Freefall Effect

I just read about S&S's new seats that can tilt 40-60 degrees while dropping. This made me wonder: If you are titled, do you still feel the free fall effect (where you lift of the seat intot he harness), because lets say u have a vertical rc vs. a vertical tower, the tower ride will experience the freefall and not the rollercoaster. So does the tilted effect still let the rider experience alot of neg. g's?

Link:http://www.screamscape.com/html/s_s_power.html

[ The story's a bit old ]

The zero g moment is caused when an object causes you to drop but the object starts moving moves a micro second before you do. A drop ride is allways going to produce this effect, tilting is going to change the how this effect though.

If the angle is <45 degrees it should feel the same because the seat is still below the rider. However, if the angle is >45 degrees I am not sure. If the ride drops at gravity then you should still feel negative gs, but if it drops faster then gravity I bet it feels like positive gs because the chair will eventually catch up to you and you will be pushed into it.

Umm...
When you ride a drop ride, you fall at the exact same time (minus a nanosecond or two for the seat material to decompress) as the chair. 45 degrees is not a magic number. The further you tilt, the more your weight is initally carried by the restraints rather than the seat. However, the release of that pressure and the lack of forces caused by the drop (i.e. zero-g) is not affected by your inital position, but the affect on your perception of the feeling may be very different. (Vertical Drop coaster (which does experieince freefall, just in a different position)vs. Drop Tower)

Examples: X falls more or less vertically and it definitely gives you a freefall conditions, even though you're spinning around while doing it. DV gives you a freefall conditions, even though you're facing straight down. Drop Zone also gives you a freefall conditions, even though you're sitting up. All the sensations are different because of the rider positioning.

S&S Turbo Drops do drop faster than gravity and I can assure you it doesn't feel like positive G's. You're yanked down by your shoulders, but your acceleration is only slightly greater than the normal 1g downwards. It still tickles the stomach quite a lot.

All that said, I think the reason drop rides are more stomach tickling than coasters (even vertical ones) is because of the jerk (technical usage: dddy/dtdtdt). The change in acceleration from 0 to 1g downward almost instantly is what really gets me. The freefalling part is still awesome, but not quite as awesome. Translation: I really like the holding brake on the V2's and the first drop on the DV's. ;) *** Edited 6/26/2004 5:27:27 PM UTC by ApolloAndy***

That nanosecond difference is the cause of the butt out of your seat feeling.

Also, I accedentally screwed up my degrees I meant 90 degrees. At that point that nanosecond will cause you to feel pressed to your seat when you are falling faster then gravity. Of course my screw up makes my arguement irrelevent to this topic, sorry.

The reason your butt comes out of your seat isn't because the seat drops first but because any contact with the seat will cause a normal force which will repel your butt from the seat.

Ex: In space, when you "put something down" on a counter, it will float away from the counter. Not because the counter moves somewhere faster than the thing does, but because the counter exerts a force on the thing simply by being in contact with it.

And something accelerating from standstill at 9.8m/s^2 will not move any significant distance in a time period on the order of a nanosecond. It certainly doesn't move the distance that you come out of your seat when you ride.

Also, even if the chair is at 90, unless the chair is accelerating 1g faster than you are, you'll still feel some level of weightlessness. *** Edited 6/26/2004 9:05:04 PM UTC by ApolloAndy***