Arrow coasters - all they're cracked up to be?

Out of all the coasters I've ridden the best ones have not been Arrow coasters. In fact, an Arrow ranks 9th in my favourites whereas B&M coasters are the first seven. B&M tend to be very innovative with their designs (although sometimes gimmicky) whereas Arrow coasters are rougher and still have only two people to a row.

Hail B&M. :)

Personally, My top 2 steel coasters are Vortex and Magnum, both arrows. Admittedly, the only B&Ms I've been on are MAntis and Raptor, but I really don't find anything special about B&M. Bad layouts and terrible pacing are all I see form B&M. Arrow, on the other hand, makes beautiful and innovative designs. Look at Dragon Mountain and Tennessee Tornado. Both beautiful coasters, both amazindg designs, like nothing B&M have ever done. Hell, even Vortex incorporates and awesome feature - the corkscrews. Highest corkscrews in the world, and that amazing sensation of falling you get when you go through them is unparralelled. With the advent of the 4th Dimension, Arrow will once again rule the steel coaster world.

Not to mention that Arrow was the one that came up with the idea of a steel coaster... and steel coaster loops. W/o that innovation, we might have never seen the types of rides that are out there today.

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...But that's just my opinion. Unless it's also someone else's.

Actually Arrow only came up with the corkscrews, Schwarzkopf (or however you spell it) came up with the modern loop.

Two of my favorite loopers are Arrow's the Steel Phantom (Rust in Peace):( and GASM. I love the intense corkscrews they both just rip/ed thru them.

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2000 stats: 135 coasters in 26 parks
Not Too Shabby For A Summer

Many people bash Arrow's but they are forgetting what Arrow did, Arrow made the steel coaster and the looping coaster, although there not that good of coasters anymore, back when they were first made they were the best, in 10 years we could be saying how B&M's are no good and another company is better. Arrow rules, i think people bash Arrow to much they made coasters what they are today.

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Get wrapped in the coils of Viper at SFGAm.

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Everdred said:
"Actually Arrow only came up with the corkscrews, Schwarzkopf (or however you spell it) came up with the modern loop."

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I guess I kind of forgot about that. Schwartzkoph has seemingly dropped off of the face of the earth as of late.


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...But that's just my opinion. Unless it's also someone else's.

I like the Arrow coasters, but I'm afraid that a lot of them have become outdated. This seems to be a problem with some steel coasters in general. Arrows I've ridden:
GASM @ SFGadv.
Loch Ness Monster
Big Bad Wolf
Anaconda
Magnum XL200
Iron Dragon
Gemini
Runaway Train
Trailblazer
Lightning Loops
Corkscrew @ Myrtle Beach
Corkscrew @ CP
Cedar Creek Mine Ride

Here is a good article on the history of inversions in coasters. It talks about all of the designers contributions.

http://www.coasterglobe.com/features/history-inversion/index.cfm

Of all the Arrows I have been on I have loved every one. I think Arrow's are great. Hopefully with their new 4D they can make a comeback. Ron Toomer is a genious.
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Jack, who can't wait for Opening Day 2001...

Well Arrow designed Double Loop at Geauga Lake (SFO) back in '77 and even though it doesn't really make a large impact compared to today's monstrosities, it remains one of the smoothest Arrow coasters still in operation.

I like PKI's Vortex and SFGAm's Shock Wave, but on those it seems Arrow was trying to squeeze too much in such a small area. I know Shock Wave is huge but the turn into the mid-course just about knocks the wind right out of you.

One style of coaster Arrow pioneered was the suspended coaster. I would like to see a resurgence of these type of coasters again. You can't forget such thrillers as BGW's Big Bad Wolf and Top Gun at PKI. Now if we can get a park to resurrect the Bat........

X Factor

Every ride I take on Arrows are different. Its never the same ride twice. I have not been on an Arrow that I wouldn't hop back in line for.

