Kingda Ka

Kingda Ka is Russian Montagnes out of metal of the park Six Flags Great Adventure localized with Jackson, in the New Jersey, with the the United States. They are currently the Russian mountains highest and fastest in the world, détrônant the Top Thrill Dragster of Cedar Point. They opened on May 20th, 2005 in a new zone set of themes of the park, called Golden Kingdom .

The circuit

Once the closed and checked harnesses, the Train leave the station slowly and move towards the zone of launching. It passes by a Aiguillage, this last allowing the simultaneous loading of 4 trains (the station has 2 ways). Once the train arrived in the zone of launching, a system of Propulsion Hydraulique catapults the train of 0 with nearly 206 km/h in 3,3 seconds. At the end of the zone of launching, the train begins the rise of the principal tower, making a Rotation 90° towards the left before reaching the top, culminating with 139 meters. It goes down again while carrying out this time a rotation of 270° towards the line, reaching generally more than 160 km/h to the bottom of the slope. Finally, it begins the rise of one second bump of almost 40 meters in height, causing one moment of Apesanteur (the anglophone term airtime is often used by the amateurs of attractions with feelings), to be stopped carefully by a system of Frein S magnetic. The train takes a turn in the shape of “U” and turns over to its starting point. All that in 28 seconds of the beginning of catapult-launching with the brakes of end of course, although the official duration of attraction is 50,6 seconds.

It is possible (but rare) that the train entirely does not climb the tower. It thus sets out again behind. (In English, the train carries out a “Rollback”). A retractable system of brakes on the way of launching makes it possible to slow down the train gradually then stopping it. The train is then brought back in station, and the visitors can choose to leave attraction or to remain for a new turn. Many fans of feelings hope to live a “Rollback” but much of other visitors find (wrongly) this “incident” dangerous in spite of the presence of many warnings.

Kingda Ka has two cameras on its course. First is placed just after the beginning of catapult-launching, the second is at the end of the course, just at the beginning of the zone of braking. That gives a “front” effect and “afterwards”. These two cameras are located on the line of the course, it is thus requested from the visitors wishing of the photographs of quality to place itself on the line of the train.

Contrary to its counterpart, the Signal Thrill Dragster , it is difficult to know when will begin catapult-launching. When the order of launching is given, the train moves back slightly to be fixed on the system of launching. The “anti-rollBack” brakes retract and launching begins five seconds afterwards. A siren briefly resounded before each launching, but it was cut after several complaints on behalf of the residents. The siren does not resound now any more but once: after nona prolonged use of attraction.

The mechanism of launching is able to propel a train every 45 seconds, allowing a theoretical time capacity of 1400 people/hour.

The station and trains

The station of Kindga Ka is made up of two quays where the trains are acicular at the entry and the exit. Each quay makes it possible to manage two trains. Each train is charged and discharged on the same quay. When attraction functions, the trains of the one of the two quays are in the course of loading while on the other quay, the trains are ready to be catapulted. This system functions particularly well as long as there is no significant delay during the loading or of the checking of the trains. It also results from it that the queue advances quickly before the station but it remains a long delay in station, and more particularly if one wishes to go up to the front one. An employee directs the visitors towards one of the two quays, but they are free to choose their place in the train. The four trains are various colors for an easy identification: green, dark blue, light blue and orange. These colors are also used on the seats and the straps safety.

Two operators charge and check each train, and another order catapult-launching. The trains have a capacity of 18 people, with 2 people per line. The last coach of the train has only one line whereas the other coaches have two of them. The line with the back of each coach is elevated compared to the first line, for a better visibility of the course. The trains are not named, not only numbered.

The train dark blue was except service during the season 2006, on standby of new parts of the company Intamin. He knew various problems after being used for the tests of routine according to the incident of 2005 (see below). In the same way, the orange train frequently did not use this same year, remaining on the sidings: it happened that the harnesses of the first two lines open whereas the others remained locked. Today, all the trains are operational.

The harnesses of Kingda Ka are composed of a rigid bar on the level of the legs, on which come to be grafted two other smaller and flexible bars, passing over the shoulders. Two handles are fixed on the rigid bar. This type of harness makes it possible to have identical feelings that with a simple ventral bar but getting an additional feeling of safety thanks to those passing over the shoulders.

The harnesses close grace a hydraulic system allowing a precise closing adapting to the morphology each one. The harnesses can, during the course, to close itself a little more but never to loosen itself. As much of others Russian Mountains, the harnesses is assisted by a belt if the system of locking would be failing. With an aim of charging the trains more quickly, the passengers are requested to close their belt and their harness if they know how to make.

Each train has a mask behind the last line, masking a site for an additional line of seats. This addition of seats would make it possible to pass the capacity from 18 to 20 passengers by train and thus to increase the time capacity of 200 passengers (of 1400 to 1600 passengers/hour). The station was built in preparation for this modification of the trains. As these modifications still did not take place, the trains were slightly modified for the season 2006. The front of the trains received a skilled of brush, masking the logo “Kindga Ka” as well as the number of the train, and the metal handles of the harnesses are not painted any more out of orange.

