Pleasure Beach Resort’s NEW Ride Reaches New Milestone!
Pleasure Beach Resort’s NEW Ride has reached a new major milestone today (Monday 17th February 2025).
Launch Pad – Pleasure Beach Resort Blackpool’s newly re-imagined take of their Ice Blast launch tower has reached a new major construction milestone today with the ride’s new 200 ft cylinder finally being installed.
The new ride hardware has traveled more than a thousand miles across Europe before arriving at Blackpool Pleasure Beach and being craned in at height into the centre of the tower.
Today’s milestone marks a major landmark in the ride’s reimagining with the launch cylinder playing a key role in “revolutionising” the ride experience making it even more powerful than it was previously.
Launch Pad’s new cylinder is made out of FIVE individual sections, each weighing in at a whopping 1.9 tons – the same weight as an Indian rhinoceros.
Once all five sections have been connected together though the total weight of the ride’s new hardware is said to equal that of a large African elephant, a military tank, a cruise ship’s anchor, or the Big Ben bell.
The total pressure contained within the cylinder is said to be 105 PSI meaning that each square inch inside the cylinder is experiencing a force of 105 pounds.
Talking about the improved and updated ride experience Karl Murphy, director of engineering explains;
“The higher the pressure, the greater the build-up of kinetic energy. By increasing the PSI we’ve increased the force, and therefore the acceleration of speed is greater, meaning riders will feel a huge difference and shoot to the sky with more power than ever before.
“This new cylinder is what’s going to create those stomach dropping moments and feelings of weightlessness that guests are going to love.”
Today’s milestone forms just a small part of an extensive project which has taken place over Pleasure Beach Resort’s 2024 closed season between December and February.
Launch Pad has also already an aesthetic makeover with the ride receiving a vibrant new blue and red colour scheme to compliment the ride’s new space exploration theme.
The majority of the ride’s makeover has all been done in house by a team consisting of mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, painters, artists, a project manager and of course, the director of engineering.
An engineer from the ride’s manufacturer S&S Worldwide also flew over from the United States to oversee the cylinder’s installation.
Talking about Launch Pad’s ongoing reimagining, Amanda Thompson OBE – CEO of Pleasure Beach Resort in Blackpool added;
“This year we are re-opening the park even earlier than usual in time for February half term, so our talented teams have had an even smaller window of time to execute something incredible. As usual they have risen to the occasion, and incredible it certainly is.
“We’ve previously spoken about this era being a period of evolution for us, with a focus on renewing our ride offering. While Launch Pad is only the first chapter of a much longer story, it’s exceptionally exciting to see this first milestone happening before our eyes.”
An exact opening date for Launch Pad is still yet to be announced, however today’s milestone moves the ride one step closer to launching back into action which is currently projected to happen in early 2025.
Pleasure Beach Resort is currently open to the public for it’s ‘reduced’ February half term offering and will reopen for it’s main season on Saturday March 1st 2025!