Kw6sTheater
Hyper Poster
Oh, this reminds me... back when DC Rivals was in the testing phase, one of the engineers reported -2G's in the back row at the top of the non-inverting loop. At least, that was a rumor for around a week or two.
What coaster has the strongest airtime, in terms of the actual level of force?
HeartlineCoaster
Theme Park Superhero
Also true.
I've always admired Taron for being a beautiful mess of unfathomable elements and sensations rather than defined by number of airtime moments.
I prefer it that way too, keeps things unexpected.
JuliOverbank
Roller Poster
First drop of Expedition GeForce also has some very strong ejector in the back row, because it is also turning it creates extra centrifugal force.
DelPiero
Strata Poster
Yep, clearly my top 10 should just be discussed;
Steel Vengeance / Lightning Rod / Skyrush / El Toro / Taron
Storm Chaser / Helix / Outlaw Run / Fury 325 / Goliath (GAm)
Maybe not Fury or Goliath, but every other one has at least one moment of WTF ejector, no idea which one has the strongest airtime though.
You mention violent airtime on the mouse, Magnum's ejector seat airtime was violently painful, so could also be up there.
Howie
Donkey in a hat
So this raises an interesting (if un-answerable) question: at what point does 'strong ejector' become a 'bounce'? Mouse, Magnum, 'Nash, Bandit etc... - rides that tend to 'smash' you upwards into the restraint, rather than 'push' you upwards, is that still classed as 'airtime'? I mean... it should be, shouldn't it?
I seem to remember similar things being discussed in the Floater vs Ejector thread. I think it was @Hixee who made a good point about how it wasn't just about the strength of the G force, but more about the rate of change of the G force which determines what the airtime feels like. If we follow that logic a little further, we have to conclude that the truly strongest airtime out there is found on some of the roughest, bounciest old knackers in existence.
Bandit it is, then.
Wow, some of the stuff I say does actually get read! Who knew!
You're sort of right, in the sense that the rate-of-change of force plays a big part in how it feels, but that doesn't answer the thread's original question. All this rate of change stuff doesn't answer the question of which one has the highest (or lowest) absolute figure.
It's worth noting, however, that you have to do some intelligent thinking about this sort of thing. I can easily record accelerations of over +/-5G with my smartphone by shaking it (I did this sort of thing extensively during my final year thesis writing algorithms to process live acceleration data), but that shaking might not actually be fair to count. You'd have to have a minimum criteria for 'force sustained for at least 0.25s' type thing. That'd rule out all the bouncy stuff. Sorry mate, Bandit is probably out.
HeartlineCoaster
Theme Park Superhero
Hard to picture what that sort of timing is like on a ride. Wonder if that figure would rule out the little ones on the last diagonal of Balder. They always make me laugh with how short the bursts of airtime (and accompanying screams) are.
Alternatively, for the sake of the question, you could draw some sort of line between airtime created by design rather than forces exerted by unintentional violence.
Indeed, that's the question. 0.25s was plucked out of my head, but you could bring that down quite a bit I would have thought.
I was looking at the motion of boats during my thesis, so 0.25s was plenty enough of a filter to get rid of the vibration of the ship, dropped objects, influence of small buffeting waves, etc. I was only interested in the larger motion. For a coaster, you'd just have to bring that figure down a bit - I'd suggest just grab a plot and run a few different tests on the data to see what fits. Of course, there are plenty of off-the-shelf algorithms that do a more than just time sample and perform better, but that'd be a good start.
Howie
Donkey in a hat
JalvinGaming
Roller Poster
I would say Zippin Pippin's EDH (ejector death hill)
Nicky Borrill
Strata Poster
For somebody who loves ejector, floater and airtime of all sorts, I’ve not felt a great deal of it, being a Brit.
For me, Untamed has the most vicious ejector, Shambhala the most sustained floater… and Taron the best twisted / sideway airtime…
Honorable mentions too for Balder, Hyperion and Zadra (warm summers day 2021, it’s calmed down a little bit again since September)
For me, Untamed has the most vicious ejector, Shambhala the most sustained floater… and Taron the best twisted / sideway airtime…
Honorable mentions too for Balder, Hyperion and Zadra (warm summers day 2021, it’s calmed down a little bit again since September)
Christian
Hyper Poster
Just experienced something strange this weekend. I think I felt my strongest ever airtime moment on Helix's third and final airtime hill while in the backrow. Helix always delivers good airtime but this ride it was special. This airtime moment was absolutely insane dragging up my whole body and hitting me with the lap bar. It was a painful jolt.
I must admit that my senses maybe weren't the best as I had just come from a exam, had barely slept the night before and had a fever. I immediately rerode and it rode brilliantly but that airtime wasn't there the second time. I probably was hallucinating.
I must admit that my senses maybe weren't the best as I had just come from a exam, had barely slept the night before and had a fever. I immediately rerode and it rode brilliantly but that airtime wasn't there the second time. I probably was hallucinating.
Nicky Borrill
Strata Poster
If somebody used the ‘same’ camera to measure lots of rides, then whilst the numbers may not be accurate, through consistency in the testing methodology, it’d give you a good idea of which coasters had the strongest forces.
There’s a great team going around Europe doing a similar thing with better equipment, and correct me if I’m wrong here, but despite measuring the famous RMCs, Intamins, B&Ms and Mack launch coasters, the strongest they’ve measured was actually RTH… At least I think I saw / read something like that, I could be completely imagining it…
They have their own thread, nonetheless!There’s a great team going around Europe doing a similar thing with better equipment, and correct me if I’m wrong here, but despite measuring the famous RMCs, Intamins, B&Ms and Mack launch coasters, the strongest they’ve measured was actually RTH… At least I think I saw / read something like that, I could be completely imagining it…
Excellent ongoing project by @Benni and @Trax (and others?).
Nicky Borrill
Strata Poster
So they have, and I haven’t imagined it… Their latest post… RTH ‘possibly the most extreme airtime on Earth!’
Have you ever wondered, how extreme airtime can be? First row of Ride To Happiness may be the most extreme airtime on earth!
Skyrocket II are not on the weak side either, but I prefer TRTHBTMLs Airtime for a few reasons.
We made a measurement on Sky Scream using one of our Dummy (so it is currently as close as possible to what entities like the TÜV would measure) and got it to -1.81g in the front row. The measurement on TRTHBTML on the other hand was chest mounted, and we did not release the measurement as a "normal" video due to the -2.1g being very likely a combination of factors, you just cannot control with a chest-mount. Actually, -2.1 wouldn't be allowed in Europe, so we know that our peak has to be off.
Still, TRTHBTML is a very good candidate for the craziest airtime, at least in Europe. We would love to make a US-tour and measure rides like I305, Thighcrush and SteVe, but it is very unlikely that we'd ever get a permission within the next few years :-(
I know the question is quite old, but I'd still like to answer it: Is the accelerometer from the GoPro any good? Short answer: No.
The accelerometer is not really a good one, and will produce data compared to a mobile phone at best. With the camera being usually mounted to your chest, it is subjected to more movement than a phone in a (zipped) pocket. Btw, please don't take your phones on a ride, where you are not allowed to!
Anyway, the additional movement hurts the quality of the data in a certain way. You can fix it to a certain degree, but as far as I know no one except for us is processing the data accordingly.
On top of that, raw data is always quite rough. It needs to be processed in a certain way, to be comparable to official readings and claims. As far as I know, we are the only ones doing that. In addition, our accelerometers are specifically designed to comply with the regulations regarding the accuracy, frequency and smoothing. If you don't apply the right smoothing to a measurement, you can get pretty much any coaster to >6g acceleration, due to extremely short term accelerations. Just imagine a raw reading on an old school woodie, those raw measurements are all over the place.
