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The floorless roller coaster design is a modification of the standard multiple-inversion steel coaster that features cars with no floors for foot placement. This gives the rider a much more open feeling than the view from older looping coaster trains. Once riders board the trains and lower the over-the-shoulder restraints, the floor on which the riders walk while boarding separates from the train and drops away, leaving the track completely exposed when viewed from above. From the front row of the train, riders see absolutely no part of the train and only the track rushing beneath their feet.
Design
As of 2004, only Bolliger & Mabillard are in the business of designing and manufacturing floorless coasters (they invented the concept), and their designs employ a multi-inversion layout (usually four-seven) and high capacity (often two-three trains). These roller coasters are becoming more common with each passing year, ranging in heights of eighty feet or so, up to 168 feet. These coasters offer a smoother ride than the older, enclosed loopers and have very good reliability.
Most floorless coasters follow a pattern of drop-series of inversions-brake run-second set of inversions-brake run. A few custom layouts exist that offer different features.
Floorless Coasters
The first floorless roller-coaster was Medusa; a 142 foot seven inversion coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey. A tall, fast, and very smooth ride, it throws the rider through one inversion after another in rapid succession after a steep left hand dive from the crest of the hill.
The 7-inversion 164 foot Superman: The Ride of Steel at Warner Brothers Movie World in Madrid, Spain adds an airtime hill in place of a mid course brake run.
In 2004, Dorney Park, located in Allentown, Pennsylvania, opened "Hydra: the Revenge", a low compact ride that utilizes the terrain of the hill it stands on. The layout contains the first-ever pre-lift-hill inversion, named the "Jojo Roll."
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