A new roller coaster coming to a Virginia theme park this month will break records for speed, height and length — but those impressive feats will each come with an asterisk.
The new Rapterra launched wing coaster will debut on March 29 at Kings Dominion just outside Richmond, Virginia.
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Rapterra will be the world’s tallest and longest launched wing coaster and the fastest ride of its kind in the United States.
The new Kings Dominion launched wing coaster built by Switzerland-based Bolliger & Mabillard will reach a top speed of 65 mph as the train climbs to a height of 145 feet and races along 3,086 feet of track.
A wing coaster seats riders on either side of the track in a winged formation for a thrilling floorless experience with nothing below their feet. An electro-magnetic propulsion launch system rockets riders along the track without the need for a chain-driven lift hill.
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“Launched” is the key word in the claims made about Kings Dominion’s record-setting launched wing coaster.
Rapterra’s new speed, height and length records sound spectacular until you realize there are only two other launched wing coasters in existence — the 2015 Thunderbird at Holiday World in Indiana and the 2007 Furius Baco at PortAventura in Spain.
The other 20 wing coasters in the world from ride makers like Intamin, S&S Worldwide, Arrow Dynamics and B&M all have old-school chain lift hills rather than propulsion launch systems, according to Roller Coaster Database.
Rapterra’s two world records — for height and length — come at the expense of the compact design of Furius Baco which travels close to the ground and skips the traditional lift hill thanks to a hydraulic launch.
Rapterra’s new American speed record will be 5 mph faster than Thunderbird, which opened a decade ago.
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The new Kings Dominion coaster doesn’t come anywhere close to any wing coaster records.
The Eejanaika wing coaster at Fuji-Q Highland in Japan will be more than 100 feet taller than Rapterra, according to RCDB.
Even within the Six Flags family of parks there are two wing coasters that are taller than Rapterra — X2 at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia and Gatekeeper at Ohio’s Cedar Point.
The Parrot wing coaster track at Chimelong Ocean Kingdom in China will be more than 1,000 feet longer than Rapterra, according to RCDB.
Closer to home, X2, Gatekeeper and Dollywood’s Wild Eagle all have longer tracks than Rapterra.
Furius Baco will be nearly 20 mph faster than Rapterra — which will also be slower than X2 and Gatekeeper.
Theme parks have been bragging about record-setting coasters and exaggerating those superlatives for decades, and Kings Dominion’s boasts about Rapterra are no different.
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Rapterra will be a beast of a ride — just not the biggest and best wing coaster in the world.
Kings Dominion has created a backstory for Rapterra that turns riders into possessed birds of prey and even folds in a bit of park history.
Riders will enter an ancient temple shrine to the mighty jungle hawk Rapterra where they will become spiritually linked and temporarily possessed by the ferocious bird’s spirit, powers and abilities.
The ill-fated temple built at the base of Mount Inferna – a nod to the park’s former Volcano coaster — had been covered by mounds of hardened lava until archaeologists unearthed the shrine’s remains.
Once aboard, Rapterra riders will race through those temple ruins as they accelerate from 0 to 65 mph in just four seconds.
Over the next 90 seconds, the train will plummet through a dive loop and navigate a flat spin corkscrew and twisting heartline roll.
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Rapterra will be the newest addition to the Jungle X-Pedition land themed as a archeological base camp that was once home to the park’s Lion Country Safari.
The land was rethemed as Jungle X-Pedition in 2022 with the addition of the Tumbili fourth dimension spinning coaster from S&S Worldwide and the reimagining of the Scrambler spinning ride (Arachnidia), Mack bobsled coaster (Reptilian) and Intamin Giga coaster (Pantherian) with jungle names.