Take to the skies with the daredevil aerial acrobats...
Take to the skies with the daredevil aerial acrobats...
| Theme Park | Carowinds |
|---|---|
| Park Area | County Fair |
| Type | Rollercoaster |
| Audience | Thrillseekers |
| Opened | 28 March 2009 |
| Manufacturer | Vekoma |
| Model | Boomerang |
| Height | 117 ft |
| Length | 935 ft |
| Inversions | 3 |
| Max Speed | 47 mph |
| Duration | 1½ minutes |
The coaster with its Carolina Cobra paint scheme
The Flying Cobras is a shuttle style rollercoaster which has been at Carowinds since 2006.
The ride is an old secondhand Vekoma Boomerang coaster which was originally installed at Geauga Lake in 1996, before being relocated to Carowinds following the former park's closure in 2007 when it opened as "Carolina Cobra".
It offers the usual Vekoma Boomerang experience with the train hauled up a sloping spike before being released, running through the layout with its cobra roll and vertical loop inversions forwards, ending up climbing a second spike before accelerating back downwards and completing the circuit in reverse. In common with other Vekoma Boomerangs it is rather intense and a little rough, but certainly more comfortable that some other examples.
Carowinds put the ride through a refurbishment programme after the 2016 season, renaming it The Flying Cobras and adding new vest style restraints which have reportedly improved the comfort substantially.
While the ride was originally named after a cobra snake and its associated cobra roll element when it arrived at Carowinds, the post-2016 refreshed ride has been themed around a daring aerobatic display team and their daredevil stunt flights in their vintage biplane aircraft.
