Takabisha


Takabisha is a Gerstlauer Euro-Fighter steel roller coaster located at the Fuji-Q Highland theme park in Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi, Japan. It is famous for having a drop angle of 121° – the former steepest coaster in the world before being replaced by the TMNT Coaster at American Dream in New Jersey. The Japanese name Takabisha translates to "high-handed" or "domineering" in English. The name is a pun, in that the three kanji in the name literally mean "high fly car".

History

On 11 May 2011, Fuji-Q Highland announced to the world that they would be opening Takabisha – the world's steepest roller coaster. Testing for the ride began around 8 June 2011 with media and special invited guests being able to ride Takabisha one month later. The ride officially opened to the public on 16 July 2011.

Ride

Takabisha is a custom Gerstlauer Euro-Fighter roller coaster. The ride begins with a sudden drop into pitch black darkness before entering a slow heartline roll. In just two seconds, the car is launched by linear motors down a long tunnel to a speed of. It then exits out of the station building and directly into a large inverted top hat. Immediately following the exit of this inversion the car goes into a banana roll, corkscrew and then two airtime hills. The ride is slowed on a set of block brakes and returns into the station building. The track then turns a sharp 180° turn to the right before going back out of the building and onto the vertical chain lift hill. This hill takes riders up to a height of. Once at the top, the car slowly inches towards the record-breaking 121°, beyond-vertical drop. Once the car is released from the top of the hill, it hurtles back down towards the ground and enters a dive loop, an inline loop and finally the seventh inversion, an immelmann loop. The whole ride is over within 2 minutes.

Records

When Takabisha opened on 16 July 2011 it gained the Guinness World Record for the steepest roller coaster made from steel. It officially took the world record from Fraispertuis City's Timber Drop S&S Worldwide El Loco roller coaster, which had gained the record only two weeks earlier. Timber Drop's record was set at 113.1° while Takabisha's drop measures at an angle of 121°. This Guinness World Record is the fourteenth set by Fuji-Q Highland.