Medusa (Six Flags Great Adventure)
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| Medusa | |
 Medusa's entrance and cobra roll |
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| Location | Six Flags Great Adventure |
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| Park section | Frontier Adventures |
| Type | Steel - Floorless |
| Status | Open |
| Opened | April 2, 1999 |
| Manufacturer | Bolliger & Mabillard |
| Designer | Werner Stengel |
| Model | Floorless |
| Lift/launch system | Chain lift hill |
| Height | 142 ft (43 m) |
| Drop | 132 ft (40 m) |
| Length | 3,985 ft (1,215 m) |
| Max speed | 61 mph (98 km/h) |
| Inversions | 7 |
| Duration | 2:20 |
| Cost | $15,000,000 USD |
| Height restriction | 4 ft 6 in (140 cm) |
| Medusa at RCDB Pictures of Medusa at RCDB |
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Medusa is a steel roller coaster located at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, NJ. Built by the famed coaster designers Bolliger & Mabillard, it is known as Medusa East because there are two other roller coasters named "Medusa": Medusa West at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom and Medusa South at Six Flags Mexico. Medusa is the world's first floorless roller coaster, having debuted in 1999. It has seven inversions:
- Vertical loop
- Diving loop
- Zero G roll
- Cobra roll (one element containing two inversions, shown at right)
- Interlocking corkscrews after the mid-course brake run
The roller coaster track color lime green, the supports are purple.
Medusa has three trains, although all three are hardly ever used at once, mostly because it is difficult to load, check and dispatch each train fast enough to make 3 train operation worthwhile. Each train has 8 cars, each with a single row of 4 seats, for a total of 32 riders per train.
Medusa's track (not counting pre-lift hill track) comes closer to the queue paths than that of any other coaster in the park. Kingda Ka's queue formerly passed under its launch track, but this section was later closed off for safety reasons. Medusa's entrance is directly underneath the Cobra Roll, so the train comes within a few feet of the path as it enters and exits the Cobra Roll. It also comes very close to the queue between the Diving Loop and Zero-G Roll. There is, in fact, a tree here that almost touches the track and is brushed by each passing train. It is most likely trimmed back periodically.
Medusa offers one of the weirdest views in the park during the ride: While going around the Diving Loop, Kingda Ka's tower is visible directly ahead upside down. This is most noticeable from the far right seat of the front row. Medusa's On-ride camera is located between the Zero-G roll and Cobra Roll. It is mounted to the rear of the entrance sign.
Medusa's back row offers a very intense ride and the front row offers a better feeling of a floorless coaster.[citation needed]
In 2003, the floorless coaster Scream! debuted at Six Flags Magic Mountain. Its layout is a mirror image of Medusa East.
[edit] Awards
| Golden Ticket Awards: Best Steel Coaster | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Year | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||||
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[edit] References
[edit] External links
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