Everything about Roller Coaster Inversion totally explained
A
roller coaster inversion is an element of a
roller coaster track that turns riders upside-down and then rights them. The degree to which it must
invert riders is nebulous and a point of contention when it comes to elements like
overbanked turns, which turn riders such that their heads are below their feet, but are not considered inversions. The first inversions, built in the early 1900s, were circular vertical loops that accumulated massive g-forces, causing stress on riders' necks. In 1975, designers from
Arrow Dynamics developed the
corkscrew, and the inversion was revived. Since then, elements have evolved from the simple
vertical loop to massive
Cobra rolls. With ten inversions,
Colossus of
Thorpe Park in
Chertsey,
England is the record holder for roller coaster with the most inversions (
Tenth Ring Roller Coaster of
Chimelong Paradise in
Guangzhou,
China, also holds the record, but is a duplicate of Colossus).
History
Prototypes (1848-1903)
The first inversion in roller coaster history was the
Centrifugal Railway of
Paris,
France, built in 1848. During the early
1900s, many rides including vertical loops appeared around the world. These early loops had a major design flaw: the circular structure developed intense
g-forces (hereafter "Gs"). The
Flip-Flap Railway, built by an unknown contractor in 1898 on
Coney Island of
Brooklyn,
New York, reached 12 Gs and snapped riders' necks. Although the ride was safe, it had a low capacity, loading four people every five minutes (48 people per hour, compared to 1800 riders of
Corkscrew (1976), an early modern coaster), and was poorly received after the tragedies of the
Flip-Flap Railway. It is still the only coaster with this feature, as the only other coasters with interlocking loops are now defunct:
Lightnin' Loops, built by Arrow in
Six Flags Great Adventure, was sold in 1992, and
Orient Express of
Worlds of Fun was demolished in 2003. The first Schwartzkopf shuttle loops with a flywheel launch also first appeared in 1978. The
Boomerang has had over 50 clones built worldwide from
Doha,
Qatar to
Tashkent,
Uzbekistan.
The record number for number of inversions was broken quickly in the following years. Arrow's
Vortex of
Kings Island, built in 1987, was the first to have six. The next year,
Shockwave of
Six Flags Great America broke that record with seven inversions. In 1995,
Dragon Khan in
PortAventura of
Spain became the first to have eight.
In 2000, Kings Island presented,
Son of Beast, the world's first
wooden coaster with a vertical loop. Until then, all roller coasters with any inversions at all were steel. In December of 2006, however, the loop was removed to make it possible to use lighter trains, as well as an incident where one of the ride's trains' riders all complained of whiplash.
In 2001,
X, designed by Arrow, opened in
Six Flags Magic Mountain. It is marketed as the world's first
Fourth dimension roller coaster, with rotating cars in addition to the track elements. This adds another difficulty in delineating the number of inversions such rides have. As the riders physically rotate
360 degrees, proponents insist the number of inversions shouldn't include only track elements. According to
Guinness World Records, the roller coaster with the most inversions counted this way is
Eejanaika (Ain't it great?), essentially a clone of
X, in
Fuji-Q Highland of
Fujiyoshida,
Japan, which rotates riders 14 times. Counting only track elements, however,
Colossus of
Thorpe Park in
Chertsey,
England, built in 2002, holds the record as the first with ten inversions.
See also
Further Information
Get more info on 'Roller Coaster Inversion'.
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