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Saudi Arabia just opened a $1 billion theme park with a 4.2 km roller coaster and 160 m drop

January 17, 2026 by usatoday24

The Formula Rossa of the Ferrari World Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, has just been dethroned a few days ago. podium of the most spectacular roller coasters in the worldand with a drop of 127 meters and up to 240 kilometers/hour as top speed, these were shocking figures. But you don’t have to go far to find the new queen: it’s called Falcon’s Flight and it’s the jewel in the crown of the astronomical amusement park in Qiddiya City, in Saudi Arabia, which has just opened its doors. The first Six Flags outside North America. Six Flags Qiddiya City is a massive 320,000 square meter amusement park located on a mountainous desert cliff just outside Riyadh. It has 28 attractions, of which five break records as we will see. Likewise, it is the first of the franchise outside the United States, Canada and Mexico, but despite the distance from the parent company, it is a full-fledged Six Flags respect to brand standards. The person who has provided the more than one billion dollars necessary to pay for the project is the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the kingdom’s sovereign investment fund. Behind him, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with a very specific goal: diversify the country’s economy, thus reducing the weight of oil. The park It is one of the five gigaprojects of Saudi Vision 2030its roadmap for diversification into emerging sectors such as tourism and entertainment. Falcon’s Flight shatters all records. The technical sheet of the Six Flags attractions in Riyadh leaves milestones such as the Sirocco Tower, the tallest free fall tower (145 meters); the Gyrospin, which by rising 53 meters has become the highest pendulum in the world or the Iron Rattler, the type roller coaster. tilt highest on the planet (63.4 meters), but if there is one that leaves your mouth open, it is Falcon’s Flight. We are facing the highest, fastest and longest roller coaster in the world. It is capable of reaching 250 km/h, rises up to 195 meters high and uses the edge of the Tuwaiq cliff to achieve a vertical drop of 158 meters. 4.2 kilometers long to trigger the adrenaline during the almost four minutes it lasts. This is the awesome Falcon’s Flight. Grantime, Wikimedia The impressive figures of Six Flags Qiddiya City. As Abdullah al-Dawood, CEO of Qiddiya Investment Company, explained, in a local programthey expect the project to generate 7,000 jobs and provide some $686 million to the kingdom’s GDP this year. According to its forecasts, these figures will increase to 85,000 employees and 11,733 million US dollars (at the exchange rate) and will attract 48 million visitors a year by 2030, as the project moves through phases. Much more than an amusement park. Literal. The Six Flags Qiddiya City opened on December 31, 2025 for the New Year, at which time it opened its doors to the general public who came and shelled out the $87 adult admission fee. Although the park is already open, from now until 2030 the project will expand to the environment by building transport infrastructure, the imminent Aquarabia water park, large-scale sports facilities such as a Formula 1 circuit, a stadium for the World Cup, cultural areas such as a performing arts center and residential areas. The amusement park is just the tip of the iceberg. With the fall in oil prices in recent years, the Saudi authorities have had to recalibrate plans and review their budgetary priorities, with unavoidable events on the horizon such as the Expo 2030 or the 2034 FIFA World Cup. In addition, several gigaprojects such as the futuristic city of Neom have suffered delays and cost overruns. Qiddiya has also suffered delays, but with the Six Flags Qiddiya City as the first operational asset in the macrocity, those responsible they are optimistic in its objective of attracting tourists. In Xataka | Saudi Arabia wants to become a world tourism power. First you have to fix something: the alcohol In Xataka | Saudi Arabia’s impossible bridge to join Africa and Asia: a 32-kilometer megastructure over the Red Sea Cover | Quiddiya

