The Unofficial History of Six Flags Over Texas
Pre-opening pictures of the Joker, to open in 2017.
Harley Quinn Spinsanity (originally the Crazy Legs) is one of the three villain rides in Gotham City. It is a Trokia style centrifugal force ride manufactured by HUSS Park Attractions.
The ride has three arms that each hold seven ride gondolas. When the ride is running, the arms travel around in a circle, as well as up and down at an angle up to 40-degrees. The units reach a height of thirty feet. As the ride arms rotate, the vehicles spin around the end of each arm. Each gondola holds two guests, for a total of forty-two riders. When run with two minute rides, the hourly capacity is estimated at 900 riders.
The ride was previously installed as the Warp 2000 at Astroworld. It was transferred to Arlington after Astroworld closed in 2005 and was part of the ten new rides opened in 2006. At that time it was named the “Crazy Legs”. It was renamed the Harley Quinn Spinsanity in 2016 as part of Villain Village in Gotham City.
Another ride named the Crazy Legs operated in the park from 1973 to 1982 at a nearby location. This ride is similar to the original Crazy Legs ride. The original ride was, however, a different type of ride.
Section Gotham City
The Batwing is an airplane carousel ride. Riders ride in fourteen small two seat “batplanes” around a base. Each plane as a flight stick to allow the riders to raise and lower the plane as the ride runs. The planes rotate at six rpm for a ride time of one minute and forty-five second. Around 700 riders can ride an hour.
The ride is a Telecombat style ride from Zamperla. The Batwing units are customized for Six Flags.
Section Gotham City
The Catwomen Whip is one of three villain rides in Gotham City. It was installed in 2016.
The ride is 65.6 feet in diameter. It is 13 feet tall when not operating and 68.5 feet when fully elevated. It rotates at 14 rpm, with a maximum acceleration of 3 gs.
Zamperla manufacturers the ride.
The ride holds 48 guests in suspended seats mounted on a circular structure. The ride starts by spinning around. As it does the seats wing out sideways from the structure. The ride structure then starts to rise up perpendicular to the ground, in the style of a Ferris Wheel. As it does, the units continue to spin around it, turning completely upside down as it spins. After a few moments, the ride slows and returns to its starting point.
The ride is similar to the “Enterprise” style ride Spinnaker, which was previously in the park. The Spinnanker, however, used enclosed gondolas for ride units and not suspended seats.
Section Gotham City
The Riddler Revenge is one of three Villain rides in the Gotham City section.
The ride is a swinging disk that travels 147 feet into the air. The disk swings back and forth while it spins counter-clockwise. The ride structure is 90 feet tall. At its highest, the disk swings out 120 degrees, 30 degrees above perpendicular to the ground. The disk obtains speeds of up to 70 mph. The ride seats 40 riders.
Mr. Freeze Roller Coaster
The Mr. Freeze Roller Coaster was built in 1997, but did not open until 1998, bringing the Roller Coaster count to eight. Named for the Mr. Freeze villain from the Batman universe, the queue house was built to resemble a decaying factory, with a huge ice cream man head for the entrance.
The Mr. Freeze Roller Coaster varies from traditional roller coasters in that it does not have a lift to pull the trains to a starting point. Instead, the ride uses rare earth magnets located in the station house and alongside the train body, to “push” the train out of the station.
The trains then travel through a series of elements, including an inversion, ending in a section of track which leads straight up. Near the middle of this section, another set of rare earth magnets shots the trains again, until the trains nearly reach the top of the track, giving the riders the impression that it the train will shot straight off the track. As the train travels up the track, it slowly losses power, until it comes to a complete momentary stop. The train the starts to fall backward, at which time, the train repeats the track backwards.
The trains were reversed in 2012, so that the trains leave the station backwards and repeat the track going forward. At that time the ride was renamed “Mr. Freeze, Reverse Blast“.
The ride was built by Premier Rides of Maryland.
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In 1999 Six Flags continued its DC Comics theming with the introduction of Batman The Ride, the park’s 10th roller coaster. An entire themed area, Gotham City was added to accommodate the ride. Two acres consists of the Gotham City Park. Several games stands, as well as the Mr. Freeze, are located in the new section.
The Batman is the park’s only suspended roller coaster, with the cars riding suspended below the track. In addition to being suspended, the ride is floorless, so that the rider’s legs hangs suspended below the cars, with nothing under them but the grounds.
