Falcons Flight Review

I was in Saudi Arabia last week and got to try the world's tallest coaster. Here's what I thought of it.

Falcons Flight is a top-tier thrill ride, an incredible engineering accomplishment, and a testament to just how much can be achieved by adventurous engineers working with an apparently unlimited budget. For me, however, it isn’t the best coaster at Six Flags Qiddiya City, let alone in the world. I’m conscious that this statement will have generated at least a few raised eyebrows, so perhaps I should explain.

For me a good coaster is be a well-paced thrill ride that feels like a single cohesive experience from start to end. Falcons Flight, being blunt, doesn’t do this. In fact, I’d argue that it's six separate experiences bolted together.

Part one can be thought of as a middle-of-the-road hyper coaster with a series of respectable airtime hills with banking. There's nothing wrong with this section at all; it would be a solid crowd pleaser on its own, and a headline attraction for a smaller park. A good comparison would be a B&M hyper from around the turn of millennium, such as Silver Star at Europa Park, or Nitro at Six Flags Great Adventure.

Part two is an enthusiastic launch up the side of the cliff. There is no direct parallel for this that I can think of, and it is quite a moment, even if it's not immediately obvious just how high up you're getting. The Coaster Studios people put out a backwards-facing POV which looks a great deal more impressive than the forward view.

Part three is a gentle meander at the top of the cliff. Enthusiasts who’ve been around this hobby for longer than they care to admit may remember the High Roller at the Stratosphere Tower, an entirely ordinary family coaster made interesting by its location high above the Las Vegas strip. I’d argue that this part of Falcons Flight is just that, especially when it tilts sideways. The view is terrific, but if the track was at ground level nobody over the age of ten would give it a second glance.

Part four is the slow crawl over the edge, which can be thought of as a seriously upgraded version of the "don't look down" moment on Oblivion at Alton Towers. If you're lucky this moment will be a few seconds of complete silence; it's far away from the noise of the park, so the only sounds that can be heard are those made by fellow passengers.

Part five is the cliff drop followed by what I’m convinced is the single most thrilling moment on any coaster in operation today. Gravity and momentum combine to take the train to positively silly speeds, and just when you think you’re at terminal velocity a bank of LSMs kick in with a terrific roar, pushing the train up the biggest camelback hill in history. The sheer adrenalin rush delivered by this section cannot be overstated.

The final part is the world’s fastest Japanese Jet Coaster; a lengthy portion of gently-sloped track that spends a little over half a minute doing nothing of particular interest. And yes, it’s very very fast, and the speed alone gives it a definite high thrill factor, but a few more camelbacks would have been infinitely more compelling.

Again, the result is superb, and I'm not for a moment saying that it wouldn't comfortably place in the top ten percent of all the coasters I've ridden over the years, but five laps over two days has left it well outside of my personal top ten.

I can't seem to upload photos for some reason, so here are the two main ones:

https://rcdb.com/21315.htm#p=154413

https://rcdb.com/21315.htm#p=154414

How were operations? Did is seem to run reliably? I doubt I'll be there any time soon (or ever...) but if I was planning a trip I'd be concerned about going all the way there only to have it down for technical difficulties.

Can you buy souvenir used wheels? I imagine they have a few dozen every day.

They were running three out of six trains during my visit due to a technical issue. Once that's solved, I imagine operations will probably be okay – there is no storage at the platform, they have separate load/unload points, and the trains are lap bar only, so they should be able to keep them going.

As regards wheels, each parking point in the station has its own cooling system – which I guess is aimed at keeping the wheels alive. Time will tell on that front.

They do have a terrific souvenir bobblehead where the character is wearing a ghutrah. One of those is now on my desk.

Richard Bannister:

just when you think you’re at terminal velocity a bank of LSMs kick in with a terrific roar, pushing the train up the biggest camelback hill in history.

How is the airtime on the camelback? Seems like it could have most sustained air of any coaster out there, and the closest a commoner could get to sustained weightlessness like NASA's "vomit comet".

Thanks for the review, I can see by the POV how it has a lot of things going on but not real cohesive.

Thanks for posting.

... so what did you think was the best coaster in the park?

For me it's a toss up between Adrena-Line and Iron Rattler. Could go either way depending on your preferences.

The wood coaster, sadly, is out of the competition due to the trains :(

What's wrong with the trains? That's a GCI installation; I'm guessing it features their new Infinity Flyers?

Yeah, likely so. Not sure I've actually read a positive comment about the new Infinity Flyers... Unlike the adored Millennium Flyers.