Qualla: Nighthawk

Nighthawk: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wbarnhill at English Wikipedia, Public domain. In May 2025, a single train car from a defunct Carowinds roller coaster arrived at the National Roller Coaster Museum. Painted yellow with blue accents, scratched and faded after twenty-one Carolina seasons, the car had once carried riders flat on their backs into a vertical loop while themed - improbably - to the Borg from Star Trek. By the time it was retired in December 2024, the ride had been called Stealth, Borg Assimilator, and finally Nighthawk. Three names, two parks, one coaster, and a quiet end after a quarter century of trying to figure out what it wanted to be.

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Image: Wbarnhill at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Nighthawk: Stealth at Great America

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit mliu92 from San Mateo, CC BY-SA 2.0. The roller coaster opened on April 1, 2000 at California's Great America in Santa Clara, California - the first Vekoma Flying Dutchman coaster built in the United States. The ride mechanism was a strange one. Riders boarded sitting upright. The seats reclined back, and the cars r...

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Image: mliu92 from San Mateo | CC BY-SA 2.0

Nighthawk: The Trip East

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Martin Lewison from The Hague, Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands, CC BY-SA 2.0. Paramount Parks decided to relocate the ride rather than scrap it. Carowinds needed a flying coaster. Smurf Island - a 1.3-acre children's area that had been built in 1984 and closed in the 1990s - sat empty next to the Carolina Sternwheeler riverboat. The location worked. The tr...

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Image: Martin Lewison from The Hague, Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands | CC BY-SA 2.0

Nighthawk: Resistance Is Futile

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Martin Lewison from The Hague, Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Borg theming was committed. A giant gray-and-black sphere - the Borg cube redesigned, presumably for safety - sat near the coaster's entrance, themed as a crashed Borg ship that had landed at Carowinds. Audio queues piped the Borg Collective's signature lines through the queu...

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Image: Martin Lewison from The Hague, Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands | CC BY-SA 2.0

Nighthawk: Lie to Fly

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Martin Lewison from The Hague, Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands, CC BY-SA 2.0. The ride layout was unusual even by flying-coaster standards. Once restrained, the train tilted backwards into the lay-down position and was dispatched. It rolled backwards out of the station, turned left, and climbed the 115-foot lift hill. At the crest, it dipped into a Lie-to-...

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Image: Martin Lewison from The Hague, Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands | CC BY-SA 2.0

Nighthawk: Retirement

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Martin Lewison from The Hague, Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands, CC BY-SA 2.0. On December 18, 2024, Carowinds announced the permanent closure of Nighthawk along with the Drop Tower and the Scream Weaver flat ride. By the end of March 2025, demolition crews had removed the track and structure, leaving only the station building behind. In May 2025, the Natio...

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Image: Martin Lewison from The Hague, Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands | CC BY-SA 2.0