Corkscrew (element)

Corkscrew at Cedar Point

A corkscrew is an inversion that resembles a vertical loop that has been stretched so that the entrance and exit points are a distance away from each other. The riders are inverted at a point angled 90° horizontally from the incoming track. The first roller coasters with a double corkscrew element opened in 1975. Singular corkscrews did not appear until 1981. A handful of triple corkscrew elements also exist.

History

Arrow Dynamics was the first company to build a roller coaster with a corkscrew. Four of Arrow's corkscrew roller coasters opened in 1975.

The first wooden roller coaster with a corkscrew was Hades 360, which reopened in 2013 after having the inversion added.

Up until 2014, Fantasia Special has remained the only roller coaster in the world to have a triple corkscrew. Chinese company Zhipao introduced two roller coasters featuring a triple corkscrew circa 2014.[1][2]

References

Thrill elements