Airtime

Well i am talking with S&S so i will either be a roller coaster designer, or a race engineer. Either one will be heaven.

I was watching the video trying to time the airtime on Top Thrill Dragster. It looks like somewhere between 6 and 8 seconds. What do you think?

Ok I understand how a parabolic curve works I don’t need the third grade science lesson I’ve already heard this stuff from my teachers more times then I can count so I don’t need to here it again. And if what your saying is true then why don’t I feel zero g’s going up of the bunny hops on Magum because I only experience zero g’s on the down side of the hills or for that matter why don’t I feel zero g’s when a plane lifts off?
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Blue train always wins. . . . .Unless the red train cheats!

Bob,

The bunny hops on Magnum are not a parabolic curve. You will feel zero Gs on Dragster, going up and down, because it is a 90 degree angle.

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Florida may have Disneyworld and Key West,
but Ohio has Cedar Point and Put-In-Bay.
It's great to live in Ohio!

hey guys: imagine what it will feel like to undergo Zero G's on the drop, while experiancing lateral G's from the spiral. That will be so cool! it will probably make some people feel sick because of the zero vertical G's with lateral G's only..hard to explain. imagine it!

Okay BOB, what pete said was correct about the hills. Also when planes lift off, they are not taking off at 90 degrees nor would they be deccelerating to gravity because they are being propelled by Turbofan Engines! What i am speaking of is if that plane would turn skyward 90 degrees and shut off its engines, then you would feel zero Gs. Take my word for it, someday you will slap yourself in the head for thinking otherwise. When you ride 16, you will see. Give me a buzz sometime if you want me to explain this to you i find it hard to get it striaght for you when you repeat yourself. Reach me on AOL or AIM : [Mehoffus] or if anyone wants to talk or ask questions.

"While you're visiting Samurai Summit, Be sure to check out superman: the escape, which features a 0-100 MPH launch in under 7 seconds, and an amazing 10 seconds of weightlessness"-Paraphrased from the audio speil on Oriental Express. ROTFLFAO. Maybe on opening day that was true, but now its literally 0-75 in 7 seconds and 3 seconds of weightlessness. STE is THE most boring ride EVER. I'd rather ride their "mine" ride (no theming of course). Montezummas Revenge, which was MANY MANY years before, in the 70s, has a more exciting, faster launch. And then it has a ride, and its the best of its kind, PERFECTLY maintained and SMOOTH like B&M. Anton was a great engineer, especially for his time. Too bad the business closed. Fortunately his sons still manufacture spare parts for all his rides.

Xcelerator features -2.2 Gs, a great amount. Its floater in the middle, ejection in the back, and floater and ejection in the front (the best row for the launch BTW- sit here for your first ride unless it adds an hour to your weight time like it does for Xcelerator). The ride ops warn you to not hold your hands up (and the warning is really intense, a ride op acts as if you're about to jump off a bridge), but they don't care if you do once you launch (just don't hold them up until you actually launch). This makes the airtime XTREME. Better airtime than any other coaster I've ridden. I can also pretty much the ride ops will staple. They used to slam their bodies into Xcelerator's restraint, a little too safe, but now they just make it nice and tight- but comfy. I mean the video they filmed for the queue shows the most intense staple ever. Theres also a video of Sandor Kernacs, the main guy at Intamin, getting majorly stapled in his own ride on opening day, and he curses. Shorty-do you know where this video is? Theres a reason they don't give 1 click rides, or any space between you and your flesh. If they did, some people would fly out. Expect pretty wicked stapling on TTD, at least wicked for you guys at CP.

I will bet that the Intamin guys nailed the arc of the top-hat to ensure that there are negative G's there (as oppsed to zero-g).

One of the cool things about riding the back of MF is the negative (outward, away from the train) g's you get as the front of the train goes down the first drop. Assuming that you can detach yourself from the adrenalin long enough to think about it, this is probably the most vivid demonstration available anywhere that shows that negative g's are only about the train accelerating away from you faster than the force of gravity can pull you back onto the train.

The back seat on the Raptor is the same on the first drop and after the first heart-line roll.

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Steve

"Will all those who expressed disappointment at the new ride please leave the park now"

FluidCoasters, you've been wrong at least three times in this thread, but overall what you've said is pretty much true.

