Bobsled roller coaster
Roller coaster design
A bobsled roller coaster is a roller coaster that uses a track design that is essentially a "pipe" with the top half removed and has cars that are sent down this pipe in a freewheeling mode. The name derives from the great similarity to the track design used for the winter sport of bobsleigh. Most modern bobsled roller coasters are made of steel; however, the first bobsled coasters, known as Flying Turns roller coasters, were made of wood.
Flying Turns
John Norman Bartlett, a British aviator in World War I, came to North America after the war with an idea for a trackless wooden chute, full of twists like a bobsled course, with toboggan-like cars, based on a bobsled ride that operated in Europe. He had filed GB Patent 279109A for the idea in 1926. Bartlett met John Miller in 1928, and they commenced building the new ride. When the ride went into production, much of the idea was the same, but the cars looks more like monoplanes, which Bartlett designed. Miller worked on the loading station, supporting structure, braking system and incline.
On October 4, 2013, after seven years of construction, Knoebels in Pennsylvania opened the world's only modern wooden Flying Turns coaster, Flying Turns. The ride was scheduled to open in 2007, but had been delayed due to dysfunctional wheels and other issues.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Bobsled roller coaster” as roller coaster design. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as roller coaster design. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2516297. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1926, 1928, 2013 and 2007.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Bobsled roller coaster”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Bobsled roller coaster primary sources, Bobsled roller coaster archive and Bobsled research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Bobsled roller coaster”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Bobsled roller coaster” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.