At 155 miles per hour (250km/h) Falcon’s Flight is the world’s fastest roller coaster. In a sense its faster than many of the world’s fast trains (excepting Eurostar plus the French, Chinese and Japanese high speed lines). Not only that, Falcon’s Flight’s speeds are greater than the fastest national trains in the UK! South Eastern’s Javelin trains reach a mere 140mph!
Besides its huge speed record, Falcon’s Flight is also the longest and tallest roller coaster in the world. The ride is located at the recently opened Six Flags Qiddiya City in Saudi Arabia. Qiddiya is a new city to the west of Riyadh being developed by the Saudi government’s Public Investment Fund. The park is by no means completed except for its ‘City of Thrills’ theme park section which opened on December 31, 2025. Some of the videos of the theme park’s construction more than a year ago certainly showed this was going to be a most unusual theme park. Its not the only one to be found in Saudi Arabi but its the biggest no doubt.
The number of POV ride views on Flacon Flight have increased enormously. This recent example from Youtube shows front and rear POVs.
The coaster, designed by Intamin, is an “Exa coaster” (a term for coasters over 600 feet tall) and a signature attraction in the park’s “City of Thrills” section. Some brief statistics of the ride are as follows:
| Height | 639 ft (195 m) |
| Speed | 155 mph (250 km/h) |
| Length | 14,189.6 ft (4,325 m) |
| Drop | 519 ft (158 m) |
| Max Vertical Angle | 90° |
| Duration | 3:35 |
The ride is by Intamin and features their powerful LSM launch system which is necessary for the extremes the ride reaches. These are a height of 639 feet (195m) and speeds of 155 mph (250 km/h). Other information on the ride can be found at Wikipedia.
Six Flags Qiddiya City is the first Six Flags park built outside North America and is part of the new Saudi city development located about 40 minutes from Riyadh. The theme park is a rare example of one where the money has come from the Government.
The promontory upon which the ride employs for a thrilling suspended above the chasm section, as well as the launch for its 155mph maximum speed section. Intamin.
The ride extends to the top of a local mountain which is well over 600 feet in the air and the ride encounters a section where its rails are suspended in mid-air thus there’s an angled drop of 518 feet beneath the tracks! This is achieved by having the main structure upon the flat mountain top arranged that the supports for most of this compromises of a cantilever system which is able to carry this particular section in mid-air without any need for supports directly beneath. Its the first such instance of a ride climbing up a substantial cliff face, and then turning about to run at a distance somewhat out from the same cliff face to give the thrill of riding suspended in mid-air.
Its been said that normally a theme park would not build such a ride (including a very long section of Linear Synchronous Motors – LSM – to launch the ride up the cliff face plus extreme high speeds) and that is because of the risk factors. Six Flags Qiddiya City is however funded by the Saudi Government thus the uncertainty element is removed somewhat. What that means is instead of being a ride that operates to maximise profit, Falcon’s Flight is a ride to push the boundaries of what a coaster could do, and that because its not dependent on the need for profitability.
Because it is entirely new and on a scale previously unprecedented, there are limitations to any potential of being able to maximise both ridership and profit anyway. And that is because it has some apparent shortcomings. These are not so critical to the ride’s operation however.
One thing the ride is noted for is the numerous rollbacks. Other coasters too have rollbacks. Top Thrill 2 and even Stealth in Thorpe Park. These can occur when the ride is used first thing in the day and the conditions are not exactly ideal, including temperature, damp on the rails etc. With Falcon’s Flight rollbacks are expected to be fairly regular because the structure will experience huge variations in temperature and humidity. Hence Falcon’s Flight goes one better than many others and there are announcements to keep the riders informed and reassured then that everything is fine. They do this at regular intervals as the cars are slowly and synchronously regressed back to the starting point before making a second (in one or two cases there has even been a third) attempt at the second launch hill.
Falcon’s Flight control room has a great perspective over the main section of the coaster including its three high speed launch sections. Screencap from Youtube.