His essential works to enjoy a real roller mountain macabra

September 13, 2025 by usatoday24

It is, without the slightest doubt, one of the most venerated names of the current Hollywood. His filmography is full of success and commercial failures, but it is undeniable that his peculiar aesthetics, as well as the very recognizable of his visual designs and his themes have made him a venerated author with all the letters. The recent box office success of ‘Bitelchús Bitelchús‘, in which for the first time he has returned to one of his most beloved creatures, and the success of’Wednesday‘In Netflix they invite us to review their filmography. These are the best films of Tim Burton’s long career. Pee Wee’s great adventure (1985) Shared authorship for the debut as director of Tim Burton, even today one of his most irresistibly strange films. Shared because it is a Burton movie, but also by Paul Reubens, aka Pee Wee Herman, the unclassifiable comic whirlwind that tirelessly seeks his stolen bicycle in this film where the protagonist works as an alter ego of the Burton that we will see growing in successive films: a big child in perpetual state of wonder before the extravagances of the world. Frantic and unpredictable, and that is especially enjoyed in the double program with the lysergic television program presented in the eighties. Bitelchús (1988) When the budgets that Burton managed were still modest, the director was already able to stand an absolutely personal and overflowing world of the issues that would give him fame: sinister humor, strident pop aesthetics, marginalized characters and heard … Winona Ryder in a story that toys with a runaway vision and hooligan of the beyond and how to interact with him with a curious investment of roles: the living are more scary than the dead. Batman (1989) The film that gave the starting gun to the cinema of modern superheroes and the current vision of a hero with multiple faces, such as Batman. Today he has a naive Camp point that makes it endearing, but continues to endure the passage of time thanks to the undisputed quality of his designs, his very well chosen cast and his abundance of iconic moments. A true foundational milestone. Eduardo Handijeras (1990) After the success of ‘Batman’ and before shooting the sequel, Burton returned with an entirely own film, he is much more restrained and romantic than ‘Bitelchús’ (although he would repeat with him Winona Ryder, who for a while became a symbol of his filmography to the same extent as spiral graphics or marginalized characters). Here the story of a monster of great heart and unable to love was supported by extraordinary designs, as well as in purely Burtonian venom traces: of tributes to the cinema of monsters of the universal symbolized in Vincent Price to the indisged criticism of the American residential life through another Camp icon: Tom Jones. Batman Reto (1992) Another founding film, in this case of the cinema of Superheroes “Author”: Burton used the volatile template of Batman to introduce his particular obsessions about the characters outside the society and the misfits, thus coimo to propose a specially dark and expressionist Gotham, and the result is one of the most impressive villain galleries of the superhero cinema. Danny de Vito’s penguin and Michelle Pfeiffer’s catwoman are so complex and fascinating that they are still considered the definitive versions of the characters in the cinema. Ed Wood (1994) Burton took as a starting point a delicious excuse (the crazy biography of the one that was considered as “worst director of the history of cinema”) to consider, precisely, an ode of love to the environment and the enthusiasm necessary to stand up a film, however horrendous. Presenting Wood and his cohort of Freaks (a Bela Lugosi in the last, Tor Johnson, the seer Criswell, vampire) as authentic anti -system virus infiltrated involuntarily in the industry, has its main virtue and its greatest defect at the same point: its absolutely dyed vision of rose of the time and its protagonist. However, a unique biopic and a memorable route of entry in the sewers of the Z fifties. Mars Attacks! (1999) Recovering the Bitelchús hooligan vein and with an absolutely coral and overflowing of stars (to mention only a few: Jack Nicholson, Glenn Clones, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Danny Devito, Sarah Jessica Parker and many others), Burton took as a start Fifty to get your most satirical and destroying vein for a walk. The result is an acidic comedy full of gore and humor that is visually not as characteristic as other films of its filmography, but spiritually yes. Sleepy Hollow (1999) Up to this point, Tim Burton’s career was unstoppable: more or less moderate box office successes and the appreciation of criticism, which would stop when he signed one of his worst films, the remake of ‘The planet of the apes’. But before, he signed this splendid tribute to Hammer’s horror cinemaoverflowing of unforgettable images and again with an excellent cast in which only a something excessive joins a little. In any case, winks to Bava and Fisher and a great Gothic atmosphere for an absolutely delicious film. Sweeney Todd: The Diabolic Barber of Fleet Street (2007) ‘The planet of the apes’ was the departure gun for a much less interesting burton stage. Although he has his fans, ‘Big Fish’ is not up to his classics, and despite his popularity, ‘Charlie and the chocolate factory’ is very far from both Roald Dahl’s novel and previous adaptation. Where he did partially trace the flight was in ‘Sweeney Todd’, an ambitious version of the 1979 musical that maintains all the great, excessive, excessive gothic charm of the original, with His touch of cloudy romanticism. A wonder of morbid dementia with an absolutely fabulous timeless halo. Alicia in Wonderland (2010) Here this adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s immortal novel does not convince us too much: its flashing aesthetics and its freedoms with the text place it very far from more memorable versions, such as Disney’s own animated. However, their errors (some horrible designs, … Read more

