Crazy Bats
Phantasialand
Location	Phantasialand
Park section	Wuze Town
Coordinates	50°48′04″N 6°52′41″E / 50.801°N 6.878°E / 50.801; 6.878
Status	Operating
Opening date	April 1, 1988
General statistics
Type	Steel – Enclosed
Manufacturer	Vekoma
Designer	Werner Stengel
Model	Custom MK-900
Height	38.4 ft (11.7 m)
Length	3,851.7 ft (1,174.0 m)
Speed	28.9 mph (46.5 km/h)
Duration	4:00
Capacity	1600 riders per hour
Trains	4 trains with 7 cars. Riders are arranged 2 across in 2 rows for a total of 28 riders per train.
Theme	Jungle
Crazy Bats at RCDB

Crazy Bats, formerly Space Center and Temple of the Night Hawk is an enclosed roller coaster located at Phantasialand.

History

Opened in 1988 after 18 months of construction, the ride was originally called Space Center. It led passengers past models of rockets and emulated asteroids and the darkened hall was dimly lit with thousands of tiny spots of light resembling stars. Due to the construction of neighbouring Wuze Town in 2001, the roller coaster was redeveloped with a fantasy jungle theme and renamed Temple of the Night Hawk. The coaster is now completely dark. Until 2006 there were green moving lights and strobe lights in the first lift hill, which are still present today but not operational. In 2008 the lights on the coaster trains were turned off or broke down and have not been repaired.

Till 2010 there was a green laser projection with the outlines of a flying hawk, and until June 2012, there were red strobe-lights at the final brake run. In 2011, the park installed new strobe lights in the first lift hill, which broke down after about two months, and never repaired.

The ride has four trains and one spare train for repairs, each with seven cars. Each car has two rows of seats, each holding two people. During the four-minute ride, the trains are lifted by three lift hill chains covering 1.174 metres (3 ft 10.2 in) of track. The roller coaster is therefore one of the longest indoor roller coasters in the world, slightly beaten by Mindbender in Galaxyland Amusement Park, Canada. The building containing the track is around 120,000 cubic metres (4,200,000 cu ft); it rests on 180 concrete pillars buried 12 metres (39 ft) deep in the ground. The building's basement level contains the ‘'Hollywood Tour’' dark ride. The total investment for the ride was around 15 million DM.

With the redevelopment of the ride in 2001, the park tried greening the roof of the hall by installing an irrigation system, but the results were not as good as expected. As an interim solution camouflage nets were installed on the roof, which, however, were removed after the major fire in the park and the resulting stringent fire regulations.

Until 2014 the song "The Egg Travels" from Disney's Dinosaur was played by several speakers placed inside the hall. In the station of the roller coaster, the song "Inner Sanctum/The Nesting Grounds" and the intro of the song "The End Of Our Island" from Disney's Dinosaur were played. By 2015 these songs were replaced with custom songs produced by IMAscore.^[1]

Originally, the coaster was about to be manufactured by BHS/Zierer, with linear induction motors as transport elements. After the track layout was already developed and models were created, the park finally decided to work with Vekoma and scrap the idea of linear induction motors, because of financial reasons.

References