Ride the Flying Ray…Manta is coming
Manta is coming
The Summer of 2009 sees the opening of Sea World’s new ride “Manta”. This promises to be something a bit different… a mix of 3,000 animals and a flying coaster! Unique, novel…we’ll see but the early signs are that SeaWorld will hit a home run.
The new attraction will have 10 aquariums holding 184,000 gallons of water in total and over 60+ species will call “Manta” their home. According to Sea World we’ll see 20 sea horses, 23 sea dragons, 304 rays and an incredible 2,500+ fish.
The underwater viewing areas promise floor to ceiling viewing as well as a 220 square foot overhead viewing panel for observing schools of rays circling above. Meanwhile up in the air the flying coaster will see four people sitting face down and horizontal! The coaster reaches 140 feet in height with a maximum drop of 113 feet and a top speed of 56 miles per hour will be attained.
There will be a total of 4 inversions…yes, that’s the posh word for being upside down and the length of the track will be 3,359 feet. In football language…because it’s Superbowl weekend… that’s nearly 10 football fields in length!
The manufacturer of the ride is a Swiss company (go figure!) called Bolliger (no…not the champagne) & Mabillard and it’s reckoned that the ride time will be 2 minutes and 35 seconds. So with 4 people abrest and with 3 trains per track x 32 people on each train, 1,500 people per hour will get to enjoy a coaster and an aquarium delight!
