![]() ![]() In recent years, high-speed computers and 3-D design programs developed for the aerospace industry have made it easier for designers to craft a coaster's complex curves. In fact, despite the sensible warnings about keeping body parts inside the train, the rides are carefully designed to keep an empty "envelope" around the riders so they can't reach anything unless they somehow subvert the multi-locked restraint bars. Seay calls it a "sense of being very near to structure" it means giving riders the sensation they are within inches of losing their skulls to a support beam. By pivoting around the heart, the ride is smoother and more comfortable.Īt the same time, Premier's engineers - half of them still in their 20s - make sure they put lots of steel in your face - or at least close by. But that amplified the stresses on head and neck. "In the old days, they would bank it around your feet," Seay says. Premier designs its coasters around a "heart line." That means the track is shaped and banked so if seen from behind, your body would appear to rotate around a spindle through your heart - near your center of gravity. That means limiting their high-G time, smoothing their transitions from normal gravity to high-Gs and back, and regulating their time in negative Gs - that sense of floating "hang time" prized by coaster fanatics. His coaster engineers are more concerned about keeping people comfortable. "We tend to keep our G-force levels fairly low," Seay says. Without an assist from their pressurized flight suits, they would risk blackouts as their blood became too heavy to pump to their brains. Fighter pilots can "pull" 8 or 10 Gs in combat maneuvers. That's about what space shuttle astronauts feel during their launch, but far below the 8 Gs John Glenn experienced during his 1962 Mercury liftoff. That means a 150-pound person will feel, briefly, as if he's suddenly porked up to 525 pounds. But seconds after the Joker's Jinx zooms out of its loading tunnel and turns skyward at 60 mph, you'll feel 3 1/2 Gs. You experience one "G" - the force of gravity times one - just waiting in line. G-forces - that sense of being crushed into your seat or safety restraints - occur as the coaster's acceleration and curves clash with the physical laws that try to hold your body still or keep it moving in a straight line. "Six Flags is known for its thrill rides," Seay says, said, "but they still don't want you to have to be between 16 and 30 to enjoy the thrills." While the technology may exist to push coaster speeds over 200 mph, to reach heights beyond the current 200-foot "megacoaster" category, and to drive G-forces to levels where fighter pilots blanch, pushing a design too far drives construction costs too high - and scares away too many potential paying customers. ![]() "That is the most new coasters in a single year since the Great Depression." It's a sort of roller coaster arms race among the parks, with each one hyping its claims to this season's newest, highest, fastest, wildest or most high-tech new coaster. "This year in North America we are seeing the introduction of 60 new, moved or renovated coasters," says coaster historian Paul Reuben, editor of Park World, an amusement industry trade magazine. ![]() But riders continue to line up, and parks are on a coaster-building binge. Occasional roller coaster accidents do occur, and amusement parks do get sued. All you're thinking about is fun, while all the people who work at the park are thinking about is your safety." "But as you go below that layer, the whole focus is on providing a safe environment. "The business is, on the surface, all imagination and amusement," he says. Safety - and making sure that the park's "guests" can assume that any perceived danger is a carefully engineered illusion. In his quiet headquarters tucked away in a nondescript office park in Millersville, he'll admit that safety comes first. Talk with Seay (pronounced "shay") long enough and another, even more important objective emerges. ![]()
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