Very Tall Large Event & Storage Facilty Planned by Festhaus Park
April 22nd, 2022 Festhaus Park Height Survey
- Thread starter mountaineers
- Start date
Two of the world's smallest stratosphere clones?
Does anyone know how high up they where? Makes me wonder about that rumor of them being “jealous” of Iron Gwazis reception more, but also I’ll gladly take another massive Intamin!
A coaster that has extremely heavy interaction with Drachen Spire could make for one of the coolest coaster experiences on the planet. I'm not adept in this field at all so I don't know if two different height points also correlate to two separate things or not, but this could be rad regardless.
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To answer @CoasterAuditor and others I have a rough estimate of the height of the higher of the two balloons.
I first alerted @Zachary to the survey on my drive to the park when I saw the balloon from next to the shell station.
Visually, it appeared roughly equal in height to the top of Griffin from there. So, I did some trigonometry using maps to figure out the distances to griffin and the approx fhp location. I even used a GIS map to factor in elevation.
The shell station is at about 103 ft, Griffin at 87, and fhp 83.
Here's my drawing that I used for the trig:
260 ft adding in the elevation.
Then I looked closer at the picture and decided it was slightly above Griffin, so I punched in a slightly larger estimate and got an upper bound of 275 feet.
And then I was reminded we had another data point:
This calculation was within the same range as my other maths. So I can confidently say that when I took the photo the balloon was between 265/275 ft.
That said; as @Zachary pointed out there is a potential wind factor and I also have no clue if they were actively raising the balloon at the time.
I took some additional photos that didn't make the article that I can also share later. I took a lot for triangulation purposes.
I first alerted @Zachary to the survey on my drive to the park when I saw the balloon from next to the shell station.
Visually, it appeared roughly equal in height to the top of Griffin from there. So, I did some trigonometry using maps to figure out the distances to griffin and the approx fhp location. I even used a GIS map to factor in elevation.
The shell station is at about 103 ft, Griffin at 87, and fhp 83.
Here's my drawing that I used for the trig:
260 ft adding in the elevation.
Then I looked closer at the picture and decided it was slightly above Griffin, so I punched in a slightly larger estimate and got an upper bound of 275 feet.
And then I was reminded we had another data point:
This calculation was within the same range as my other maths. So I can confidently say that when I took the photo the balloon was between 265/275 ft.
That said; as @Zachary pointed out there is a potential wind factor and I also have no clue if they were actively raising the balloon at the time.
I took some additional photos that didn't make the article that I can also share later. I took a lot for triangulation purposes.
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Maybe they are going for another world record and are going to build the world's tallest 4d free spin and really stick it to KD.
God I hope they want “tallest fastest hybrid” in the world to shit on Twisted Timbers. Us thoosies just WIN when the parks get competitive. Sure some rushed decisions but we get a lot of cool rides at our home parks added 
The shuttle coaster idea always has seemed lame to me. I'm hoping for a full circuit awesome coaster! You can do it Busch!!
Wouldn’t be nice if the theme park spent some money on something besides another coaster? The last I checked, they are supposed to offer a variety of themed attractions, since they aren’t an amusement park.
Just going to throw this out there... what if... and hear me out... if, with all the delays for DS, that they already had something loosely on the books for 2025 (this balloon sighting) and they just delayed DS to 2025 for a 50th anniversary new expansion/land with multiple attractions. What if the 2nd balloon was simply to mark DS tower location, but not height, so that whoever was doing the survey could see where the 1st balloon would fall respectively with an attraction that's not built yet. May be way off, maybe not. I'm not a surveyor, so I'm just speculating.
But you don't even notice the lack of theming when you're being amused.
I have to agree with Nicole here. With the park open 12 months a warm place to sit and eat besides the Festhaus would be a nice addition.
I'm sure at some point SEAS is going to have to scale back this wild capital investment strategy. I mean 4 new roller coasters in a row is pretty insane. I remember going for the first time in 1999 as a 7 year old and it was just Ness, Wolf, Alp, and Apollos opening year. By 2025 I mean we're at 11 adult coasters in the park and it will almost match KDs coaster total and have the same amount of "adult" coasters as KD currently does. If I had to hope one thing about Project 2025, is that it has a lift hill because 6 launch coasters is slightly overkill honestly. Now if it's like a super Pantheon I have limited complaints but still.
From an accountant standpoint I don't quite see how this would sustain material attendance boosts buying that many new coasters that close to each other for it to pay off how they want it to considering the huge investments they are making. 2-3 I can see they're being aggressive 4 in a row does make me start asking more questions.........or I mean "making more inquiries."
From an accountant standpoint I don't quite see how this would sustain material attendance boosts buying that many new coasters that close to each other for it to pay off how they want it to considering the huge investments they are making. 2-3 I can see they're being aggressive 4 in a row does make me start asking more questions.........or I mean "making more inquiries."
Yeah this doesn't really make sense.. they do these to quantify visual impacts for county approval purposes. If they don't put the balloon on the spot then it defeats the purpose.
The weird thing about the balloon @Zachary posted is that it's about the spot where the top of the lift for Drachen Fire used to be on the South side of the maintenance building. If I had to guess it looks about 150 feet up too... Probably a coincidence though...
I’ve seen it done before where they are just doing it for internal reference where sight lines would be. If where they want to put it is wooded they could move it there using the math to adjust height.