Medusa (Six Flags Discovery Kingdom)
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Medusa is a steel roller coaster located at
Six Flags Discovery Kingdom Six Flags Discovery Kingdom (formerly known as Six Flags Marine World, Marine World, The New Marine World Theme Park, and Marine World Africa USA) is a 135-acre (55 ha) animal theme park located in Vallejo, California, off of Interstate 80 ...
in
Vallejo, California Vallejo ( ; ) is a city in Solano County, California and the second largest city in the North Bay region of the Bay Area. Located on the shores of San Pablo Bay, the city had a population of 126,090 at the 2020 census. Vallejo is home to th ...
. Built by Bolliger & Mabillard, Medusa opened in 2000 as the first
floorless roller coaster A Floorless Coaster is a type of steel roller coaster manufactured by Bolliger & Mabillard where riders sit with no floor underneath them, allowing their feet to swing freely just above the track. Development of the Floorless Coaster model beg ...
on the West Coast. The roller coaster features seven inversions, a -tall lift hill with a drop, and the first Sea serpent roll element ever built on a B&M roller coaster. The ride is the longest coaster in Northern California at long and is notable as having one of the largest
vertical loop The generic roller coaster vertical loop, where a section of track causes the riders to complete a 360 degree turn, is the most basic of roller coaster inversions. At the top of the loop, riders are completely inverted. History The vertical ...
s in the world at . It also shares the height record in Northern California with another two rides in the same park, The Flash: Vertical Velocity, and Superman: Ultimate Flight at high.


History

On November 10, 1999, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom (then Six Flags Marine World) announced that Medusa would be added to the park. It would be a custom floorless coaster built by Bolliger & Mabillard. The ride officially opened on March 18, 2000. It was built over the park's original parking lot, directly in front of the park.


Ride experience

The ride starts with a large left-hand turnaround out of the station and onto the lift hill. At the top is a B&M pre-drop followed by a right turn. After that is the large drop which achieves the same height as the lift hill despite the B&M Pre-Drop by dipping below ground level into a pit. The drop is followed by a vertical loop. Medusa then features a dive loop to the left and a zero-G roll. The ride then enters a Sea-Serpent roll. After a very quick breather during the mid-course brakes, the train whips into a twisting left-hand drop into a flatspin under the brake run. The on-ride photo is taken directly after the first flatspin. The ride then travels through an inclined helix to the left before diving into the second flatspin. The ride's finale is a quick 85 degree banked helix to the right before a quick S-Turn, which creates the sensation that the train will run into one of the lift supports. Then, the ride will either glide into the brake run and travel back toward the station, or may come to a sudden stop if it is operating with three trains and another train is already in the station.


See also

* Medusa (Six Flags Great Adventure), a floorless roller coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure formerly known as Bizzaro


References

{{SFDK Coasters Roller coasters introduced in 2000 Roller coasters in California Six Flags Discovery Kingdom Roller coasters operated by Six Flags Floorless Coaster roller coasters manufactured by Bolliger & Mabillard