History
One of the earliest suspended roller coasters was known as Bisby's Spiral Airship, built in Long Beach, California in the early 1900s. Riders on Bisby's Spiral Airship rode in square gondolas suspended from the track above, which were then carried via lift hill to the top of a tower. The gondolas then rolled down the track, which spiraled down the tower back to the loading platform. The attraction operated at least until the mid 1910s.
In 1975, German aircraft manufacturer Messerschmidt debuted Alpenflug at the annual Oktoberfest fair. Featuring multi-car trains and a 2700-foot twisting, spiraling layout, Alpenflug was a hit during the 16-day fair. However, the design was scrapped after analysis revealed significant stress in the track, whose curves were not banked, and in the wheel assemblies, as the train's brake fins were located at the bottom of the train's gondolas instead of near the track itself.
The first permanent modern suspended roller coaster was The Bat at Kings Island. Built by Arrow Development, The Bat opened April 21, 1981, but it was soon plagued with problems. The problems included: excessive stress on the support springs due to the unbanked curved track sections and stress on the wheels because the brakes were mounted at bottom of the swinging cars. Kings Island's USD $3.8 million ride closed in 1983 and was later scheduled for demolition. The Bat's former site is now occupied by the Arrow-designed looping coaster Vortex. The suspended coaster would return to Kings Island in 1993 with the addition of Flight Deck (Formerly Top Gun).
Arrow continued to refine its suspended roller coaster design, culminating in the debut of The Big Bad Wolf at Busch Gardens Williamsburg and XLR-8 at Six Flags Astroworld in 1984. Since 1984, Arrow manufactured ten suspended roller coasters, including Iron Dragon at Cedar Point, Ninja at Six Flags Magic Mountain and Vampire (roller coaster) at Chessington World of Adventures.
Other manufacturers have also constructed their variations on the suspended roller coaster. Before contacting Arrow Dynamics for The Big Bad Wolf, Busch Gardens contacted Anton Schwarzkopf to design a suspended coaster, dubbed the "Flugbahn". However, Schwarzkopf went bankrupt, completing only a model and the footers of the actual coaster. Dutch designer Vekoma manufactured a suspended model dubbed "Swinging Turns," of which three copies were constructed. Vekoma offers both traditional car designs as well as a new "floorless" car with seats similar to those found on an inverted roller coaster Like on the Arrow-designed Vampire (roller coaster) at Chessington World of Adventures(The ride was modified with the new cars in 2001). Caripro, another designer based in The Netherlands, manufactured twelve suspended roller coasters and American designer Setpoint manufactured four.
Read more about this topic: Suspended Roller Coaster
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)