Ride the flame through a breaktaking rocky landscape...
Ride the flame through a breaktaking rocky landscape...
| Theme Park | Europa-Park |
|---|---|
| Park Area | Iceland |
| Type | Rollercoaster |
| Audience | Thrillseekers |
| Opened | 4 April 2009 |
| Manufacturer | Mack Rides |
| Model | Launch Coaster |
| Height | 125 ft |
| Length | 3465 ft |
| Inversions | 4 |
| Max Speed | 62 mph |
| Duration | 2 minutes |
Accelerating down the launch track
Opened in 2009 as the park's first rollercoaster to feature inversions, Blue Fire Megacoaster is Europa Park's example of Mack's Launch Coaster model.
The ride, easily visible with its bright blue track, is set in Europa's Iceland area. It is sponsored by Gazprom, the Russian energy company, and is themed around gas pipelines - the ride is named after the Blue Fire given off by burning natural gas.
Blue Fire begins with a dark ride section, with the train moving slowly through an industrial complex past workers in hard hats and blue boiler suits. As the train reaches the start of the launch track, alarms go off and danger signs flash as one of the workers declares "Sorry, now we have a problem!" At this point the train is launched out of the building, rushing out into the open air as it is accelerated up to its maximum speed of 62.1mph in 2½ seconds.
At the other end of the LSM launch is a giant 125ft tall overbanked turn, followed by a tunnel and a 105ft tall vertical loop. From here, Blue Fire continues weaving in and out of the rocky landscape the track is set within, later encountering a horseshoe roll. The finale comes in the form of a heartline roll before the train hits the final brakes.
Blue Fire's trains feature both onboard audio and rather unique heart rate monitors. These are built into the comfortable lapbar restraints, so if riders grip onto the metal handholds then they can see their current heart rate displayed on a little screen in front of them.
Overall, Blue Fire is a wonderful ride full of excitement, a nice launch and some great inversions. It isn't the most intense ride out there - which can sometimes lead to criticism - and depending on the day it can sometimes feel a little slow through the final section of track (although this does allow for some great hangtime in the last inversion). However, the coaster is nonetheless smooth, well balanced and a brilliant example of what can be done with some high quality theming. It's a solid attraction ... and one with superbly comfortable restraints to boot!
Blue Fire's glass queueline building
Queueline fountains
Huge screens inside the queueline building introduce the gas pipeline theme
Inside the station
Mack's lapbar restraints with heart rate displays
A train emerges from the station building
Accelerating to 100km/h down the LSM launch track
First 125ft high hill
Vertical loop
Diving down off the mid-course brakes
Rolling over the rocks
Airtime hill
Passing straight through the loop
Inversion
Blue Fire passes through Wodan
Upside down
Front row riders
Plaque commemorating the groundbreaking
Blue Fire's launch lit up at night during the park's Christmas event
