Monday, November 9, 2009

Aerial Antics: Six Flags America


Welcome to Six Flags America! No longer a Wild World or an Adventure World, the park is currently a full-fledged, 'flagged' Six Flags property. Let's see what they have to offer, shall we?

A water park! Previously known as Paradise Island, this area is now Hurricane Harbor. This change took place in 2005 when three new attractions were added to the area. Since then, they've also added Tony Hawk's Halfpipe to their lineup of splashing fun.

This brightly colored coaster is Mind Eraser, a standard Vekoma Suspended Looping Coaster. It opened in 1995, back when this type of ride was the latest and greatest... or something like that. It used to be teal and red, but now it really makes an visual impact at the park with it's orange supports and yellow track.

Here we have the Typhoon Sea Coaster, aka Skull Mountain. Rides seem to change names at Six Flags America more than at most parks. Anyway, it's a pretty unique Intamin designed water ride that originally featured several turntables that changed the direction of the boats, but I think two of them are no longer used. It features a final splashdown that sends the boats out of the mouth of a giant skull. Spooky stuff.

Here's one that's no longer at the park. Two Face: The Flip Side was a Verkoma Invertigo coaster that resided at the park from 1999 to 2008, though it didn't operate it's last year at the park. It had a couple problems with stopping on the ride's lift hill, and was consequently removed.

Tiny free fall! Six Flags America's Intamin freefall is one of the smaller ones, coming in at 140 ft. tall.

There's something about a wooden coaster from the air that makes them look extra beautiful. Roar! is a Great Coaster International twister that shares the name and (almost) layout of a similar ride at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom.

It was hard to get a shot of Superman that included the entire ride but didn't force me to sacrifice detail, so I settled for the above image. The landscape does make for an interesting background, though. And now it'll stand out even more since it's currently being repainted!

And way out in a field behind the park, or so it seems, is Batwing. You can fly alongside Batman on this one, and then do some crazy inversions as well if you're into that sorta thing. I totally dig the purple and yellow color combo on this one, too.

2010 will bring a large Thomas Town to Six Flags America, so this 'little park that could' will continue to add to its roster of rides and attractions. Here's a link to the aerials as well.


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