It might not be known however the ride is built in such a way that its control centre has an optimal view across the entire ride, even the sheds where the trains are stabled. Thus any rollbacks can be observed both on CCTV and also visually from the control room itself. There are numerous screens that practically cover every inch of the ride and staff can monitor for any rollbacks and put into effect immediately the procedures necessary to reset it for another run at its substantial lift hills.
One of a few videos on the rollbacks Youtube. One other is a double attempt to gain ascent video. Another shows a roll back on the downhill tunnel run.
The downhill launch tunnel and airtime hill is also prone to rollbacks and that despite the fact there are several LSMs on the ascent to keep the ride at its maximum speed. Evidently the same vagaries occur here as on the uphill LSM run and any small differential in the ride’s operability will quite possibly cause the momentum to flatten out as the train attains the top of the hill, thus the weight of the cars behind will pull the entire lot back. If there’s not many people on the run it may not make any difference but if the train is well loaded and so on, a rollback could occur. Its not as frequent on this section as it is on the other. A different modus operates here however. First the train is allowed to roll back into the tunnel and then it is relaunched immediately onto the airtime hill. If that fails the ride will likely need to be stopped and the entire system reset. After a number o announcements it then continues and the train is launched forward, and then propelled by the LSMs right through the tunnel and almost to the top of the cliff face (this Youtube video shows that very moment) before being launched towards the airtime hill once again.
The issue of having two main rollback sections does cause the employment of block sections that are longer than is usually the case. A train cannot leave the starting station before another has cleared the ride’s launch lift hill, the launch cliff section and the huge airtime hill.
The ride pictured is able to leave the station because the other train (seen at right) has just cleared all the previous sections that potentially could experience rollbacks. In the middle is the building that constitutes the train sheds. Screencap from Youtube.
With its extended block sections and rollbacks that get effected, the operation no doubt limits the potential number of rides that can be made each day. The process in resetting the ride takes up a considerable amount of time. On a good day there would practically be no rollbacks whilst on a bad day there would be several. All theme park rides suffer some sort of fallibility however with Falcon’s Flight, its unusual that its rollbacks happen to be a normal event! The question here is, would one rather have a ride that threw up unexpected gremlins and had to be shut down – or one whose quirks could be managed easily and the ride kept open?
The very top of the ride’s second and very long lift hill goes over the brow of a vertical cliff. Its just about doable yet sometimes the Saudi heat can be too much for the ride because the wheels get too hot and too much friction is generated which causes the cars to resist to an extent the actual climb. This aspect of the ride is one certain issue that is going to affect just how much carrying capacity the ride has. Normally a ride of this type would have a quick turn around time however because of the enormous heat generated by the ride’s wheels as the cars race around the track, each train has to spend a minimum of four minutes at the starting station having their wheels cooled off. There is a special cooling system situated on both tracks in the starting station that perform this function. The picture below shows that.
Picture showing the numerous vents for cooling the ride’s wheels. Screencap from Youtube.
Evidently there will also be a limit to just how many trips per hour Falcon’s Flight could achieve compared to others. There will be one, two, or four trains, waiting at the start station in order to have their wheels cooled down, thus the ride can’t dispatch as quickly as it would like. The maximum capacity is six trains, which means up to four waiting in the station and two on the ride itself.
Falcon’s Flight will make money there’s no doubt about that – but because of its unusual nature there will be a limitation on its potential earning revenue. The very inspiration and creativity that formed the ride’s manufacture will however prompt other theme parks to take a look at their existing offerings and see how these can be vastly improved in terms of the intensity given.
Examples of setting new standards as far as Europe goes includes Thorpe Park whose Hyperia no doubt set new standards not forgetting Mack’s Voltron Nevera at Europa-Park in Germany. There’s no doubt that ride length as shown with Falcon’s Flight can be extended considerably and it does offer a very intense experience in terms of speed and height. However some of the other intensity can be easily lost because things such as loops, pretzels and immelmanns need to be excluded from the ride’s make up. There’s no doubt a slower ride offers far more intensity and at shorter intervals than a lengthy high speed one. In spite of that its the totality of the entire ride that counts however and in terms of Falcon’s Flight (as well as other high speed coasters) its the sustained intensity that makes it successful.
Other theme park/coaster articles on London Rail:
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