Jet Star, sometimes stylized as Jet-Star, was a

steel Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistant ty ...

roller coaster A roller coaster, or rollercoaster, is a type of amusement ride that employs a form of elevated railroad track designed with tight turns, steep slopes, and sometimes inversions. Passengers ride along the track in open cars, and the rides are o ...

which operated between 1970 and 2000 at Casino Pier in

Seaside Heights Seaside Heights is a borough in Ocean County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the borough's population was 2,887,New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. It was replaced by—and sometimes confused with— Star Jet, the coaster that was swept into the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

by Hurricane Sandy on October 29, 2012.

History

For some time there was confusion about the early history of the Jet Star. It was originally thought to have been moved to Casino Pier from a brief run at Palisades Amusement Park. Instead, it seems that it was bought new from Anton Schwarzkopf's company in Germany. Casino Pier had operated

Wild Mouse roller coaster A wild mouse is a type of roller coaster consisting of single or spinning cars traversing a tight-winding track with an emphasis on sharp, unbanked turns. The upper portion of the track usually features multiple 180-degree turns, known as flat ...

s in the late 1950s, but by the mid 1960s, ridership numbers were dropping. The Park's operator, Ken Wynne, was traveling in Europe when he found the coaster he thought would be the best replacement—a Jet Star coaster built by Schwarzkopf. Wynne believed that it would provide a much more exciting ride experience than the earlier Wild Mouse coasters. During the construction of Jet Star, there was some debate on where it should be located on Casino Pier. One story tells of how Wynne told the ride dealer, Roland Koch, where on the pier the coaster should be built. When Wynne returned from lunch, he discovered that Koch had begun to build the coaster in a completely different part of the pier. After a long argument, Koch's preferred location won and the coaster was built where the dealer wanted—at the very end of the pier, overlooking the ocean. As the later Star Jet would ultimately replace the Jet Star, this placement may have proven unlucky for the later coaster, as it was only the far corner of Casino Pier which collapsed during Hurricane Sandy, sending the later coaster into the surf in 2012. The Jet Star was removed from Casino Pier in 2000. There were some attempts to sell the coaster, but refurbishment would have been too costly. The coaster was ultimately scrapped and the cars sold off.

Layout and ride experience

Having a footprint of , the coaster was relatively compact, as was typical of the Jet Star model line. It had much steeper drops and higher-speed turns than a Wild Mouse coaster. In 1991, a single ride on the coaster cost 5 tickets (approximately $2.50). In 1997 it was rated as being the most extreme ride on Casino Pier.

References

{{reflist, 30em Former roller coasters in New Jersey Seaside Heights, New Jersey