The History of Rapterra

When Volcano: The Blast Coaster was torn down in 2019, it left a hole in the park, in more ways than one. Six years later, Kings Dominion filled it with Rapterra, the headliner of its 50th-anniversary season and, by the park's billing, the tallest and longest launched wing coaster in the world.

A new bird over an old volcano

Kings Dominion announced Rapterra in the summer of 2024 and opened it in March 2025. It is a wing coaster, meaning riders sit out to the sides of the track with nothing above or below them, and it is launched: a set of magnetic motors throws the train from a standstill to 65 miles per hour in about four seconds. From there it climbs a 145-foot wingover, dives, and spins through three inversions, including a 360-degree roll the park calls the raptor roll, across nearly 90 seconds of flight.

The theme is a bird of prey, the Jungle Hawk, and the ride sits on the exact ground where Volcano once stood. Rather than hide that history, the park leaned into it. The queue runs through a research station, and the plaza features a volcanic caldera with rock still oozing from the pit, a deliberate nod to the coaster that came before.

Sister coasters

Launched wing coasters are rare. Only a handful operate anywhere in the world, and Rapterra is just the second built in the United States by Bolliger and Mabillard, following Thunderbird at Holiday World in Indiana. Most wing coasters are pulled up a lift hill; the launched versions, like Rapterra, trade the slow climb for an instant jolt of speed off the line.

One thing to know

It opened as the tallest and longest launched wing coaster in the world, on the exact spot where Volcano once stood.

Rapterra is the newest chapter in the fifty-year history of Kings Dominion.

Rapterra at a glance