VertiGo's

What is the VertiGo's and what happen to it.

Any one have any pictures?

One of the three towers fell and they shut the ride down. That's all I know.

By the way, it happened during the off season.

Vertigo ran for the end of season 01'. Over the winter is when the whole thing happened. For the next season it was taken out and a picnic arean put in place of it.

Any pictures ???

http://www.schmidty.com/vmhistory/history/attractions/vertigo_p.asp

They did a good job keeping it fairly quiet. I went there one day on magnum look over and boom wheres it at? Im a coater junkie and I heard nothing about it. I emailed cp and I got an email that said it was taken down. If your on magnum and get ripped out of a beach side seat look over the side going up the lift and you can see three footers in a triangle formation of where it was.

P.S. anybody get to go on it while it was up?

Someone here got a lot of rides on it. It's in their signature. Before I knew a lot about CP I saw the ride on their website. A few months later it was no where to be found. They totally erased it after it collapsed.

Now that KBF got a Screamin Swing and Dorney Park is getting one too now, I think CP should get one too. What do you think, they look fun?

VertiGo looked like it was really fun, on America's Funniest Home Videos they had a segment that showed clips of people on similar rides and it looked awesome, I would love to go on one.

As for Screamin Swing, they look great too, I would love to ride one if those as well.

Cedar Point really likes throwing capital letters in their ride names eh? VertiGo ... maXair ... I'm sure that maXair won't turn out the same way as VertiGo did.

I Loved that ride. Rode it @ KBF. Very fun. I wish I can ride it again. :(

How exactly does it work? I looked at some pictures, but I'm not sure how it goes.

essentially, it's a vertical slingshot with rotating seats. The car actually reaches heights heigher than the towers. :D

I rode VertiGo while it was still standing back in '01. Man oh man, that was pretty cool. It had 3 different types of launches, one that was similar to Power Tower in that you never flipped, one where you flipped at the top of the ride and came down facing the ground, and the final one had you flipped over halfway up the launch path and in that position the remainder of the ride.

I rode the one that had you flipping over at the very top. It was really cool, but I dont really think it was worth 10 dollars, as it was just a cool Power Tower. I'd do it again, if it was still around.

If you guys had to guess, how high do you think it got at its highest point?

it's on the same site.

VertiGo opened at Cedar Point on August 11, 2001 as an extra-fee attraction in Challenge Park. Riders, up to six at a time, were secured in seats that were attached to the ride carriage. The riders were then launched by compressed air and the attached steel cables 300 feet into the air at 50 mph. The ride was supported by three 270-foot towers.

Riders were given three different ways to experience VertiGo (though there was a fourth option):

Hot Rocket: riders remained upright the entire ride.

Cosmic Flip: riders began in the upright position, flipping 150 degrees to a nose dive position as it neared the top and descended.

Big Bang: riders were flipped 150 degrees right after launch. *** Edited 2/11/2005 6:04:08 AM UTC by MForce411***

I believe there was a fourth option as well, at least that's what I recall from the last time I rode it. I think that one flipped you right at takeoff, then righted you at the top.

It hasn't been answered yet on why it fell?

The reason for the one tower to snap was because they were built to have tension of the cables on them. During the offseason CP took the car off and left the towers there with no tension holding them. This is fine, but the towers were built with a lot of sway, 5 feet I believe. In January, the Lake Erie winds can be brutly, and the towers swayed to over 15 feet causing lots of stress. That's what I heard and explains why it wouldn't of collapsed during the season.

WRONG!!!111!!!!!111!!!!!

Enough of that.

It experinced vortex shedding. This is material covered in a non-linear dynamics course.

Basically as wind passes the tube, it folds back and smacks the tower. That action induces a viberation proportional to the velocity of the wind. The tower has a resonant frequency for such a viberation meaning at some frequency, the magnitude of the viberation gets very high.

A good example of resonant frequency come from a flag or a light pole. If you shake it with great force, but quickly or at a high frequency, then the magnitude is very low and you can. A kid could go up to the same flagpole and push and pull with the motion and get it to swing very violently. That caused a high magnitude from a relativly small force.

Nearly the same can be applied to a tube sticking 265 feet in the air. The difference is that the swinging that the pole did won't do damage, at a higher frequency the wind can induce a wave like shape to the tube. At the right frequncy the magnitude can cause shredding at a sensitive part, usually a joint. The wind hit it at that very specific speed that caused the tower to resonate and was severely damaged. S&S, the engineering firm that designed VertiGo offered a design revision that took care of vortex shedding but Cedar Point rejected it and had the ride taken down.

A simular problem happened with a theming tire on Top Thrill Dragster. The axle that supported the tire was a short cantilever design. It really is a poor design to have a heavy tire supported by a cantilever. In normal racing, the tire would be supported by the ground. The tire on Top Thrill Dragster was supported solely by the cantilever, worse is the ride has G forces of of close to 5 G's, and to top it off, there are constant viberations.

Steel doesn't just rip to shreds without warning. VertiGo, it was during the off season so no inspections were made. With Dragster's tires, apparently they noticed cracking because the tires were taken off before the incident Shorty after replacing the tire, one of them fell off and ended the theming. Millennium Force's lift cable had a lot of warning before it finally failed.

Edit: Dyslexia found for cure? *** Edited 2/13/2005 9:30:15 PM UTC by ForgottenEE***

THe 4th option was called "Big Bang Plus" or "Ohh S#@!" on the control panel. It did indeed flip you 150 degrees forward at the launch then upright you at the apex.

I have no quibble with your explanation, ForgottenEE, but the phenomenom you describe is "vortex shedding", not "shredding". Common mistake ...