We made a measurement on Sky Scream using one of our Dummy (so it is currently as close as possible to what entities like the TÜV would measure) and got it to -1.81g in the front row. The measurement on TRTHBTML on the other hand was chest mounted, and we did not release the measurement as a "normal" video due to the -2.1g being very likely a combination of factors, you just cannot control with a chest-mount. Actually, -2.1 wouldn't be allowed in Europe, so we know that our peak has to be off.
Still, TRTHBTML is a very good candidate for the craziest airtime, at least in Europe. We would love to make a US-tour and measure rides like I305, Thighcrush and SteVe, but it is very unlikely that we'd ever get a permission within the next few years :-(
I know the question is quite old, but I'd still like to answer it: Is the accelerometer from the GoPro any good? Short answer: No.
The accelerometer is not really a good one, and will produce data compared to a mobile phone at best. With the camera being usually mounted to your chest, it is subjected to more movement than a phone in a (zipped) pocket. Btw, please don't take your phones on a ride, where you are not allowed to!
Anyway, the additional movement hurts the quality of the data in a certain way. You can fix it to a certain degree, but as far as I know no one except for us is processing the data accordingly.
On top of that, raw data is always quite rough. It needs to be processed in a certain way, to be comparable to official readings and claims. As far as I know, we are the only ones doing that. In addition, our accelerometers are specifically designed to comply with the regulations regarding the accuracy, frequency and smoothing. If you don't apply the right smoothing to a measurement, you can get pretty much any coaster to >6g acceleration, due to extremely short term accelerations. Just imagine a raw reading on an old school woodie, those raw measurements are all over the place.
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Nicky Borrill
Strata Poster
Your work is incredible, I've watched every single one of your videos, and have appreciated the work that has gone into each and every one of them... I don't mind posting that in the wrong thread either
I'd love to see you travel to America!!! Out of interest do you know if there are any any restrictions on the amount of negative G's permitted in the US?
(That aside, that crazy long abbreviation for RTH is still dumb, and I'll never use it
)
Matt N
CF Legend
One thing I find confusing about airtime is; how can certain forces that are lower feel like they provide stronger airtime than rides with higher force?
For instance, I’ve been watching the EP videos from CoasterStats, and their analysis suggests that Silver Star peaks at little lower than 0G in the front and middle, and only hits around -0.5G in the back, whereas Blue Fire’s strongest airtime moment is -0.5G into/out of the mid course, which I wouldn’t say felt as strong as SS’ airtime even on the back, and even the hill before the final inversion that felt to me like it did absolutely nothing even in the back peaks at a little above 0G, which is not much weaker than SS.
However, I would have said that Silver Star had considerably stronger airtime than Blue Fire if I hadn’t watched these videos; even taking the length out of the equation, SS’ peak airtime strength just felt stronger to me. Probably stronger than any other ride I’ve ridden bar Mako, and that includes things that allegedly have strong ejector like Icon (-1.2G), Speed (-1.3G), Megafobia and Smiler (-1G)… baffling stuff.
For instance, I’ve been watching the EP videos from CoasterStats, and their analysis suggests that Silver Star peaks at little lower than 0G in the front and middle, and only hits around -0.5G in the back, whereas Blue Fire’s strongest airtime moment is -0.5G into/out of the mid course, which I wouldn’t say felt as strong as SS’ airtime even on the back, and even the hill before the final inversion that felt to me like it did absolutely nothing even in the back peaks at a little above 0G, which is not much weaker than SS.
However, I would have said that Silver Star had considerably stronger airtime than Blue Fire if I hadn’t watched these videos; even taking the length out of the equation, SS’ peak airtime strength just felt stronger to me. Probably stronger than any other ride I’ve ridden bar Mako, and that includes things that allegedly have strong ejector like Icon (-1.2G), Speed (-1.3G), Megafobia and Smiler (-1G)… baffling stuff.