Six Flags Fiesta Texas opens the first new ride of 2021 season

By | March 5, 2021

Zamperla supplies captivating thriller: Dare Devil Dive

AT: Tim Baldwin

SAN ANTONIO — Management at Six Flags Fiesta Texas knew a good angle when they saw one. Following a year-long retheme of the park’s dark ride throughout 2018, Pirates of the Deep Sea opened just after midnight on Jan. 1, 2019. It kicked off the park’s venture into year-round operation. At that time, the new ride was the first of new additions for that season. 

With 2020 being an unusual operating season owing to COVID, several parks held off on opening — or completing — the new attractions planned for the year. Fiesta Texas kept tinkering away a little at a time. By fall, Dare Devil Dive Flying Machines was completed and ready to operate. With restricted attendance and the big upcoming draw of HallowFest and Holiday in the Park, it made marketing sense to hold off on the new ride until 2021 — barely.

“Opening a ride following fireworks and just after the stroke of midnight — you don’t get to open a ride on that scale very often. We’ve done it in the grandest of ways,” said Chris Ozimek, marketing director, Fiesta Texas. “We introduced it to our diamond and diamond elite members first. They are very excited about it, and we are as well.”

Supplied by Zamperla, Dare Devil Dive Flying Machines is a Super Air Race, the tallest version of that model of ride. Once in motion, the ride system rises up, flipping riders upside down 50 feet in the air. The motion of the ride gives it great spectator appeal from two directions within the streets of Crackaxle Canyon. While the hardware alone makes for an iconic addition to the park, Six Flags Fiesta Texas took the project much further than simply adding a flat ride.

“We work with our Six Flags partners and develop an overlying concept and theme with direction and style,” said Six Flags Fiesta Texas Park President Jeffrey Siebert. “Then it’s up to the park team to take that to fruition and the next level that we all agree upon.”

“It’s always fun working with Jeffrey and his team at Fiesta Texas,” said Michael Coleman, North American sales manager, Zamperla. “Their ability to elevate an installation through creative ways certainly shines, or in this case, blazes through to enhance the guest experience.”

“I think as spectacular as the ride experience is, what it does visually and the storytelling aspect brings the ride experience together,” said Jeff Filicko, marketing and communications manager, Fiesta Texas. “Once you enter the queue line and go through all the effects of the storytelling moments to the time when you get on the ride and see the fire and the lights and the fog, it all comes together and creates a truly immersive ride experience.”

Adopting a steampunk theme, which is a gradual overlay to the Crackaxle Canyon section of the park, the queue building features an assortment of inventions, all of which eventually go wrong. Ideas of air conditioning and electricity are demonstrated in the exhibition hall (of the queue) and work fine temporarily until things go awry and fog blasts out and sparks fly and lights flicker. The final invention is aviation and flight. And in true form to the storyline, the aircraft spiral out of control.

During HallowFest, the park introduced Steam Punkins into the new feel of the area.

“I think [the theming] is very quickly becoming signature Fiesta Texas in the way we are involving guests into the ride experience from the moment you get in line until the moment you get off the ride,” added Filicko. “I think it makes it all a more cohesive experience and our guests are coming to appreciate that. We’re really starting to focus on those details.” 

“One of our strategies over the past several years is to go themed area by themed area and bring new life and excitement, not only by reimagining what was originally built in 1992 but really pulling out the attention to detail and the artistry of the thematic elements of when the park was beautifully built and then enhancing it,” said Siebert. “This year we’ve taken Crackaxle Canyon and elevated it to a higher quality. Not only is Dare Devil Dive our new focus, but we’re also adding new thematic area ID signs and spinning gears and fog effects to Crackaxle Canyon Screampunk District.”

“The Super Air Race alone provides stop-and-stare moments, but when combined with the pyrotechnics and quality audio of the installation, you might as well pull up a chair while you observe the guests screaming their way through the ride cycle,” said Coleman. “In comparison to our standard Air Race, the additional height of the Super Air Race provides an opportunity to showcase an experience as close to flying an actual plane as you can get in the form of an amusement ride.”

Dare Devil Dive Flying Machines features six arms, with aircraft on each arm seating four. Once rising into the air, the planes soon start swinging and spiraling in the air, turning thrill seekers upside down at least a dozen times. The experience is accented with bursts of flame and musical audio.

“Each plane is programmed differently,” added Siebert. “Great hang time and weightlessness.”

Perhaps the most striking element to the ride is its sheer beauty. Painted in maroon, gold and black, it fits perfectly into a steampunk vibe. Props in the surrounding area fit the style, and even the ledges within the queue sparkle with fiber optics.

One of the park’s partners used for various projects — fireworks, haunted attractions and thematic aspects — is Magic in the Sky. Siebert credits them for helping to create the thematic experience seen in the queue. The ride entrance was designed by Creative Design Solutions. Bold and colorful, the sign features a spinning propellor. 

Six Flags Fiesta Texas is in the middle of a preview schedule of rolling out the ride in stages to its various levels of memberships and pass holders throughout January and February and will welcome all riders when March arrives and spring break crowds are expected.

Because of the design of the vehicles and spacing of riders, all seats can be used with proper safety protocols.

“The great news is we did bring the ride to completion in 2020 and we did take a pause to see what was really happening with the pandemic,” said Siebert. “We actually modified the queue to add physical barriers to make it COVID friendly. This is the second time we used the New Year’s approach, and it has served us very well; it’s wildly popular.”

This article appears in the  FEBRUARY 2021 issue of Amusement Today.
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