Superman coaster should be super, man

Friday, March 14, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

Faster than a speeding bullet (if the bullet tops out at 100 mph) ...

More powerful than a locomotive (if you count electromagnetic force) ...

Able to leap tall buildings at a single bound (wait ... it is a tall building!) ...

Look, up in the sky, it's a roller coaster, it's a free-fall ride ...

It's ... Superman The Escape.

Actually, roller-coaster enthusiasts have been debating whether Superman The Escape, opening Saturday at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, Calif., is a coaster by the truest definition.

But, with fleeting apologies to the introduction to the original television "Superman" television series starring George Reeve, Superman is fast, powerful and tall. It's the first theme-park ride with a speed reaching triple digits.

Six Flags is billing it as a roller coaster, and it does have some coaster characteristics. It rolls atop a track, uses a tall hill, gravity and high speeds to achieve the goal of scaring the bejabbers out of its passengers.

But roller-coaster purists say it's just an overgrown free-fall ride, the type that takes passengers to the top of the elevator, then drops them along a guideway. Superman has the track profile of a free-fall ride, so it's easy for the critics to make their point. There are no hills, dips or curves as with traditional roller coasters.

Philosophical differences aside, Superman, which has been on the verge of opening since last June, has had all the bugs worked out and is ready for riders.

Superman uses magnetic forces to propel riders to 100 mph in seven seconds. But designers felt they didn't have to rely on power dives, loops or barrel rolls to give riders a rush of adrenaline.

The 15 passengers who board one of two 6-ton vehicles are blasted along 600 feet of straight track and hit 4.5 G's at maximum speed before climbing straight up a 41-story tower. About halfway up the 415-foot spire, riders will encounter a 6.5-second zone of weightlessness.

It's all downhill from there. The coaster freefalls backward down the track, hitting the 100 mph barrier one more time before coasting into the station.

The entire experience lasts less than 30 seconds.

An electromagnetic process using linear synchronous motors propels the vehicle at the high speeds. Precisely timed motors use the forces of magnetic attraction and repulsion to accelerate the vehicle, a first in theme-park propulsion systems.

It was the adjustments to the various motors that resulted in an eight-month delay in opening the ride, park officials said this week.

Last summer, when the ride was believed to be on the verge of opening, Six Flags sponsored a media tour with Bruce Hinds, a former Air Force test pilot and the first to fly the B-2 Stealth aircraft.

Hinds compared the takeoff on Superman to the type of acceleration fighter pilots experience when they rocket off an aircraft-carrier deck.

Among the first Superman riders at a media opening Wednesday were Cruz Pederegon, a National Hot Rod Association funny-car drag racer, roller coaster historian Paul Ruben, Inside Track magazine Editor Mark Wyatt, Hinds and some U.S. Navy test pilots.

The giant L-shaped superstructure of Superman changes the skyline at Six Flags, a theme park north of Los Angeles, about a four-hour trip from Las Vegas. The ride is taller than the park's landmark Sky Tower.