The Bat is a steel suspended roller coaster at Kings Island in Mason, Ohio, built by Arrow Dynamics and opened on April 9, 1993. It first ran as Top Gun, themed around the Paramount film of the same name, complete with jet-fighter trains and movie-inspired queue theming that played into the park’s early-1990s partnership with Paramount Pictures.
When Cedar Fair took over the park and phased out Paramount branding, the ride was reworked and reopened in 2008 as Flight Deck. In 2014 it was repainted and renamed The Bat, a nod to Kings Island’s original suspended coaster from 1981, and it has run under that name ever since.
Stats at a Glance
- Park: Kings Island (Mason, Ohio)
- Manufacturer: Arrow Dynamics
- Opened: April 9, 1993 (as Top Gun)
- Previous names: Top Gun (1993-2007), Flight Deck (2008-2013)
- Height: 78 feet
- Top speed: 51 mph
- Length: 2,352 feet
- Inversions: 0
The Ride Experience
As a suspended coaster, The Bat hangs its trains beneath the track rather than on top of it, letting cars swing side to side through the turns. The layout uses a 78-foot lift hill and a 70-foot first drop, then winds through banked turns designed to give riders the sensation of narrowly clearing the support structure, a signature trick of Arrow’s suspended-coaster designs.
With two trains of seven cars carrying 28 riders each, the ride moves through roughly 2,352 feet of track at up to 51 mph without a single inversion, relying on swinging motion and close-clearance turns rather than loops for its thrills.
From Top Gun to The Bat
The ride’s three names track the park’s own history. It opened as Top Gun in 1993 under Paramount ownership, lost its movie theming in 2008 when Cedar Fair renamed it Flight Deck, and became The Bat in 2014 in tribute to Kings Island’s short-lived, problem-plagued original Bat suspended coaster that operated from 1981 to 1983.
The current Bat has proven far more durable than its 1980s namesake, running for decades with only routine maintenance closures, including a brief 2022 shutdown after a wheel came loose in transit.
Explore more: Browse more roller coasters.
Top Gun Photo Archive: 2000–2002
These are original ThrillZing photos of Top Gun, today’s The Bat, taken at Paramount’s Kings Island on August 15, 2000, April 7, 2001 and April 13, 2002, restored and upscaled from the original camera files. They show the Arrow suspended coaster under its original movie name: the entrance sign, the lift and the trains swinging through the woods. All photos are free to reuse under a CC BY 4.0 license with credit to ThrillZing and a link to this page.
April 2002
April 2001
August 2000
Cheaper than the $15 poncho at the gift shop and you get a whole bag. Toss one in every backpack for water rides and pop-up storms.
Soak, snap and drape. A cooling towel takes the edge off a 45-minute midday queue in July.
Park apps, mobile ordering and photos kill a battery by 3 p.m. This one snaps on magnetically, so there's no cable to snag on a restraint.
The Bat (Flight Deck) FAQs
Was The Bat at Kings Island always called that?
No. It opened in 1993 as Top Gun, was renamed Flight Deck in 2008 after Paramount theming was removed, and became The Bat in 2014.
Does The Bat have any loops or inversions?
No, The Bat has zero inversions. As a suspended coaster, its thrills come from swinging turns and close-clearance banking rather than loops.
Is this the same ride as the original 1981 Bat at Kings Island?
No. The original Bat was a different, unreliable Arrow suspended coaster that ran from 1981 to 1983 and was removed. The current Bat opened in 1993 as Top Gun and was renamed in its honor.
Get More from The Bat (Flight Deck)
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Photo: Jeremy Thompson / CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.