A suspended
roller coaster uses trains that travel beneath the track hanging from arms that allow the trains to pivot and swing out. This effect causes the turns and banks to feel exaggerated. The concept differs from an
inverted coaster in as the passengers sit in a fully enclosed car as opposed to the feet dangling, ski-lift effect of the inverted. The
lift hill usually is quite slow due to the format of the coaster and sometimes even causing pause or small rollback feeling as it either starts or nears the top.
Top Gun at
Paramount’s Kings Island (PKI) is a great example of the poor feeling of suspended coaster
lift hills. There are only three suspended coasters not operating. The first is Bat at PKI, which operated from 1981 to 1983. Was removed in 1984 due to “numerous problems”. The second was the Centrifuge at World Expo Park in 1988. The last was the ill-fated Batflyer. Built in 1997 never even opened due to a problem of the trains not having enough power to make it back to the station. In early 2002 the coaster was taken down and bought by a junkyard. Almost every suspended coaster is designed by
Arrow Dynamics. The following is a summative list of the 24 operating suspended coasters, abbreviations are included for your edification:
- Coaster Name – Park – Year Opened
- Air Race – Bobbejaanland Family Park - 1987
- Bat Flier – Hamanako Pal Pal - 2001
- Batflyer – Lightwater Valley - 1996
- Batflyer – Nasu Highland Park - 2001
- Big Bad Wolf – Busch Gardens Williamsburg – 1984 – (generally accepted as the best operating suspended coaster)
- Clone Zone – Milky Way - Unknown
- Eagle Fortress – Everland - 1992
- Flying Super Saturator – Paramount’s Carowinds - 2000
- Grampus Jet – Mitsui Greenland - Unknown
- Hanging Coaster – Dream World - 1994
- Hayabusa – Tokyo SummerLand - 1992
- Hydra Fighter II – Wet ‘n Wild Emerald Pointe - 2001
- Iron Dragon – Cedar Point - 1987
- Ninja – Six Flags Magic Mountain - 1998
- Pteranodon Flyers – Universal Studios Islands of Adventure (IOA) - 1999
- Roller Soaker – Hersheypark - 2002
- Scooby’s Ghoster Coaster – Paramount’s Kings Island (PKI) - 1998
- Sky Rider – Skyline Park - 2001
- Spellbreaker – Legoland California - 2000
- Top Gun – Paramount’s Kings Island (PKI) - 1993
- Vampire – Chessington World of Adventures - 2002
- Vleermuis – Plopsaland - 2000
- Vortex – Paramount’s Canada’s Wonderland - 1991
- XLR-8 – Six Flags AstroWorld - 1984
Resources include roller coater database