|
XLR-8
XLR-8 (pronounced "accelerate") was a suspended roller coaster located at the defunct Six Flags AstroWorld. Manufactured by Arrow Huss at a cost of $3.2 million, the ride opened to the public in 1984, where it operated until the park's closure in 2005. It was one of Arrow's first attempts at producing a successful suspended coaster following troubles with The Bat at Kings Island, which operated briefly from 1981 to 1983. History Car reversal For AstroWorld's Fright Fest 2002 event, the last four cars on XLR-8's trains were reversed, a first for a suspended roller coaster. The change proved popular and successful, and the trains remained reversed until the park's closure in 2005. Closure In September 2005, it was announced that AstroWorld would not reopen for the 2006 season. XLR-8 closed along with the rest of the park on October 30, 2005, and was later demolished. A portion of the trains were sent to Six Flags Magic Mountain for use on Ninja. See also *History of the roller c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Six Flags AstroWorld
Six Flags AstroWorld, also known simply as AstroWorld, was a seasonally operated amusement park in Houston, Texas. Owned and operated by Six Flags, the park was situated between Kirby Drive and Fannin Street, directly south of I-610. The park opened on June 1, 1968, and was developed originally and constructed as part of the Astrodomain, the brainchild of local philanthropist and former Houston mayor Roy Hofheinz, who intended it to complement the Astrodome. The Hofheinz family sold AstroWorld to Six Flags in 1978. Notable rides featured at the park included the Texas Cyclone, a wooden roller coaster built in 1976 that was modeled after the well-known Coney Island Cyclone, and Thunder River, considered the world's first successful river rapids ride when it opened in 1980. WaterWorld, an adjacent water park, was acquired and added to AstroWorld in 2002. Following declining revenue, rising property value, and other issues facing Six Flags, the company closed AstroWorld perm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suspended Roller Coaster
A suspended roller coaster is a type of steel roller coaster in which the car hangs from the bottom of the rolling stock by a pivoting fulcrum or hinge assembly. This allows the car and riders to swing side to side as the train races along the track. Due to the swing designs, these roller coasters cannot invert riders. 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 Messerschmitt debuted ''Alpenflug'' at the annual Oktoberfest fair in Munich, Germany. Featuring multi-car trains and a 2700-foot twisting, spiraling layout, ''Alpenflug'' w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Bat (Kings Island; Opened 1981)
The Bat was a suspended roller coaster located at Kings Island amusement park in Mason, Ohio. Designed by Arrow Development, it was billed as the "first of its kind" in the world when it opened to the public on April 26, 1981. The suspended coaster concept was a radical departure from traditional roller coaster design, where guests ride below the track instead of above. Previous attempts to build coasters that hang from the track were unsuccessful and date as far back as the early 20th century. Arrow solved issues by utilizing modern technology in the design, including its tubular steel track developed in 1959 for Disneyland's Matterhorn Bobsleds. Arrow constructed a working prototype in 1978 capturing Kings Island's interest, and their engineering department assisted with the development, construction, and maintenance of the ride. The Bat required 18 months of design and two years of manufacturing and assembly. The anticipation leading up to the reveal and opening was intense, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arrow Huss
Arrow Dynamics was an American manufacturing and engineering company that specialized in designing and building amusement park rides, especially roller coasters. Based in Clearfield, Utah, the company was the successor to Arrow Development (1946–1981) and Arrow Huss (1981–1986), which were responsible for several influential advancements in the amusement and theme park industries. Among the most significant was tubular steel track, which provided a smoother ride than the railroad style rails commonly used prior to the 1960s on wooden roller coasters. The Matterhorn Bobsleds at Disneyland, built in 1959, was Arrow's first roller coaster project. In 1975, Arrow Development introduced the first corkscrew style track Corkscrew, at Knott's Berry Farm that sent riders through a series of corkscrews. Arrow created several other "firsts" over the years, introducing the first suspended roller coaster in almost a century, The Bat, in 1981, and the world's first "hypercoaster", Magnum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ninja (Six Flags Magic Mountain)
Ninja is an Arrow Dynamics steel suspended roller coaster located at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California. It is the fastest roller coaster of its kind in the world, joint with Vortex at Canada's Wonderland, both with top speeds of 55 mph (89 km/h). History On December 9, 1987, Six Flags Magic Mountain announced that Ninja would be added to the park. The attraction opened on May 21, 1988. The coaster is located in the Samurai Summit area of Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California. Upon opening, Ninja was the fifth of the ten original Arrow suspended coasters. It is somewhat unusual in that it uses two lift hills — one at the beginning of the ride and a second one just before the end, to return the train to station elevation. Ninja's station building previously served as the upper station for Six Flags Magic Mountain's Dragon tram. The tram carried passengers up and down the hillside until its closure in 1981, and its abandoned lower station can sti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Newspapers
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports and art, and often include materials such as opinion columns, weather forecasts, reviews of local services, obituaries, birth notices, crosswords, editorial cartoons, comic strips, and advice columns. Most newspapers are businesses, and they pay their expenses with a mixture of subscription revenue, newsstand sales, and advertising revenue. The journalism organizations that publish newspapers are themselves often metonymically called newspapers. Newspapers have traditionally been published in print (usually on cheap, low-grade paper called newsprint). However, today most newspapers are also published on websites as online newspapers, and some have even abandoned their print versions entirely. Newspapers developed in the 17th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kings Island
