Rollback

Hey DorneyDante... you've been immortalized on ARN&R for this. Great jeorb!
;)
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- John
Homepark: Cedar Point
Home-away-from-homepark: Paramount's Kings Island

Here, The Dante, have a trophy!

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Ask about my references

If you are stuck inverted at the top of the loop, gravity is pulling down on all parts of your body. You are in a seated position. Your body hangs from its thighs. If your feet don't catch on the stiffener at the bottom of the lap bar, then if you go completely limp, and if you are small, your legs could drop and wrap around the lap bar.

In any case, you're not coming out of the seat. The only reason you would need to secure the upper body is if your upper body doesn't happen to be attached to your lower body. I haven't met anybody who has that problem, with the possible exception of that lady who was involved in that Addington Mill mishap at Cedar Point during HalloWeekends a couple of years ago... :)

Ride a Rock-O-Plane. See how that works out.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Hey, I can disagree with something if I want. I just have a hard time understanding this in terms of physics. I would need a detailed physics explanation and/or a picture to truly believe this. And Michael, I didn't get your post. I also have no idea what ARN&R is.

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"You know its a good ride when you come into the final brake run wiping tears from your eyes."

http://www.absolutelyreliable.com

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Swat at the sun alongside El Diablo in 2003!
Only at Six Flags AstroWorld!
http://www.houstonthrills.com

In terms of physics, but simplifying things somewhat.

Your body has a mass and weight, right? Say you weigh 110 lbs. (like, uh, me? Okay, no.) -- well, in the American system, that's really 110 pounds force. The American unit of Mass is the slug and nobody uses that.

Anyway, if you're hanging upside down, you're exerting 110 lbf on the lapbar. The lapbar, in turn, needs to able to exert 110 lbf. back without breaking. It can and does. You stay put.

The lapbar is designed and positioned such that it rests snugly against your thighs. The concept being that it's physically impossible for your body to writhe free from it as long as the lapbar is functioning and exerting an equal force upon your body.

It's not pleasant and it sure isn't comfortable, but it works. There's really nothing to disagree with. It happened. It's fact. Scirocco was stuck with riders fully inverted and they were held in place by the restraint. I saw it on that thar new-fangled device we have called the tellyvision.

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--Maddie--
What do I Listen-To?
May the Schwarz be with you.
*** This post was edited by Chernabog 8/28/2003 11:41:00 AM ***

Dante: here's what you might be missing. The lapbar sits across the tops of your thighs, which hold your femur. IIRC, the femur is the strongest bone in your body; i.e. most able to resist breaking. You don't fall out because your femur won't go "above" (in this case, below) the lapbar---neither it nor the lapbar breaks. The only other way to come out is for your feet to go down so your leg "straightens" out. But, since the seat and floor are both solid and don't break, this doesn't happen.

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http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~bnoble/

DorneyDante, you are urinating in the wind right now. Without a raincoat. ;)

And while no one fell out of Sirocco... and, apparently, that bears repeating... no one fell out of Sirocco, someone did fall out of the Schwarzkopf-designed Mindbender in Edmonton as a result of its derailment in 1986. This is how Popular Mechanics described it in a September 1987 article:

"...two of the victims were riding in the rear car when it left the track at more than 60 mph. A wheel assembly sheared away from the car and slammed it into a support pillar. The rest of the cars stalled vertically inside the loop. The third death occurred seconds after the derailment when one of the victims plunged from his seat to the floor of the Mall."

And if you want picture proof, here is a link to the photo that accompanied this article. But be warned, it is a picture of an accident scene. It isn't pretty.

http://members.aol.com/drcompany/tragedy1.htm

Note that the train stalled vertically inside the loop, not even completely upside-down, and someone managed to fall out. But what happened to the Mindbender's train is a lot different than what happened to Sirocco's train - Mindbender experienced a catastrophic mechanical failure. Those kinds of failures tend to exert different forces on people's bodies than gliding to a halt upside-down.

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Ask about my references

Thank you Chernabog, that is all I wanted was a good explanation to understand it fully.

*Holds ARN&R trophy high and proudly.

I wanna thank my dad, who introduced me to rollercoasters and started taking me to parks at a young age. I also wanna thank my mom who got me discount tickets for Dorney last weekend. Lastly, to all my fans who have supported me. *sobbing

On a more serious note, that site said that I "couldn't believe that a lapbar could hold you safely in a coaster"? Yeah that would be correct if they would have said "I couldn't believe that a lapbar could hold you safely in a coaster while inverted." Someone even posted above that it is hard to believe and is truly a work of physics. Well, I just had a hard time believing it and now that I had a good physics explanation..............let me go eat lunch.

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"You know its a good ride when you come into the final brake run wiping tears from your eyes."

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Olsor said:

Note that the train stalled vertically inside the loop, not even completely upside-down, and someone managed to fall out. But what happened to the Mindbender's train is a lot different than what happened to Sirocco's train - Mindbender experienced a catastrophic mechanical failure. Those kinds of failures tend to exert different forces on people's bodies than gliding to a halt upside-down.

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The Mindbender lap bars popped open, either from the car hitting the concrete pillar--the release mechanism is on the side of the car--or from mechanical failure of the locking mechanism due to severe damage to the car itself. It's important to note that he did not fall out with a closed lap bar.