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Most Innovative Roller Coaster Ever?

Jarrett

Jarrett

Most Obnoxious Member 2016
It'd be absurd to say that the engineers responsible for the coasters we love aren't constantly pushing the limits of what modern day technology will allow to deliver cutting-edge thrills. If they weren't, we'd still have Ruskies on ice sleds as the closest things to coasters around today. Engineers are always trying to build bigger, faster, better, or uniquer.

I appreciate this aspect of the industry to the point that I will admit I let it affect my opinions on coasters (Cheetah Hunt, Thunderbird, and Millennium Force likely wouldn't be as high on my count as they are if I didn't) and while many probably don't, I'm sure we can all look at a coaster and think, "man, that was clever of them to do that the way they did it!" However, which coaster do you think was the "cleverest" at doing what it was designed to do? Not the most quality ride experience, but the methodology behind the ride's ability to do what it did, especially if it was a record breaker.

For me, I've always had a great deal of respect for Magnum XL-200. Sure it's a bit rough in spots, and the airtime feels a bit cheap unless you sit in the ejector seat, and the old clunker goes down all the time, but looking at the design process behind it, it's shear brilliance. Dick Kinzel wanted to break the 200-foot mark and got ideas from Yomuriland's Bandit and its new concept of a coaster focused on speed rather than inversions with lap bars. He went to Arrow as well as other companies but Arrow had the genius idea of building on older designs for out-and-back wooden coasters that used to rule the industry, complete with a layout consisting of mostly hills and scaffold supports. It's in my top 30 almost exclusively because I think the thought process that brought it to life is just so brilliant. The use of Bandit's new layout type as a way to make exceptionally tall coasters probably accelerated the rate at which the height record was taken, and while they started incorporating other twisting elements such as high-speed turns and overbanks in addition to Magnum's camelbacks, the concept of a coaster built to rip up its layout as opposed to the traditional "gut wrencher" that Arrow had perpetuated remains one of the most popular layouts for quality coasters out there.

So what do you think? What's the most innovative coaster ever?
 
There are a few I can think of:

Matterhorn- Using steel tubes as rails has opened a whole new way coasters can be made. You can now build taller, faster, steeper then ever before. Coasters are now stronger and more stable. Possibilities were endless.

Corkscrew(KBF)- Going upside down on a roller coaster was huge back then. Much less on a steel coaster. Sure, you can argue about the death traps of wooden loops from the 1920's, but this was a lot more comfortable, and overall better looking.

X(2)- There are so many innovations on this one. Winged seating, controlled spinning, and many more. Arrow left the industry with a bang, and it lasted.

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X was insane. As if a 200ft+ vertical drop followed by a unique set of inversions wasn't enough. You were at the side of the track rotating 360 degrees. An extra layer had been added to a coaster. It's so ahead of its time to the point that even 13 years on, new 4D coasters are being scaled right down and do not move left/right.
 
Millennium Force was a big moment for modern roller coaster technology.

It was the first roller coaster to use a cable lift system, and also the first to demonstrate the use of magnetic brakes. I've also heard it was among the first to use hydraulic lap bars, but would need someone else to verify? And breaking the 300 ft. mark wasn't too shabby either - using over banked turns helped show you could build a full layout giga coaster without a drastic impact in layout footprint and cost.
 
Two coasters come to mind as being game changers. Matterhorn is one, because it introduced steel track. Magnum is the other. I can't call it innovative from a layout standpoint. Out-and-back coasters existed well before 1989. Yes, it bigger, but I'd have a hard time considering something innovative for hitting 500 feet.

But it introduced the hypercoaster, the most popular coaster style in the world and my favorite style. Every major coaster park has a hyper (or giga, in the case of I305), at least in the US. I cannot say the same about another style except maybe inverts, and those hardly dominate the rankings (though I do like them).

For innovation, though, while I have yet to ride this, it's X2 by a lot.
 
BigBad said:
the most popular coaster style in the world
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That notion makes me wonder - what if the most innovative roller coaster design is the Boomerang or the Vekoma SLC?

