After weeks of speculation about where the coaster would land, we finally have an answer about AireForce One’s new home: Six Flags Magic Mountain. The coaster will hopefully reopen in 2028, assuming all goes to plan. Though there was no new home in the chain that would avoid creating drama, a lot of people are frustrated after speculation focused around parks like Carowinds and King’s Island, which still lack an Rocky Mountain Construction coaster like Aire.
Six Flags Magic Mountain already has two: Twisted Colossus and Wonder Woman: Flight of Courage. The first is a traditional I-Box conversion of an old wooden coaster, though its predecessor was a dueling coaster, and Twisted Colossus was designed to take you around both loops of the original, with two separate rides up the lift hill — an interesting spin on the typical RMC layout. Wonder Woman, on the other hand, is a single rail coaster, using the company’s “Raptor” track, which does, at least, provide an arguably unique enough experience to set it apart from the I-Boxes.
However, it’s not hard to read through the lines. Magic Mountain was the home of X2, a coaster we have covered previously, that developed safety issues that led to its closure. The behemoth of a “four dimensional” coaster — a coaster whose cantilevered seats rotate vertically independently of the train itself — stands over the park entrance, enticing and intimidating guests. Many are upset about its loss, even if for understandable reasons, and AireForce One seems to be a way to try to make amends with another beast of a roller coaster that can stand menacingly at the entrance.
This comes coupled with news that Six Flags intends to invest a ton into the park to transform it into a world-class entertainment destination that can rival nearby Universal and Disneyland in metro Los Angeles. AireForce One, along with the recently announced Thrill Glider, represent a small part of this overall strategy that will focus on offering things like hotels for guests to stay as well.
Magic Mountain was always an important park for the chain, so it is unsurprising that they want to ensure it remains profitable and popular. However, many people are understandably worried what this means for a lot of other parks in the chain, whose potential is immense but lack the sort of investment necessary to realize it, as corporate struggles with chaotic finances in the wake of COVID disrupting the industry and, more recently, the tragedy at Goliath tanking stock prices.
Hopefully, Six Flags will do more in the coming months to assure people that the future of other parks is being taken seriously as well. For instance, Carowinds, though considered a likely target for AireForce One, has an old wooden coaster called Hurler that would be ripe for transformation into an intense Rocky Mountain Construction ride. However, much of the attempts at drumming up hype at the park are focused on a new log flume ride they are constructing, which is certain to attract and excite some guests but is not the sort of experience a lot of coaster enthusiasts who love rides like AireForce One are seeking.
Paths for similar rides at King’s Island are a bit more dubious. They have multiple wooden roller coasters, but Mystic Timbers was opened only in 2017, probably too new to want to replace already, whereas The Beast, their much older wooden coaster, is a historical landmark. This leaves The Racer which, much like original Colossus, is a dueling coaster, so maybe they will take a similar approach of a conversion that provides riders two laps up the lift hill, once on each side of the original.
Needless to say, it is impossible for Six Flags to make everyone happy. However, the drama around AireForce One shows how much pent up frustration there is about parks stagnating with tough economic times. Hopefully, Six Flags corporate is working on plans to ensure that customers do not feel as if they are playing favorites with a select few parks at the expense of the rest.