Key Takeaways
- Six Flags Magic Mountain will open Thrill Glider in 2027, sending riders face-down on suspended “hovercycles” through multiple launches, five inversions, and 12 airtime moments at up to 50 mph.
- Six Flags calls the Vekoma-built attraction the world’s first, fastest, tallest, and longest “Thrillglider,” with a 3,380-foot track, a 107-foot peak, and a sci-fi-themed queue.
- The announcement comes as X2 remains closed after two riders suffered brain hemorrhages, adding to a difficult stretch marked by a discrimination lawsuit, a bomb threat, and a $533.7 million valuation reduction.
Six Flags Magic Mountain is betting on a new kind of roller coaster while one of its most famous old ones remains at the center of a safety controversy.
According to CBS 12, the Southern California park has unveiled Thrill Glider, a first-of-its-kind attraction set to open in 2027 that will put riders face-down on “hovercycles” suspended beneath the track. Built by coaster manufacturer Vekoma, the ride combines flying, motorbike, and suspended coaster technology into what Six Flags is calling an entirely new category of attraction: the “Thrillglider.”
And Six Flags is going big with the numbers. Thrill Glider will stretch 3,380 feet, climb as high as 107 feet, and hit 50 mph through multiple launches. Its 80-second run will include 12 airtime moments and five inversions, including a zero-g roll and two different barrel rolls.
Riders will travel face-forward beneath the track as their hovercycle-style vehicles follow a course covering nearly 3.5 acres.
Six Flags says the attraction will become the world's first, fastest, tallest, and longest Thrillglider when it opens.
“Thrill Glider is more than a new attraction,” Magic Mountain president Brian Oerding said in announcing the project. “It is the latest milestone in Six Flags Magic Mountain's renaissance and a reflection of the park's enduring role as an industry innovator.”
Six Flags isn't stopping with the hardware. Thrill Glider will get its own sci-fi mythology built around the fictional QuantumPulse Propulsion Systems and its discovery of a futuristic energy source called PSR B417.
The queue will run through a “Futurist Pavilion” featuring holographic presentations and other effects before riders board their hovercycles. The coaster is already under construction on the former Golden Bear Theatre site between Full Throttle and Lex Luthor: Drop of Doom.
But the announcement comes with Magic Mountain's coaster operations already under a microscope. X2 has remained closed since July following two serious incidents six days apart in which women suffered similar brain hemorrhages and required emergency neurosurgery.
One of the women was left in a coma. Three neurosurgeons who treated the riders concluded their injuries resulted from a “traumatic rapid acceleration-deceleration event” experienced on X2.
The cases also brought renewed attention to X2's history. A CNN investigation uncovered more than a dozen reported injuries and hospitalizations associated with the coaster, while Six Flags records reportedly documented at least 70 head and neck injury complaints between 2019 and 2022.
Six Flags has maintained that X2 is regularly inspected, meets industry safety standards, and carries warnings about the inherent risks associated with amusement rides.
The controversy is only one piece of a difficult stretch for Magic Mountain. The park has also faced a $20 million racial discrimination lawsuit from a former employee, a bomb threat that delayed operations in May, and a $533.7 million impairment charge tied to the park in 2025 as Six Flags grapples with billions in corporate debt.