I have to go to work right now, but I'll tell you where you were wrong later...

Sounds like fun. LOL!

Well don't leave me hanging...

Xcelerator has -2.2 g's, a lot more than 0gs. thats what makes the ride so fun. but believe me, there is no airtime going up the hill. or maybe i was just recovering from the launch....

There most certainly is speedy ive riden it too. As for -2.2 Gs, i don't think so. -3 is lethal and anything under -1 is painful. I rerode several times and never felt over 300 pounds of tension on my restraint.

"If you don't beleive me drop two similarly sized objects with completely opposite weights at the same level and i bet you that they will hit the ground at the same time."

Not true. In fact, the only time it IS true is in a vacuum. Don't believe me? Go get two balloons. Blow one up yourself and fill the other with helium. Which one hits the ground first? :)

The reason you don't experience 0G's on Millennium Force on the up-side of the bunny hill is because you are still accelerating upward. Doesn't matter how parabolic the curve is. The train's horizontal velocity is being converted to vertical velocity and THAT's why you don't feel weightless going up MF's bunny hill.

There was something else that was incorrect, but I forget what it was now. I'll go re-read this thread.
*** This post was edited by AnswerMan 1/12/2003 11:57:55 PM ***

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Fluidcoasters said:
There most certainly is speedy ive riden it too. As for -2.2 Gs, i don't think so. -3 is lethal and anything under -1 is painful. I rerode several times and never felt over 300 pounds of tension on my restraint.

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Well, how much do you weigh?

1. Given the situation of the two balloons, one with o2 and co2, and one with helium, two different airtight chambers filled with two different gases of completely different density. You are going way out on the limb to simply say that my statement wasn't entirely accurate when in fact you know that difference in gas density will have absolutly zero effect on 16 or any roller coaster for that matter. All a vaccuum does is ensure there is no air resistance to contend with and that all mass falls to gravity at at its full potential. Accelleration due to gravity still does not change, in a vaccuum or not it influences all objects. Now scince you and i both know that this ride will feature aerodynamic trains as to reduce air resisance as much as possible, the train and riders will accellerate towards gravity at the same rate (of course scince this is not a vaccuum it will contain a small margin of error so small, as not to even be noticed). In my statement i said to drop similarly sized objects only because if someone takes a large object next to a small one then just because of the shear vollume of the larger object its surface may touch first. In most cases my statement is true. A good example of that experiment would be one quarter and a roll of quarters. I am aware that real world mechanics arent perfect, but they are close enough in this case as to not have a necessity of being politically correct.

2. I am missing something...Millenium Force?? I thought he said Magnum. If you are talking about the up side of the parabolic curve you have it backwards its converting vertical motion to horizontal and it has zero Gs. But it sounds like you are talking about the pull up yes you are right but he was talking about Magnum's hills at the end which are comprised of an upward curve then a straight angled climb and then a downward turn followed by a straight declining angle. Pete was right.

I weight aproxx. 150 lbs.

Well then, 300lbs against your lap bar would be -2Gs. Also, some of it is taken in by the seatbelt. Ask on westcoaster if you want backup.

1) I know that gas density will not effect a coaster, but I was simply pointing out the fact that when you drop two objects, the space beneath them is not empty. It is filled with air. Air resistance will slow down an object of lesser mass faster. The two object will never hit the ground at the same time.

2) Yes, it was Magnum...I should have re-read the thread before I posted. I guess I interpreted what he said differently...I was thinking of the "pull-up" part. I guess he meant the part just before it crests the hill.

The third thing I thought you were wrong about I believe is stated differently now. It had to do with the pullout of #16 vs. the pull out of WT. You edited the post so perhaps you rearranged your wording a bit.

I'm not sure what kind of negative Gs Xcelerator pulls, but remember that you experience several Gs of force when "plopping" into a chair or doing other everday things. The negative Gs are obviously not sustained on the ride.
*** This post was edited by AnswerMan 1/13/2003 2:04:37 AM ***

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AnswerMan said:
Air resistance will slow down an object of lesser mass faster.

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Not quite. Wind resistance has more of an impact on an object with greater surface area.

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- John
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