Description
Hypercoasters were originally built for speed and airtime, to counter the trend of constructing bigger and bigger looping coasters. To accomplish this the elements of a hypercoaster often include a large first drop, several additional drops of declining height, a large turn or helix and then many airtime-inducing hills. Hypercoasters are commonly designed with an out and back layout, although some hypercoasters, such as Raging Bull, are built with a twisted design.
Hypercoasters dominate the Amusement Today Golden Ticket Awards. For 2006, Superman: Ride of Steel, now known as Bizarro, located at Six Flags New England was ranked highest at #1. Several hypercoasters followed such as Magnum XL-200 (#3), Nitro (#4), Apollo's Chariot (#5). The hypercoasters make up the majority of the 2006 Top 10 Steel Coasters, filling 8/10 positions. By 2010, hypercoasters held all of the top 10 spots on Amusement Today's list of "Top 50 Steel Roller Coasters" and 16 of the top 20.
Hypercoasters were first manufactured by Arrow Dynamics in the late 1980s to early 1990s. Since then, a number of companies, including Bolliger & Mabillard, Intamin, D. H. Morgan Manufacturing, Giovanola and others have designed and constructed hypercoasters.
Notably, there has only been one wooden hypercoaster on Earth, Son of Beast at Kings Island. It follows, then, that Son of Beast was the tallest and fastest wooden roller coaster. Upon its opening, it was also the only wooden roller coaster to feature a vertical loop, thus disqualifying it from the narrower definition of "hypercoaster". However, the loop was removed in 2006 when Cedar Fair Entertainment Company purchased the park from Paramount. It was standing but not operating (SBNO) from 2009 to 2012 due to a number of problems, including guest complaints about the roughness of the ride. It was announced in 2012 that the ride will be demolished.
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