No... Anton Swatrzkopft(sp?) pineered the suspended coaster, he just couldn't finish it.. Arrow took up the design, and completed it in the form of the Bat.. Bah no point in spewing dtuuf people know.....

Being that I am tall, the headbanging and roughness really doesnt affect me on Arrow coasters. Some say the loopers that Arrow created beat you up but unless I try to put my arms up on an Arrow looper(Of which then I have bruised upper arms and shoulders), I enjoy riding them. Keep in mind that the bruises I get are self inflicted because I choose to be a loony and put my arms up.

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"SAVING THE WORLD BEFORE BEDTIME" Powerpuff girls

Same here, Chitown. I'm not a short guy by any means. I only had one bad ride on what some people would call the "King of Rough Coasters," Steel Phantom. In fact, the only time I got really beat up on an Arrow was Corkscrew at Cedar Point. It jerked me around quite a bit, and gave me a nice headache prior to my first (and only) ride on Mantis, which caused me to have a bad ride, which caused me to walk away with the lasting impression that it's not a very good coaster. (Whew! Talk about a chain of events!)

Magnum certainly wasn't the smoothest ride I've ever been on, but according to CP aficionados, its trains had some pretty bad problems last year. I guess the jury's kinda still out on that, then.

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Matt Lynch
Co-Webmaster, Kennywood Boulevard
http://kennywood.coasterbuzz.com

The last time i rode Magnum (the year after mantis was built- what year is that?!) I LOVED IT! i think that has to be my favorite Arrow coaster. And dragon mountain at Marineland! you can't even see half the ride from off it! i love how it comes out of the rock face directly into an inversion... drool...

Well I'm 6'1" and my sister is 5'4" and neither of us would classify Arrow coasters as rough. The only time I would get a headache on an Arrow coaster was on SFGAm's Shockwave. But the headache didnt come from the nasty turn into the midcourse, but rather from the fact that when the brakes are on hard you go from like 40 to 0mph in like half a second, and that horrible principle of inertia causes your head to tend forward...and then slam back into the headrest (OUCH!!). Otherwise, keep you hand and arms inside the car (as lesson I, like Chi-Town, learned on the Demon @ SFGAm) and enjoy your ride =]!
jeremy
--a devoted Arrow fan
P.S. What's rough about Magnum anyway?

To Justin:
Small correction here: Its right what you said about Schwarzkopfs Flugbahn, and Arrow overtaking the existing plans after Schwarzkopfs bancrupcy.
BUT the invention of the suspended coaster dates back to 1974. German aviation company Messerschmidt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB) did the first suspended coaster called ALPENFLUG (Alpine flight). It was a huge transportable coaster, able to run five trains. It was very shortlived, cause it was erected only once on Munichs Oktoberfest in 1974. Despite of incredible success (people were alledgedly smashing in the ticketbooth windows)it had to be dismantled after just 10 days of operation or so. The problem was the same that Arrow didnt see as well seven years later when they built the bat. The tracks were not banked, so the centrifugal powers were to big for the structure. MBB never did another coaster. Mr Schwarzkopf was reported to comment the MBB failure: that the result of Schwarzkopf building a helicopter would eventually be the same disaster , as MBB building coasters.
Strange that Arrow made the same mistake. Those were the days of pre-computer-aided design.

So I guess Arrow's ARE what they are cracked up to be.

Sounds like a lot of people like them.

Right on. I associate Arrow with unusually rough rides. The Vortex was good and the Magnum was decent despite some apparent track design flaws, but I've been disappointed with or have just hated every other Arrow ride I've been on. They're not too bad at hypercoasters but their inverting ones really do scare me.

B&M is without question the best company in the industry -- they're just on a different level than anyone else; anyone who thinks otherwise needs to get out and ride some B&M's (May I suggest the Kraken?). One of the things I least like to hear is that a park has hired someone other than B&M to do a major ride. Regardless of how good it is, we're left to dream of how much better a B&M would have been.