Look! Up in the Sky!

The newest roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain has no loops or corkscrews. It was designed for one purpose: flat-out speed.

Superman--The Escape, scheduled to open in mid-June, promises to be the world’s first 100-mph coaster, smashing what has long been considered the theme park version of the sound barrier.

“This is unknown territory,” said Gary Slade, associate editor at Inside Track, an Arlington, Texas-based monthly for coaster fans. “You will feel that speed in your face. You will feel the pressure of your skin peeling back.”

And after seven blurry seconds of acceleration along a horizontal track, Superman will shoot 415 feet straight up, making it the world’s tallest ride. It will come to a momentary stop at the top of its giant L-shaped track before returning to the start, again at 100 mph, backward.

As one medical expert predicted, “some disorientation may occur.”

Such thrills required Six Flags to borrow from technology that the U.S. Navy has studied for launching jets from aircraft carriers. While conventional coasters drag riders up a long chain lift and rely on gravity to supply the downhill speed, Superman will be powered by something called a synchronous linear motor.

Each 6-ton car (there are two, holding 15 passengers apiece) is equipped with rare-earth magnets. Motors called stater elements placed along the track create magnetic fields that drive the car forward by way of attraction and repulsion, generating 0.6 Gs of acceleration from the very start.

In simple terms, the ride makes use of the same forces that cause two magnets of similar polarity to skitter away from each other.

This technology did not come cheap. While Six Flags officials decline to disclose the cost of the ride, they said it represents the largest expenditure in the Valencia park’s history, surpassing the $11 million spent on the Batman coaster in 1994.

For the money, the park has bought itself a roller coaster that in a 30-second ride blows past the current world record holder--the Desperado in Stateline, Nev., which uses a 225-foot drop to reach speeds of up to 94 mph.

“That is a magnitude of acceleration that most people don’t usually experience,” said Dennis O’Leary, a USC professor who has studied the effects of speed on the inner ear.

Although rapid acceleration can cause queasiness or disorientation, many people are drawn to the experience, O’Leary said. He speculated that the novelty “of experiencing a sudden barrage of nerve activity over a wide area of the brain stem could be what we consider a thrill.”

Veteran coaster fans also crave “air time,” the floating sensation that coasters offer for a second or two during steep or sudden drops. Superman boasts 6.5 seconds of weightlessness as riders ascend, then descend, its vertical tower.

“From a physics standpoint, you’re at zero Gs,” said Harold Hudson, senior vice president of engineering for the Six Flags theme park chain. “You could put a pencil out in front of you, and it would stay in front of you as you go up the tower and stay in front of you all the way down.”

Slade, who has ridden coasters around the world, calls this sensation a “hidden treasure.”

“Everybody is talking about the speed, but the free-fall element is just as unbelievable,” he said. “This is going to be the hottest coaster of the decade.”