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Phantasialand | F. L. Y. | Vekoma Launched Flying Coaster | 2020

How about in the morning? Rookburgh almost always opens later. As a hotel guest of Charles Lindbergh, do you have to pass the main entrance of the park instead of the direct hotel-park entrance?

Or is the direct hotel-park entrance open and do you walk into Berlin via the tunnel?

We get Rookburgh to ourselves in the morning... We have direct access to it. In fact, if you’re in Rookburgh as Fly opens, but before the area opens, you get that first public train without queuing :)

Our check in fell extremely lucky, we checked our bags in around 11:30 ish, walked down into Rookburgh just as fly opened, walked straight on :)

Also today, they stopped letting the public into Rookburgh very early, around 5:30 the area was empty, except the remaining people in the queue... FLY was advertised as ‘waiting area closed.’ But they were allowing guests to join the queue whilst they were clearing it down, great for hotel guests who could remain in the area... Got on the last train of the day :)
 
As was pointed out Disney must be mad not to completely scrap rock n roller at Disney Paris and replace it with one of these. This is the perfect coaster surely for Iron Man.
If Disney really wanted this coaster they could have bought it plus the exclusive rights. Vekoma is basically their exclusive coaster vendor.
 
We get Rookburgh to ourselves in the morning... We have direct access to it. In fact, if you’re in Rookburgh as Fly opens, but before the area opens, you get that first public train without queuing :)

Our check in fell extremely lucky, we checked our bags in around 11:30 ish, walked down into Rookburgh just as fly opened, walked straight on :)

Also today, they stopped letting the public into Rookburgh very early, around 5:30 the area was empty, except the remaining people in the queue... FLY was advertised as ‘waiting area closed.’ But they were allowing guests to join the queue whilst they were clearing it down, great for hotel guests who could remain in the area... Got on the last train of the day :)

Thanks for the reply. That's just great! This way you still have a small ERT experience.
 
Did they really roll back? I was in the line when it happend one our ago. They just stopped at the first launch.

Btw: Lunch at Uhrwerk ist fantastic.
 
How many coaster models have Disney previously bought ‘exclusive rights’ for?
Custom designed was problaby a better word :). Seven Dwarfs, Tron, Grizzly, Expedition Everst and Guardians all are custom designed by Vekoma&Imagineering.

Not that I think a flying coaster would be a good fit for Disney, but if they really wanted the rights for this coaster they probably could have bought it.

Also I misread the original comment, my bad.
 
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I finally made it and f.l.e.w. today! ;) Rookburgh is amazing. Truly world class in many aspects. Let me just comment on some controversal points.

Flat walls:
I've never been a passionate flat-walls complainer, but I must say I had a bit of an issue with it, looking at the pictures of the site. Now, having been there I must say this largely disappeared. The walls are fine. First, they actually look a bit less flat in real life. Second, they do not appear to be that prominent in the sense that you usually do not stare at these walls. Walking around on site, most often there is something in the foreground that catches the eye. So, I'd think, given they had a finite budget, it's invested well. The area just looks great. However, I must add that it was a cloudy day. Being illuminated in bright sunlight these walls might appear more prominent.
BTW, somewhat filthy weather seems to suit that area. ;)

Queue:
Most of it is great but parts of it really feel provisional. Of course, to some extent it belongs to the industrial theming, so it's for sure a balancing act to hit the right tone here. Anyway, just felt that it couldn't thoroughly deliver.

Ride experience:
There were very different opinions whether this ride is actually intense or tame and I really didn't know what to expect here. Now, I think the best answer to this is: it's a flying coaster! And as such it delivers positive g-forces probably up to around 2.5 g (maybe a bit more in few spots depending on your seat). So, in this concern it is way less intense than Taron (I guess up to 4.5 g in one or two spots when it's warm) or Black Mamba (even a bit more at the bottom of the loop). However, our body is, of course, much more sensitive to positive g's in the flying position. And moreover, I suspect that this sensitivity has a larger range of variation from person to person than for the sit down position, as the individual anatomy and musculature plays a more important role.
Also, the perception of positive g's depends actually on how you hold your head. If you look down it feels stronger than if you look forward. I've played around with it. At the same time, it can be pretty exhausting to keep your head up in that position for long (in particular when re-riding). Also, due to the softness of the vests it really makes a difference if you hold fast onto your restraints or if you raise/spread your arms requiring more body tension. All in all, f.l.y. felt more demanding (and hence less re-rideable) than Taron for me. For Taron I can just relax and enjoy being thrown around in my seat. That feeling is totally absent for f.l.y. So, yeah, I think you really have to get used to it to fully enjoy the feeling it delivers. Apart from that, for what it is the layout itself is pretty strong I'd say. It's well balanced, has a good pacing, no dead spots or obvious weaknesses. Still not my favorite in the park, which doesn't come as a big surprise as I've never been a particular fan of flyers. F.l.y. hasn't changed that game (yet). Let's see if my next visit could change my mind...
 
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It is quite interesting. I went today, too, and thought from all of Phantasialand's major coasters I could lap F.L.Y. the easiest. For sure, Taron and Mamba feel more demanding to me than this. Then again, we were a group of three and one of us got a major headache after his first ride on F.L.Y. So I guess, it's just something very personal how you react to this position.
 
Did they really roll back? I was in the line when it happend one our ago. They just stopped at the first launch.

Btw: Lunch at Uhrwerk ist fantastic.
I have a video on my phone of them recovering / relaunching the train at the bottom of launch 2 after a roll back :)

It’s far too dark to be interesting, but basically they seem to launch it backwards and forwards :)
 
Very nice that Vekoma programmed the rollback as a feature, not as failure with the need to get the people out of the vehicle. Maybe a rollback happens when the block ahead is still blocked. The train is far away from making it over the top, so maybe it was intended? Instead of performing a complete stop in the tunnel, the system is doing what we can see on the video. Maybe the launch is not powerful enough to launch the train from a complete stop, or at least not fully loaded.
 
More theming? Taken 3 mins ago today.
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Given that there's been a few rollbacks, I wonder whether they may have tweaked the second launch to reduce the top speed and subsequently the gforce you experience after
 
Best moments on this ride is the airtime after the second launch in the right seat(this ride is a right seat ride for sure! better forces overall) and the little ejector airtime that u get before the last helix.
 
Rode on Monday, had a great deal of airtime on the right side, absolute joy to ride! Sadly got caught in a breakdown on ride, which meant we didn't get as many rerides as we wanted. They took one of the three trains out for maintenance which was cool to watch, but took an hour and a half out of our day, which with a 50min queue after the breakdown, meant few rerides.

All four of us experienced the more forceful ride every ride, which I know some people have said it's hit and miss. So maybe they have tweaked the second launch! Whatever they've done, it's a hell of a lot of fun and I can't wait to get out and ride it again
 
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