Kings Island is a amusement park located northeast of Cincinnati in Mason, Ohio, United States. Owned and operated by Cedar Fair, the park first opened in 1972 by the Taft Broadcasting Company. It was part of a larger effort to move and expand Coney Island, a popular resort destination along the banks of the Ohio River that was prone to frequent flooding. After more than $300 million in capital investments, the park features over 100 attractions including fourteen roller coasters and a water park. Early in its history, Kings Island appeared in popular sitcoms and received widespread recognition for its record-breaking attractions and events. One of the park's most well-known attractions, The Racer, is often credited with reviving worldwide interest in roller coasters during the 1970s. The Beast and Banshee are among other attractions that have set world records, some of which are still held today. Kings Island's largest single investment is Orion, a giga coaster that ope ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Six Flags Fright Fest
Fright Fest (also known as Festival Del Terror at Six Flags México) is a Halloween-oriented haunt event held annually at Six Flags theme parks in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. It mainly features haunted attractions, themed areas named ''Scare Zones'', and live entertainment. It opened as Fright Nights at Six Flags AstroWorld in 1986. In 2020, Fright Fest was reimagined to Hallowfest, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. History Fright Nights era (1986-1993) After testing various Halloween-based seasonal events throughout the 1970s to mid-1980s, Six Flags, then owned by Bally Manufacturing, created an all-new Halloween event for AstroWorld in 1986 that they named ''Six Flags Fright Nights''. In 1987, the event began to be expanded to Six Flags' other properties. Six Flags Over Georgia was the second park to introduce the event. Six Flags Over Mid-America was the third park to introduce Fright Nights in 1988 with Freddy Krueger from ''A Nightmare on Elm Street'' as the eve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roller Coaster DataBase
Roller Coaster DataBase (RCDB) is a roller coaster and amusement park database begun in 1996 by Duane Marden. It has grown to feature statistics and pictures of over 10,000 roller coasters from around the world. Publications that have mentioned RCDB include ''The New York Times'', ''Los Angeles Times'', ''Toledo Blade'', ''Orlando Sentinel'', ''Time'', ''Forbes'', ''Mail & Guardian'', and ''Chicago Sun-Times''. History RCDB was started in 1996 by Duane Marden, a computer programmer from Brookfield, Wisconsin. The website is run off web servers in Marden's basement and a location in St. Louis. Content Each roller coaster entry includes any of the following information for the ride: current amusement park location, type, status (existing, standing but not operating (SBNO), defunct), opening date, make/model, cost, capacity, length, height, drop, number of inversions, speed, duration, maximum vertical angle, trains, and special notes. Entries may also feature reader-contributed p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Houston Press
The ''Houston Press'' is an online newspaper published in Houston, Texas, United States. It is headquartered in the Midtown area. It was also a weekly print newspaper until November 2017. The publication is supported entirely by advertising revenue and is free to readers. It reports a monthly readership of 1.6 million online users. Prior to the 2017 cessation of the print edition, the ''Press'' was found in restaurants, coffee houses, and local retail stores. New weekly editions were distributed on Thursdays. History The alt-weekly ''Houston Press'' was founded in 1989 by John Wilburn, Chris Hearne (founder of Austin's ''Third Coast Magazine'') and Kirk Cypel (a Vice President of a Houston-based investment group) conceived of this news and entertainment weekly after rejecting a business plan to relaunch ''Texas Business Magazine''. Hearne and John Wilburn, who previously managed the Sunday magazine of the '' Dallas Morning News'', jointly established the magazine. Hearne wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Six Flags Magic Mountain
Six Flags Magic Mountain, formerly known and colloquially referred to as simply Magic Mountain, is a amusement park located in Valencia, California, northwest of downtown Los Angeles. It opened on May 29, 1971, as a development of the Newhall Land and Farming Company and Sea World Inc. In 1979, Six Flags purchased the park and added "Six Flags" to the park's name. With 20 roller coasters, Six Flags Magic Mountain holds the world record for most roller coasters in an amusement park. It became the first amusement park to offer 20 roller coasters with the opening of Wonder Woman: Flight of Courage in 2022. In 2017, the park had an estimated 3.3 million visitors, ranking it sixteenth in attendance in North America. History In 1968, Sea World Inc. founder George Millay and his executives began looking for a place in the Los Angeles county to build a theme park. Knowing that Newhall Land and Farming Company had enough undeveloped land in the new town of Valencia, he asked C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of The Roller Coaster
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of these events. Historians seek knowledge of the past using historical sources such as written documents, oral accounts, art and material artifacts, and ecological markers. History is not complete and still has debatable mysteries. History is also an academic discipline which uses narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyze past events, and investigate their patterns of cause and effect. Historians often debate which narrative best explains an event, as well as the significance of different causes and effects. Historians also debate the nature of history as an end in itself, as well as its usefulness to give perspective on the problems of the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> History Of The Roller Coaster")