Recently, I traveled to Busch Gardens Tampa, and had the opportunity to sit down with Jeff Hornick, Director of Design and Engineering at Busch Gardens, to talk with him about the new Pantopia area, as well as the new Falcon’s Fury drop tower attraction.

C101: Tell us about the creative inspiration for changing the Timbuktu area into Pantopia.

Jeff: Timbuktu has been around and been part of the park for many years, and is really showing its age. As part of the Falcon’s Fury Project, we thought ‘we’re going to be putting this amazing one of a kind thrill attraction in Timbuktu. What can we do to really develop that area further?’

We have a lot of influence around Africa around here – we’ve got Congo and Timbuktu, and those areas. We wanted to create something that was new and unique, not only to this ‘realm’ but to the whole park. Pantopia is a collection of cultures that have come through this place – A series of travelers over the ages, and some people have stayed here, and some people have stayed here, so you have influences from Siberia, Asia, Africa, even a little bit of German influence out here. Each one of the buildings has its own character and its own identification, its own interesting niche. If you’re looking at one building, it would have a certain influence, and you look at a building right next door, it has a different influence. Just like your neighbors, they have different looks of their houses, different looks, different colors. It will be a very vibrant, exciting new realm.

C101: How much of this area will be ‘reincorporated’ or ‘reimagined’? Is all the structure going to be the same?

Jeff: The entire realm is going to be enhanced, from our east entrance gateway to our west entrance gateway. Our Desert Grill is going to be getting a new color palate, our Timbuktu theater will be renamed Pantopia Theater, and all the buildings in between will be touched and influenced in some way.

C101: Can you elaborate on some of the new food and beverage options that will be available in Pantopia?

Jeff: There’s more to come on that. You definitely won’t be disappointed. There’s going to be some new food and beverage options, some new merchandise opportunities, that’s going to be great for all of the people who are coming to ride Falcon’s Fury, and even those who are not riding, we want to give them something to do.

C101: Are the surrounding attractions like Sand Serpent or Scorpion going to receive any renaming or retheming as part of the Pantopia project?

Jeff: As far as the other attractions in the realm, all of the names will stay the same. There’s going to be some “Pantopia influences” if you will – there’s going to be some new color palates, some new treatments, new props and theming treatments.

C101: In the first Falcon’s Fury Webisode, Brian Morrow [Busch Gardens’ Director of Attraction Development and Design] was talking about “Keys,” and the role they would play in Pantopia. Can you talk about the significance of them?

Jeff: In Pantopia, like we talked about, everybody has their own style – they’ve all got their own story. So we wanted to play that up in Pantopia. Throughout the area, not only will the buildings have their own characters and identifiers, but we’re also adding a series of thematic door elements. Those doors are all themed to the different travelers who have come through Pantopia, and the way to get into doors and enter doors is through keys. Keys will be a significant influence in the entire area. And you’ll see that. There will be lots of interesting niches and props and thematic elements above and beyond what we’ve done here at Busch Gardens.

C101: On to Falcon’s Fury. I read online that there were two names considered – why Falcon’s Fury and not Desert Dive?

Jeff: Throughout the process, there’s going to be a process trying to work through what the right name and right theme is for that attraction and any attraction for that matter. For all of our attractions at Busch Gardens, we always try to look to nature, to animal influences for inspiration – you think of Sheikra, its named after a Diving Bird, Cheetah Hunt is themed after fast cheetahs, so for this ride, really Falcon’s Fury makes a lot of sense. If you’ve ever seen a diving falcon in real life, its really impressive. We want to take that influence and create this amazing adventure.

C101: How was the decision made to bring the nation’s highest free-standing Drop Tower to Busch Gardens Tampa?

Jeff: Busch Gardens Tampa is well known for all of our amazing thrill rides. Especially roller coasters. We do that better than anyone else. So, we wanted to bring in a new thrill experience and we really wanted to be able to solidify ourselves as the thrill leaders in the region. What better way to do that than creating the nation’s tallest free-standing and the world’s only “diving” drop tower?

C101: Can you talk about how the dive effect is going to work, and the mechanics of Falcon’s Fury?

Jeff: The tower itself is a freestanding 12’ diameter tower. 335’ above the ground. When you get on the ride, we’ll have 32 seats in a ring, just like a normal drop tower. It will slowly take you to the top, and give you a great view of the Tampa Bay and surrounding regions once you get to the top. And once we get you to the very peak – your eye level is approaching 300’ at that point – we’ll actually tilt you forward in your seat 90 degrees. So, your seat will pull back and the only thing you’ll see below you is the ground.

Once you’re at the very top, we’ll hold you and we’re going to hold you a random amount of time – we actually put a randomizer sequence up there, so you won’t be able to count down how quickly in your head. It may be 2 seconds, it could be 5 seconds, it could be however long we want to hold you. Then when we’re ready to drop you, you’ll drop, and gravity’s going to take over. You’ll fall up to to 60 miles per hour. You’ll have a free fall for 5-6 seconds. And As you’re falling, your seat will rotate back to the normal seated position as you’re dropping. It’s a very dynamic movement.

C101: Is it the force of gravity, or are you mechanically pulled back into the seated position?

Jeff: It’s the force of gravity pulling you back down to the seated position. And you’ll be back in the upright position as you’re hitting the brakes. We’ve got 3.5 G’s of braking. If anyone’s been on an Intamin drop tower before, you’ll know there’s very heavy braking at the end. So, we wanted to maximize the amount of free fall time we have on the ride.

C101: Talking about Intamin Drop Towers, obviously there is Mach Tower at Busch Gardens Williamsburg. It had a few issues when it opened. Were these issues taken into consideration while building Falcon’s Fury?

Jeff: We learn from all of our rides that we’ve built across our system and all of the theme parks across the world. It’s a very tight network. When we were building this drop tower, we worked very closely with Intamin, who has built probably more drop towers than anyone else in the world. So we knew that we were working with a manufacturer who had the experience to do this. We were very confident with what their abilities were.

C101: Is there anything else you want our readers to know about Falcon’s Fury?

Jeff: This is going to be a one-of-a-kind drop tower. I’ve been on a number of drop towers in my life, and they frankly are pretty frightening once you get to the top because you never know when you’re going to stop. This ride, being able to tilt you so you’re looking straight down at the ground is something that designers and people who are just thrill ride fanatics have been dreaming up for a long time – probably since they’ve been building drop towers. What if they were able to do that? Being able to take those dreams and turn them into a reality is something that I’m very excited about and I think anyone who comes here is going to be looking up at this 335’ tower and say “Wow,” that’s an impressive ride, I definitely want to go ride it. The scale of it is pretty amazing.

It’s really going to be impressive. You can see right now from the ground to 100’ up, we’ve got this yellowish color and it fades to the blue– we’re going to do a thematic treatment from the ground up so it looks like really earthy, fiery reds to the earths, to the cool blues, so we’ll have this great thematic treatment to the outside.

C101: Thanks for the great insight, Jeff.

While Jeff could not speculate as to the exact opening date, Falcon’s Fury is scheduled to open in Spring 2014 at Busch Gardens Tampa. For more information on Falcon’s Fury and Pantopia, be sure to check out the Busch Gardens Tampa Blog, and keep following us here on Coaster101.

Author’s Note: Thanks to Kelly Heckinger, Associate Marketing Manager for Media Relations at Busch Gardens Tampa, for facilitating this interview.