The ride, built by Bollinger & Mabillard of Switzerland. contains 2,700 feet of track. Featured ride elements include a 77 foot tall vertical loop, a 68 foot tall vertical loop, two 40 feet tall corkscrew spirals, “s” curves, flat spins and a zero gravity heartline spin. The ride features two 52 (32) passenger trains, with riders suspended four across.
The ride reaches 52 mph, with a height of 109 feet. Riders feel up to 4 g’s. Designed capacity is 1,400 riders an hour. The ride is one of eight installed in various Six Flags parks.
The Flashback is a boom-a-rang style rollercoaster built by the Vekoma Ride Company of the Netherlands. The boomerang is a standard Vekoma style roller coaster, which are quite popular in amusement parks across the country due to their large number of elements squeezed into a small footprint ride.
The ride starts with the sole train being pulled backwards out of the stationhouse up a steep one hundred and twenty five foot incline. Once at the top, the train is released, where it travels back through the stationhouse, into a loop, through a roll, into a second loop, through a third loop and up another one hundred and twenty-five foot incline of the same size as the first.
The track is designed so that it brings the track back around to a position next to the original track. The train is then pulled to the top of the second lift and released, where the ride repeats the track, this time with the riders traveling backwards.
The train travels up to 50 mph. The ride turns the riders upside down a total of six times in the one minute, fifty second ride. The single train holds up to 28 riders, with seven four person cars, for a capacity of 750 riders an hour.
The ride was removed at the end of the 2012 season to make room for the Texas SkyScreamer.
For Six Flags twentieth season a traditional wooden roller coaster, the Judge Roy Scream “Awe West of the Pecos”, was installed next to entry Lake on property south of Good Times Square. This property had previously been totally outside of the park proper.
To create the Judge Roy Scream the park hired William “Bill” Cobb, a man who had practically a legend in his own time and his firm William Cobb & Associates.
Since the ride is outside of what had always been the park proper, it is only accessible through a tunnel which travels under the park’s entry driveway. The eight acre ride runs parallel to the large lake located outside the front gate. It was billed as the “biggest addition” in the park’s history.
The ride handles two trains of four cars each, for a total of 24 riders per train. The trains travel up to 53 mph. The ride’s main lift is 65 feet, with a 50 degree, 60 foot drop. The trains travel a total of 2500 feet of track in approximately two minutes. The ride is designed to handle 1,200 passengers an hour.
For a time in 1994, some variety was created by turning the trains around, allowing the riders to ride backwards as they traveled around the track.
While not as large as its sister “scream” coasters at Georgia and Mid-America, the Judge Roy Scream is highly popular and brought the park’s operating coaster count to five.
America’s Bicentennial year was a year of major celebration throughout the Country. It was also the year that Six Flags celebrated its 15th anniversary. New for the Bicentennial year was the “Texas Chute Out”, the world’s first “modern” parachute drop ride. The ride was built by Intamin AG, in Berne, Switzerland, at a cost of $1.5 million.
The ride was located to the east of the Good Times Theater. The 200 foot tall tube structure had twelve forty foot arms extending from the top of the structure in an 85 foot diameter. Cables on each arm pulled a small bench seat up to 175 feet above the ground. The ride then stoped for a brief moment, long enough to give the rider a bird eye’s view of the surrounding areas. The ride then released the bench, allowing the ride to follow free fall thirty-five feet towards the ground below.
In seconds, however, the ride’s thirteen and a half foot diameter parachute engages above the rider, allowing the rider to “float” down another one hundred and forty feet to the surface. The ride was driven by twelve motors and winches located at the top of the ride. These controlled the 2 and ½ miles of steel cable used by the ride. Access to the motors was through a two man elevator located inside the eight foot tube structure. Each ride lasted 28 seconds.
The design capacity for the ride was 1,500 riders per hour. Two to three rides could ride at a time. Built by Intamin AG, the ride was known as the “first modern” parachute ride due to the fact that it was based on similar earlier rides. The most famous of the earlier rides include one built for the 1939 New York’s World’s Fair and moved to Coney Island in 1941, where it operated until 1968.
A similar ride, the Great Gasp was constructed at Six Flags Over Georgia in 1976. It closed and was demolished in 2005. A third sister ride, the, Sky Chuter opened at Six Flags Over Mid-America in 1978 and closed a mere four years later, in 1982.
The Texas Chute-out operated for thirty-seven seasons. It was closed in 2012. It operated in the park for more seasons than any other ride which has been removed.