*dodges thrown beer bottle*

Hear me out; the Boomerang and SLC bring a modern steel coaster thrill to the table for a fraction of the cost of larger steel coasters. Cliental typically are mid top tier parks to lower; those that are looking for a steel coaster without the steel coaster price. Enter Vekoma with the Boomerang and SLC - the everyday man's steel coaster. The innovation is in figuring out a cost efficient steel coaster design that delivers big time thrills. Anyone who grew up next to a Premier Park or Six Flags during the 90s might understand.

I'm also surprised no one has venture down the RMC road. While there is no secret sauce to what happens with ride experience when you build with greater amounts of steel within a track (or 100% steel), RMC has certainly seen innovation by way of literally reshaping the way major wooden coasters are perceived in large amusement parks. Yes they offer aggressive roller coaster layouts, but also have a good solution to answer the question of longevity for large, wooden coasters, and how to breath new life into an already costly asset.
 
^I was going to say RMC, but what they do already has been done; they just improve(by a lot) what has been done. Wooden coasters have gone upside down, hybrid coasters exist, and PAX already did that unirail thing. They're a fantastic company, but they haven't opened up a new genre that hasn't been done.

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Hyde said:
Millennium Force was a big moment for modern roller coaster technology.

It was the first roller coaster to use a cable lift system, and also the first to demonstrate the use of magnetic brakes. I've also heard it was among the first to use hydraulic lap bars, but would need someone else to verify?
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There were already Asian coasters with cable style lifts... Just not used in the same way as MF. But as far as mags and the lap bars go, this little coaster open a full year eailer http://rcdb.com/541.htm and has essentially identical hardware. And FWIW, both Mr.Freeze clones had overbanked turns years before Force opened http://rcdb.com/281.htm?p=29464 although Six Flags was promoting them as inversions at the time.
 
I think the Iron Dragon at Geauga Lake or the Gatekeeper at Cedar Point are wild. I would like to see something new though.

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CanobieFan said:
There were already Asian coasters with cable style lifts... Just not used in the same way as MF. But as far as mags and the lap bars go, this little coaster open a full year eailer http://rcdb.com/541.htm and has essentially identical hardware. And FWIW, both Mr.Freeze clones had overbanked turns years before Force opened http://rcdb.com/281.htm?p=29464 although Six Flags was promoting them as inversions at the time.
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Ah, that's right, forgot about Ride of Steel. I know Nitro was later retrofitted with magnetic brakes as well.
 
Revolution

the first successful loop opened the flood gates to all inversions, and experimenting with new inversions, something we probably take for granted now, but to think back then when a coaster successfully and safely went upside down for the first time, no one really knew where we would end up.
 
Corkscrew at KBF was actually the first modern day inversion, as GuyWithAStick pointed out, but the contribution of Revolution still rings true for figuring out how to do a modern loop. Corkscrew at Cedar Point, which opened only 10 days after Revolution, also offered a major contribution to inversions - the first modern parabolic vertical loop.
 
Hyde said:
Corkscrew at KBF was actually the first modern day inversion, as GuyWithAStick pointed out, but the contribution of Revolution still rings true for figuring out how to do a modern loop. Corkscrew at Cedar Point, which opened only 10 days after Revolution, also offered a major contribution to inversions - the first modern parabolic vertical loop.
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What so you mean by first modern day inversion?
 
^ Those wooden looping coasters of the 20's were actually inversions. After they all closed during the 30's-40's, Corkscrew reintroduced the inversion.

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Ayy Lmao said:
What so you mean by first modern day inversion?
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Prototype inversions of the early 20th century were dangerous novelties that caused injury and suffered from drastically poor load times. The Great Depression was famous for killing much of the amusement park industry - including inverting roller coasters.

The term modern inversion is then applied to Arrow's first inversion in the 70s (and Schwarzkopf's Revolution loop, etc.), which showed that it was possible to safely and reliably (and comfortably!) include inversions in a roller coaster layout.
 
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