A copy of the most lethal roller weapon

July 24, 2025 by usatoday24

It is no secret that war in Ukraine has raised To drones as Combat tools Of the contests of the new century. And among all models, the Iranian Shahed that Russia It has multiplied With its own version it stands out above the rest. The United States has been trying to catch up in this sector, so it has just presented the non -manned device that will make a shuttle change to that paradigm shift. And yes, it looks a lot like Ukraine. Shaheds acceleration. It We count this week. Russian state television showed shocking images of An industrial complex where Kamikaze Shahed-136 drones are manufactured, designed by Iran and assembled at an industrial scale By Russia. According to estimates by German general Christian Freuding, the rate of production has multiplied by ten in one year, until allowing the possibility of launching More than 700 units In one night. At that rate, Moscow could reach the 2,000 daily releases before the end of the year. An unprecedented effort that illustrates a military doctrine based not on precision, but on saturation, which has forced the United States to seriously contemplate its own entry into the war of low cost and mass production drones. Tomahawks vs Shaheds. And here came the main problem. American military doctrine has traditionally focused on high -tech platforms such as Tomahawk cruise missile: a precision projectile with a scope of more than 1,500 kilometerssubsonic speed and a 450 kilos war head. But with a cost of almost two million Of dollars per unit, its massive use becomes prohibitive. In contrast, Russian Shahed drones, although slow and with more modest explosive loads, cost just $ 35,000 and can be launched in swarms. Even if 90% are demolished, as happened July 12 In Ukraine, the remaining volume is still able to saturate defenses and cause damage. The logic of “when the amount becomes quality” has gained ground. The difference in operational costs, rather than in benefits, is redefining the rules of modern combat. Lucas Lucas, the US model. Faced with this reality, and with Trump pressing (demanded a drone combat “like shahed, but for $ 40,000, no 41 million”), the pentagon has Presented the Lucas system (Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System). We are, in essence, before An American clone of Shahed, although Lucas also points to a FLM-136 varianta drone produced by the small Spektreworks company in Arizona, whose original purpose was to serve as a air training target. Despite its aspect similar to that of Shahed, its operational capabilities are something below: It weighs half, loads less explosive and has a lower reach. In addition, it lacks a production line comparable to the Russian, which hinders its viability for a massive deployment. His true cost per unit is still unknown, although he is presumably lower than the Tomahawk, but possibly much higher than the Iranian standard. JB 2 Loon V 1 Back at the 2gm. The idea of copying enemy weapons to produce them in mass is not new to the United States. During World War II, El País designed the JB-2 “Loon”a replica of German Missile V-1conceived to be launched from aircraft carriers and bombard Japan No risk pilots. Although the plan was abandoned after Japanese surrender, he left a lesson on the strategic power of serial production. Today, voices Like Palmer Luckey’sfounder AndurilThey advocate returning to that volume approach: producing thousands of cheap drones, such as Your barracuda modelto saturate the enemy. However, these products were not present in the recent Pentagon exhibitionwhich suggests that the institutional commitment to this approach is not yet firm. Ukraine as a test bank. Meanwhile, Ukraine has adopted the logic of volume with remarkable efficacy. The country plans to launch 30,000 attack drones against Russia in 2025, Combining models sophisticated with low -cost solutions assembled with plastic tubes and civil components. Its hybrid and pragmatic approach is redefining expectations about air power in asymmetric conflicts. Faced with this dynamic, the United States Find laggingboth in industrial capacity and in strategic mentality, still trapped between the paradigm of high expensive precision and the reality of a war that rewards replicable simplicity. Scale revolution. In the background, something we have coming counting These months. The appearance of drone swarms Cheap and effective It is transforming contemporary air war, demanding traditional powers a deep review of their weapons systems and defense industries. While the pentagon has reacted with initiatives Like Lucasits limited performance and origin as training drone indicates more a symbolic response than a real solution to the challenge raised by Russia and Iran. In this new scenario, where the cost and scale are decisive, Washington must decide whether he is willing to leave his elitist precision war model in favor of An adapted strategy to the fighting of the 21st century, even if it is copying, as already done in the wars of the twentieth century. Otherwise, it will continue Arriving late to a contest that is already fought in swarms. Image | US Navy, x In Xataka | A huge secret factory is tilting the balance in the Ukraine War. Russia is multiplying a relentless army In Xataka | It is not that the war is asymmetric, is that Russia is attacking with thermobárica and Ukraine with pellet shaheds with pellets

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