The History of Raptor

Raptor flies with your feet in the air. Since 1994 riders have hung from its track in ski-lift seats with nothing beneath them, tumbling through six inversions, and when it opened it was the biggest coaster of its kind in the world.

A bird of prey

Raptor is an inverted coaster, built by the Swiss firm Bolliger and Mabillard, in which the train hangs below the rail and riders sit with their legs dangling free. Themed as a bird of prey swooping on its victims, it opened in 1994 as the tallest, fastest, and longest inverted coaster on earth, holding all three records at once until Busch Gardens opened Montu two years later. It rises 137 feet and reaches 57 miles per hour over nearly four thousand feet of track.

The cobra roll

Raptor's six inversions come in a precise order: a vertical loop, a zero-gravity roll, a cobra roll, and two corkscrews. The cobra roll was the ride's real first, a single element that flips riders upside down twice in a back-to-back half loop, and Raptor was the first inverted coaster in the world to feature one. It is now a standard element on inverted coasters everywhere, but it started here.

Sister coasters

Raptor is one of the landmark rides in B&M's inverted coaster line. Its direct predecessor was Batman: The Ride at Six Flags Great America, the compact 1992 coaster that introduced the inverted design, while Montu at Busch Gardens Tampa is the ride that took away Raptor's tallest, fastest, and longest records in 1996. Raptor was the bigger, sprawling evolution of the idea.

One thing to know

Raptor was the first inverted coaster in the world to feature a cobra roll, the double-inverting element that has since become a staple on inverted coasters around the globe.

Raptor is one chapter in the history of Cedar Point.

Raptor at a glance