I'm probably going to get flamed horridly, but I do disagree with one thing that has been said and I do believe is a wee bit off topic in this conversation, but I think UC said something about how without Schwarzkopf, we wouldn't be as far along as we are with roller coasters in general. Note that I'm not discrediting any of his contributions, but I don't agree with that statement.
Yes, he started a revolution in the coaster industry of making the first complete looping (and safe mind you) roller coaster; however Arrow opened up Corkscrew at Cedar Point just 8 days later with an inversion (I don't know if Anton had thought of or envisioned in some shape, way or form) that was completely different from a loop. Could he have had a rat in his company? Who possibly knows, but Arrow was also thinking of other means of changing the roller coaster industry as well. ****, not even 20 years later did B&M come out with the Zero-G Roll based off of watching airplanes go through their tricks and them wanting to recreate that.
Really though, if you want to get extremely technical, didn't all Anton Schwartzkopf do was just take the Loop the Loop design and idea and just think it out better and use a more conventional method of creating said element? All he really did was take someone else idea and tweak it to work, right? So for the element part, he was just lucky to have finished and opened the ride first. For the rest (not sure what else was stated, but I remember something about launching and free-weight methods), yes, I'll give him credit there, we might not be where we are now for the launch aspect of coasters, but it wouldn't be 10-20 years behind what we have now (Superman the Escape for example. Uses the LIM system), only 3-5 years, tops.
I would have to say a more correct statement would be that, without Schwartzkopf, we wouldn't have Gerstlauer or Mauer Sohne at the current time, not the entire evolutionary history of a roller coaster would be drastically changed.
THAT being said, now back onto topic. I've only ridden two Schwartzkopf in my time. Laser Loop (I don't really remember) and Mind Bender. It was an interesting experience, but it doesn't really live up to the modern day standard of what is expected from a roller coaster. Yes, they have aged magnificently well for them to still be in operation today from 30+ years ago, but I don't believe the coaster themselves deserve a near fanatical hero worship that I personally see them getting in this thread. Give credit where it is due, but don't get a boner over it.[/quote]