There’s a documentary about this called Class Action Park that’s absolutely wild. They interview a bunch of former employees, and I can’t emphasize enough to people who don’t remember it how much the attitudes described epitomized a large portion of 80s and 90s youth culture in America. Which was simultaneously rad and a fucking nightmare, because so much of it was synonymous with just being a reckless shithead, lol.
I just finished watching that after seeing your comment. Damn, that was really interesting.
I grew up going to a similar, but seemingly much less dangerous (I assume…) park here in Australia called Jamberoo which looks like it’s still open. Like looking into a weird dangerous alternate reality world lol
in case the Wikipedia article is too hard to read:
I had to look this up and here is the wiki link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_Park#Cannonball_Loop. That waterslide is bonkers.
Imagine not getting enough speed and getting stuck before the loop, feeling water building up, hearing new peopje slide towards you…
A while ago I went to Terme 3000 in Slovenia, they had a looped style waterpark ride. Just as crazy as is looks, I guess the tilt angle prevents major injuries? Because that slide has been open for a long time. It took no effort to clear the loop as well.
Edit: For those curious, it’s a pod-style release you can see on the image, the floor disappears under your feet. The green one next to it is one of the steepest in Europe IIRC.
I think it’s more to due to the radius.
It’s hard to tell the exact size from the picture, but the diameter of that loop seems to be at least several meters.
The one at action park was like 2 wide.
A bigger circle means less G forces while going around the loop, and less injuries. But action park rides were designed and built by the owner, who was not an engineer and apparently did not know any engineers. I’m pretty sure if you mentioned angular velocity to him, he’d just say that’s a sick name for a ride and then run away to get to a hardware store as fast as possible.
This, but also, for the loop to work they have to be accelerating VERY fast into it. Look how steep the drop into is, compared to the angle of any of the slides in this photo. (Well, maybe not that green one back-right. That looks like one of those things where you slide down on your back on a hard sled and get a hundred feet of runway at the end.)
The ride reopened a few more times over the years. In the summers of 1995 and 1996, it was opened for several days before further injuries forced its permanent shutdown.
They generally seem like fun people 😱
Action Park was formally opened on July 4 of that year, with two opening-day promotions: a Dolly Parton look-alike contest and a tobacco juice-spitting contest
Gene didn’t want to do the same old shit, where you just get strapped into something or it twirls around. He wanted to take the idea of skiing, which is exhilarating because you control the action, and transfer it to an amusement park. There’s inherent risk in that, but that’s what makes it fun
the park eventually bought the township extra ambulances to keep up with the volume
But especially this:
The Bailey Ball was an Alpine Center attraction developed and tested, but never opened to the public, as a result of those tests. It consisted of a large steel sphere in which a rider could be secured, and then rolled downward. The plan was to do it on a track with PVC pipe as its outer rails, and one was built alongside a ski trail.
The designers neglected to take into account the tendency of PVC pipe to expand in heat. During the first test, with a state inspector present on a hot summer day, the ball, with a man inside testing it, went off the track as a result of the pipe expanding and bounded down the adjacent ski slope. It continued through the parking lot, across Route 94, and came to rest in a swamp. After it came to a natural stop at the bottom, the inspector left without saying anything and park management abandoned the project
