The History of Jumbo Jet

Jumbo Jet ran at Cedar Point for only six years, from 1972 to 1978, but it had one of the most well-traveled afterlives of any roller coaster ever built.

The spiral lift

Jumbo Jet was a portable steel coaster built by the German designer Anton Schwarzkopf. Its defining feature was its lift. Instead of climbing a straight hill on a chain, the cars were carried up a corkscrewing electric spiral tower, a piece of engineering that was ahead of its time in the early 1970s. During its short Cedar Point run it was a popular ride, carrying well over a million guests a year.

The traveling coaster

In 1978 Cedar Point removed Jumbo Jet to make room for a new WildCat coaster. Because it had been designed to be taken apart and moved, Jumbo Jet went on to a remarkably long second life. It was sold and relocated again and again across Europe and the former Soviet Union, and by most accounts the same coaster is still standing in Minsk, Belarus, decades after it left Ohio.

Sister coasters

Jumbo Jet was the first of a line of Schwarzkopf coasters of its type, and it shared its maker with the WildCat coasters that ran at Cedar Point in the same era.

One thing to know

Jumbo Jet outlived its Cedar Point run by nearly half a century. The same physical coaster has reportedly kept running in Minsk, Belarus, after being relocated five times.

Jumbo Jet is one chapter in the history of Cedar Point.

Jumbo Jet at a glance