Your guide to ride on the wild side

Tag : Twisted Roll

By 1997, the East Coast of the United States was no stranger to theinverted coaster. Five years after the prototype Batman: the Ride swooped in at Six Flags Great America , inverted coasters dotted the country and made their way overseas.Beginning with Batman: the Ride at Six Flags Great Adventure , inverted coasters spread like wildfire up and down the East Coastwith competition leading to great achievements such as Montu at Busch Gardens Tampa and Alpengeist at Busch Gardens Williamsburg . For that same region's Six Flags over Georgia , the answer to the inverted coaster demand traced its history backto the original ride. In 1997, following a successful season duringthe Atlanta Olympic Summer Games, Six Flags over Georgia became thelatest park to carry on the Six Flags Batman: the Ride tradition with their very own clone of the original layout. Asinverted coasters became commonplace for any major theme parkwanting a claim to diversity in its ride collection, thesecond-oldest Six Flags theme park constructed a shiny new Swissmaze of track to become the newest thrillbodiment of the CapedCrusader.
Arriving in shipping crates from Bolliger and Mabillard as thefirst of their several coasters for the Georgia park over the nextdecade, Batman took shape with 2,700 feet of square-spined track originallydesigned into a compact layout by famous coaster designer WernerStengel to fit into a long, narrow footprint for Six Flags GreatAmerica. The reason for the compact layout was the one long acre ofspace abandoned by the removal of that park's Schwarzkopfshuttle-looping coaster Tidal Wave , which coincidentally ended up at Six Flags over Georgia in 1995for a six-year timespan under the name Viper . So thanks to the park's own coaster, the layout for the newinverted ride was a perfect fit on the park border alongside theclassic 197 Schwarzkopf terrain looper MindBender . All that was required to be removed for Batman: the Ride was a strip of parking spaces made unnecessary the year before bythe removal of over Georgia's back entrance. At the time ofinstallation, Six Flags over Georgia was only home to eightinversions, so Batman brought a welcome five new inversions with its maze of track: twovertical loops, two corkscrew-like flat spin inversions, and onezero-g roll twist.
Before Batman: the Ride , Six Flags over Georgia had been divided into eight sectionsthemed after countries that had ruled over some portion of theUnited States at one time or another, along with areas devoted tohistorical Georgia. However, with the completion of Batman: the Ride , the park needed to introduce a fantasy superhero-themed area,thus creating a new Gotham City region just off of the park's USAsection. The expansion was originally going to turn MindBender into Riddler's Revenge so that Batman could battle his nemesis as he swoops over theclassic looper's last turn. In the end, though, the park chose tostick with the original name of the classic and instead themearound the ride, with lime green waterfalls, question marks on theentry sign, and other attractions including a Batman stunt show,games, and retail to complete the Gotham City section.
Visitors take a left after entering the park and make their waytowards the back corner. Passing through Georgia, USA, and thenunder the train tracks, guests enter into the realm of Gotham City.Walking beyond MindBender 's entrance on the left, the entry to Batman: the Ride presents itself straight ahead. Beneath the Gothic architecture ofthe ride sign and into a lush garden, guests stroll through GothamCity Park before things begin to take a turn for the worst. Theline leads into the city sewer system and down into the dark depthsof crime in the heart of metropolitan Gotham City. Passing underthe twisted maze of black track, Gotham visitors make their waythrough the rusting Gotham City Public Works building and exit tofind a recent police car wreck. However, ascending a flight ofstairs leads into the Batcave, where the Caped Crusader himself hasa new crime-fighting invention ready to fly: Batman: the Ride . Under a luminous Batman insignia, thirty-two volunteers load ontothe ride's next train, ready to take a flight to clean up GothamCity. Armed with the protection of over-the-shoulder restraints andsafety belts, the train takes off from the station and begins a105-foot ascent, far above the wretched streets. A Gotham Cityparking lot out to the right and the Riddler's evilly-twisted greenmind-bending tracks below, Batman tops out at a good height, ready for some extreme flight.
A dip in altitude gets up some minimal speed to begin the firstdive, then the rails begin a gracefully-banked swoop to the leftdiving eighty feet. With four g's of force pushing riders intotheir seats and fifty miles per hour carrying the train along, thecoaster pulls up into a tightly-curving vertical loop of eightyfeet. Guests mingling around the ride exit area below watch thetrain as it soars overhead into the second inversion: the zero-groll. Making mid-air acrobatics with a 360-degree twist, Batman: the Ride spins through the airtime-inducing flip and dives back down justabove ground level. The inversions don't let up just yet, with arapid-fire inversion number three sending the train for a secondvertical loop into the sky and entering the ride's twister section.Passengers pull up in a 315-degree carousel curve climbing withcounterclockwise motion as the high level of g-forces continue topush on the train while it bears riders forward into the crimedistricts of Gotham City. The curve ends, then a curve in theopposite direction dives 180 degrees back down to the base ofinversion number four: a flat spin.
The fourth inversion swings up and over in a corkscrew-like motionto the left while the high velocity and g's continue, then Batman enters the layout's highest banking with a near ninety degrees.The curve pulls over the second loop's entry in a sharp turnaroundfeeding directly into a second flat spin. Riders flip once more,this time to the right, and directly over the other side of thesecond loop's base, then begin the final curve. Banking to theleft, the black track and silver rails guide riders through anupwards U-turn leading into the brake run. Mission complete,thrill-seekers unload in the Batcave and exit to the left. Afterwalking under the zero-g roll, former riders can pick up Batman souvenirs in a gift shop before exiting back into the heart ofGotham City to check out other attractions or get back in line foranother two-minute flight.