skycoaster

2001.09.11

unsupermen
Sunday Peterman and I went to Six Flags New England. After riding Superman Ride of Steel we went over and tried the Skycoaster. Oddly enough, it had much more of a 'soar like superman' effect than the ride that bears his name. It's very elegant in design: a single arch, at the top of which is attached a cable, almost long enough to touch the ground. The other end of the cable is attached to you. You (and a friend, or two friends, all wearing these long apron/skydiver things) are then hoisted to the peak of the nearby tower, about as high as the peak of the arch. You're way up there. Then you pull the ripcord, and come soaring back to earth. In effect, it's a cross between bungee jumping and a playground swingset.

So Peterman and I went, in tandem. (A bit cheaper that way.) He was very struck by the experience: "Skycoaster is as close to religion as I want to get these days." I was slightly less moved, still it was pretty amazing. You have to put in reservations, so after our 5pm ride we signed up for a second ride at 8.

One of the staff there was willing to take pictures and we had him use the movie feature of my digital camera to tape the descent (and ascent, and descent, and...) of Peterman and me. So above is the "small gif cinema" entry of it, (slow on IE, for some unfathomable reason) but what you really should see is the full quicktime video of it... the doppler effect on our screams is rather funny, and by chance it has a perfect musical stinger as well.