Six Flags Invented a Coaster Category to Put You on a Hovercycle

Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California, finally put a name to the project it had been teasing: Thrill Glider, opening in 2027. The park is not calling it a flying coaster, a motorbike coaster or a suspended coaster, because its argument is that it is all three at once and therefore something new. The manufacturer, the Dutch firm Vekoma, built it exclusively for Magic Mountain, and Six Flags has coined a category name to go with it — the thrillglider.

The ride mechanics are what justify the new label. Riders board vehicles the park calls hovercycles, straddling them the way you would a motorbike, then settle into a prone, face-forward position suspended beneath the track rather than sitting above it. That combination — motorbike seating posture with a face-down flying orientation and an under-track suspension — has not been assembled in exactly this way before. The practical effect is that the ground is directly in front of your face for the entire ride rather than below your feet.

The layout is short and dense rather than long and sweeping. Thrill Glider packs 20 distinct track elements into about 80 seconds, including multiple launches, inversions, a zero-g roll and what the park counts as 12 separate airtime moments, at speeds reaching around 50 mph. That is not fast by modern coaster standards, and deliberately so: the design follows the terrain closely, and proximity to the ground does more for perceived speed than raw velocity does. Magic Mountain has built its identity on record-breaking height and speed, so a ride that competes on sensation instead is a notable change of tack.

Magic Mountain already holds one of the largest coaster counts of any park in the world, and adding a genuinely novel ride type is how it defends that position against rivals building ever-taller versions of familiar designs. For anyone planning a 2027 Southern California trip, the ride is scheduled to open during that season, though Six Flags has not yet published an opening date. Expect the usual pattern: an announcement of the date in spring, and very long queues for the first several months after it opens.

Sources: KTLA, Coaster101