Falcon's Fury Arrives at Busch Gardens Tampa

Busch Gardens Tampa has received delivery of the pieces that will be assembled to become Falcon's Fury, which will be "North America's tallest freestanding drop tower" when it opens in spring 2014.

The Florida theme park has been working on the base of the ride for some time now, and reports that with the delivery of the tower pieces their "engineering team is almost ready to start putting them together."  This week the ride's massive teal and yellow tower sections arrived at the park, making quite a spectacle as they did.

"While smaller components of the 335-foot drop tower have been arriving from several countries in Europe, including Slovakia, Switzerland and Germany, the cylinder sections arrived last week. The vertical tower is comprised of nine sections, each up to 20 feet in diameter and weighing up to 95 tons, or 190,000 pounds."

Together this week's delivery of the tower section represents more than one million pounds of steel.  The delivery came on a journey of over 4,700 nautical miles from the port of Tarragona, Spain and were on the Atlantic ocean for over a month en route.  Once they arrived at the Port of Tampa, the pieces were trucked to Busch Gardens Tampa.

Once Falcon's Fury opens to guests next spring, it will drop them face-first toward the ground at sixty miles per hour.  This will be the first drop tower, which has been created by Intamin, to drop riders facing downward.  You can keep up to date with the ride's progress on the official Falcon's Fury website.