In the shadows of falling darkness, wings of the night creature await their signal from the moon. This creature of the night has been slumbering for quite some time, but this year at Kings Island the Bat will fly again! The Bat is just one of two major updates happening this season at Kings Island, where guests will be able to challenge not one, but two creatures from your nightmares.
This year guests at Kings Island will not only face the scream of the world’s fastest, longest inverted coaster, Banshee, but they will also fly into the night with the newly themed BAT. The Bat was the original scream machine, opening as the world’s first suspended coaster in 1981. Unfortunately due to issues, including accidents, the Bat took it’s last flight in 1983.
The Bat, however, will live on this season as Flight Deck (formerly Top Gun) makes the wicked transformation. The coaster is getting a fresh paint job of orange and black, on both the cars and the track itself. Flight Deck, like The Bat, is a suspended coaster in which riders ride below the tracks as the cars swing wildly, from side to side.
Workers have been working hard on painting the track, and making the transition from Flight Deck to The Bat and bringing this little piece of history back to life. The color scheme will be orange track, black and orange cars, and two shades of charcoal for the supports. This matches the color of nearby Banshee which will have purple track with purple, green and blue trains. The coasters both give a feeling of horror, and we wouldn’t be surprised if the park either rethemes the area to some kind of “Horror Hollow” area, or at least puts a lot of emphasis on the area during their Halloween Haunt event.
If nothing else, hopefully we’ll see a resurrection of the classic 1981 animated Kings Island commercial.
Video-Watch the animated commercial for the 1981 premiere of The BAT at Kings Island!
Both The Bat and Banshee will open April 18th, 2014. Stay tuned as we bring you more of this terrible twosome at Kings Island, and be sure to follow along with us on Twitter @BehindThrills for the latest updates!
