Alan Schilke

Alan Schilke is an engineer and roller coaster designer based in Hayden, Idaho, United States. He first made his mark on the industry by designing the 4th Dimension roller coaster, X, while working with Arrow Dynamics. Schilke now works as a Design Engineer at Ride Centerline LLC.

Career

Schilke worked with Arrow Dynamics for many years working his way up to the role of Head Engineer. During his time at Arrow Dynamics, Schilke was credited as the designer of Road Runner Express at Six Flags Fiesta Texas and Tennessee Tornado at Dollywood. Around the same time, Schilke came up with the concept of the 4th Dimension roller coaster. This concept was criticised by his colleagues at Arrow Dynamics for being too extreme and impossible to engineer. The project only got off the ground when Six Flags' President Gary Story asked the company to develop a scaled-down prototype. This then led to the design of X which was installed at Six Flags Magic Mountain in 2001.

In December 2001, Arrow Dynamics filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with the company being purchased by S&S Worldwide the following year. As part of the acquisition, Schilke (among many others) designed coasters for S&S Worldwide, heading up the wooden roller coaster division that produced four roller coasters in 2003 and 2004.