Because of the air legislation, the top of Kindga Ka has a device sending of the flashes of light to regular interval.

The queue

The queue of Kingda Ka starts well before the arch of entry. The tail passes by a stand of ices before passing under the arch. After a long zone in accordion is followed from there where a DJ is there often to distract the visitors. After this zone, the tail arrives at the station of loading. An employee directs the visitors on one or the other of the two dispatching platforms. Each quay has a file separated to put itself in the forefront in the train.

Before the principal incident of 2005, the queue was broader. It started as of the arch of entry, passed under the zone of launching, and separated into two to arrive each one on a side of the station. The majority of the queue was inside the circuit of Kingda Ka. Because of the remains projection coming from the zone from catapult-launching at the time of the incident of 2005, the park and/or the authorities a/ont decided that it would be more advisable as much as possible to keep away the visitors of the zone of catapult-launching in the event of new incident of this kind. The current entry of the station was the file “Fast Pass”.

The latency can reach nearly 6 a.m. the days of great multitude. It is thus recommended to the visitors to eat, of going to the toilets and to have what to nibble and drink before returning in the queue. It is not recommended to make the tail if that led to wait a long time under the sun (the file not being covered). It is frequent to see the visitors leaving the file because of heat.

Principal breakdowns and incidents

June 6th, 2005, hardly one month after grand opening, a bolt was taken between the system of propulsion and its guidance on the rail. The friction made slow down the acceleration of the train. Frictions caused sparks and projected pieces of metal by the back of the train. The automat controlling the catapult-launching of the train exerted a force of more important traction on the cable to compensate for lose speed due to frictions and to try to reach 206 km/h.

The mechanism of activation of the brakes “anti-rollback” is composed of plates which are assembled by group of 24 out of 4 metal structures, driven by servos, which start independently of the system of launching, by timer.

The brake was thus activated, the plates rising in the center of the rail. At this time, the train was still on the track of launching and still underwent a tractive effort. The engine then still intensified its force of traction for stage the deceleration of the train, moving the train through the activated zones of brakings. The carriage of launching disunited train. The train, still in zone of braking, was immobilized with the foot of the tower.

This incident occurred without passengers on board, during a test of routine the morning. There no were victims. The damage was on the cable of propulsion which was replaced, on the system of propulsion (left hydraulic, required to replace certain joints), and on the brake (need to change the magnetic plates).

The magnetic plates of the system “anti-rollback” are made to stop the trains not crossing the first bump before bringing back it in station, but a train in the course of propulsion will exert a too large stress on these plates which will end up breaking. All the plates do not have a being replaced but there was to change more that what the park for the replacements related to the fair wear and tear did not have and it was necessary to order some especially from Intamin. Moreover, one new inspection of safety was necessary. The tests started again on July 21st, 2005. Kingda Ka reopened on August 4th, 2005. The queue was modified and does not curve any more under the zone of launching.

Some data

attraction owes its name with the one of the tigers of the park.

Signal Thrill Dragster with Cedar Not (Russian mountains being the title “fastest and highest”, before being détrônées by Kingda Ka, also built by Intamin), resembles to him much. Top Thrill Dragster does not have a second bump but a zone punt of braking, culminating with 11 meters less, and its top speed is lower by 6,5 km/h. So whereas the zone of braking of Top Thrill Dragster is parallel to the zone of launching, the second bump of Kingda Ka is not it, and the spiral which carries out its trains while going down is thus not exactly of 270°. Another characteristic is that Kingda Ka does not have tricolor fire announcing catapult-launching, which gives an additional suspense to attraction.
As impressive as can be Kingda Ka, it is however not very different from the Russian mountains of the same type, such as for example Xcelerator with Knott' S Berry Farm, the first Russian mountains with a system of hydraulic propulsion. But Kingda Ka and Top Thrill Dragster does not have tight turns ( " banked turns" in English) contrary to Xcelerator .

the speed of catapult-launching corresponds almost to the double the speed of Batman & Robin: The Chiller , the 2nd fastest attraction of park (110 km/h). The system of propulsion is able to produce a peak of: 4000 horse power (either 3 Megawatt S). Attraction never functions under the rain by security measure. The nuisances of such a catapult-launching are easily imagined when it rains…
With the foot of the first bump, the passengers weigh up to 4 times their weight (4 G).

Kingda Ka 30 cm is higher than the large pyramid of Gizeh, although before its erosion, this one exceeded the attraction of 7,5 meters. The height of Kingda Ka is almost the double of that of Nitro , seconds plus Russian high mountains of the park (70 m), and the second bump makes only 4 meters less than the point highest of Medusa .
Kingda Ka is visible since bridge NJ 37 connecting Toms River to Seaside Heights (New Jersey), that is to say to 34 km since the park Six Flags Great Adventure. One can also see it while passing by exit 8 on Interstate (trunk road) 195.
the accesses of Philadelphia on the left, New York City on the right and Atlantic City towards the bottom on the left can be seen top of Kingda Ka .

See too

Internal bonds

Strata Russian mountains

External bonds

Card of Kingda Ka (RollerCoaster DataBase)
Six Flag Great Adventure (Google Map)

Simple: Kingda Ka

Random links: