Company Info

From Arrow's Official Site:

Arrow's emergence into the amusement ride industry began, to some extent, quite unintentionally. In 1946 Arrow Development Company began as a small job machine shop. A small, children's park in Palo Alto, California was purchased as an investment resulting in refurbishing some of the used equipment and designing new rides. Soon Arrow was asked to build a carousel ride for a park in the city of San Jose. Walt Disney heard about Arrow's work with amusement rides and came to them with his vision of a theme park. With Arrow's can-do-any-thing philosophy and the collaboration with Disney, the dream of Disneyland became a reality. In the early 1950's Disney asked Arrow to design and build an entire series of unique rides for the new amusement park to be known as Disneyland.

Accepting the challenge, Arrow produced many of the rides for which Disneyland became famous.

• Snow White
• Peter Pan
• Dumbo
• The Mad Hatter's Tea Party
• Casey Jr. Circus Train.

Arrow also designed and built many of the dark ride transportation systems for Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean, Small World, and The Haunted Mansion. The efficient tram system that transports guests from the parking lot to the park's entrance at Disneyland and Disneyworld is another Arrow product. These original transportation systems are still in operation today.

In 1959 Arrow took its first venture into roller coasters by collaborating with Disney to design and manufacture Disney's popular Matterhorn Bobsled Ride. The innovative engineering and manufacturing techniques pioneered for the Matterhorn became the basis for an entire industry's new roller coaster technology. Theme parks began appearing all over the country in the wake of Disneyland's success, and Arrow was literally bombarded with orders for new, innovative rides.

Arrow's technologies have provided several types of people moving systems like the Hershey Chocolate Tour in Hershey, Pennsylvania and the Fantasy Dreams dark ride in Lotte World, Korea.

During the 60's Arrow researched and developed many new rides. One, which first appeared in 1963 was the Log Flume Ride. It quickly became the most universally popular ride in the budding theme park industry. Arrow's unexcelled quality and craftsmanship has resulted in their flume installations effectively operating with original equipment, troughs, and lift components for over 30 years. Currently there are over 70 Arrow flumes operating around the world.

As the front-running manufacturer during the coaster arms race of the 1970's, Arrow again made history by presenting the Corkscrew in 1975, and the Launched Loop in 1977.

Log flumes and coasters were being installed all over the world, and Arrow, in need of a more competitive manufacturing position, moved the steel fabrication department to Clearfield, Utah in 1978. In 1984 the entire operation was relocated to Utah.

In the mid 1980's Arrow achieved another coaster sensation in creating by far the most unique and unforgettable ride in the amusement industry, the Suspended Coaster. With coaches hanging from an overhead track, the Suspended Coaster gives the passengers a feeling of free flight as it swings out at banked curves and soars through the air.

Utilizing their proven water ride expertise developed for the flume ride, Arrow applied this technology to introduce a Shoot-the-Chute water ride to the 1984 World Exposition in New Orleans. Passengers are seated in 20-passenger boats, climb over 60 feet and plunge to a tremendous splash down. The Figure-Eight Shoot-the-Chute followed in the mid 1990's at Cedar Point and Dorney Park to take passengers over 80 feet in the air before plunging at 40 mph down a 50 degree angle drop. The tremendous splash down created by this ride is exhilarating for passengers and spectators alike.

Arrow accepted the challenge in the late 1980's to take coasters over a 200 foot lift height by introducing the Hypercoaster. The first, and perhaps the most highly acclaimed coaster of this genre, is the Magnum XL-200 at Cedar Point in 1989. Other notable Arrow Hypercoasters are the Desperado at Buffalo Bill's outside Las Vegas, Nevada and The Pepsi Max Big One at Blackpool Pleasure Beach in England. These rides boast breathtaking drops and offer an intense ride experience not meant for the faint-of-heart.

Although Arrow is well known for custom, one-of-a-kind attractions, they were asked to design and produce a sentimental favorite for the amusement industry in 1998 by offering their version of a standard mouse ride, Mad Mouse. The Arrow quality sets their mouse ride apart from others and is proving to be another winner in the arsenal of Arrow rides.

In 1998 Arrow brought track and structure fabrication back to an in-house operation rather than rely on outside fabricators as they had done for a number of years. This provides their customers the benefit of having the design engineers and fabricators working in tandem, an advantage many of their competitors do not have.

The approach to design has also improved dramatically over the past few years. Utilizing state-of-the-art computer equipment, Arrow has developed its own software to produce a new and improved coaster track layout design. This software provides advanced track geometric control, improved analysis of banking dynamics, and other information required to produce the next generation of exciting elements and coaster track layouts. The possibility of what Arrow will introduce next is restricted only by one's own imagination. The impossible of today will be their new product of tomorrow!

Arrow's commitment to providing safe, high quality rides has resulted in the development of a unique ride control system called ArrowVision®. ArrowVision® features in-depth diagnostics and has been specifically designed for ride control, monitoring, and maintenance for all Arrow rides.

Arrow's engineering and manufacturing expertise is not limited to just amusement rides. They have successfully accomplished many unusual, one-of-a-kind projects like capsules to put the first monkeys into space, or orbit simulators for NASA. Superior fiberglass work is another trademark associated with Arrow rides. The Arrow glass shop also builds molds and produces fiberglass equipment outside the amusement industry, i.e. climbing mountains, and components for airplane and terminal connecting concourses at airports.

Customer satisfaction is paramount to Arrow. Their after sale service is the key to earning the respect for integrity within the industry. It is Arrow's desire to not necessarily become the biggest, but to always be recognized as the best. Total commitment and dedication in every phase of their operation has made Arrow the worldwide leader in innovation and excellence that continues Thrilling the Millions!