ before the pandemic, because, with three decades of work behind it, the attraction had a very high maintenance cost: the investment required to face its repairs did not make sense for the time in which it could work without needing a new patch. The material from the ‘Hurakan’, mostly steel, was sent for recycling. The dead to the hole and the living to free fall.