Funfair rides

Snob.

I know too many good ol' boys who are far better mechanics than I am (and I'm no slouch, IMHO) to suffer from that particular prejudice. They may come across as functional illiterates when you talk to them, but that's either because they don't care to impress you, because they _are_ functional illiterates but still better mechanics than I am, or because they had you pegged as a snob from the moment you opened your mouth and they're playing games with you.

I worry more about whether the stuff was designed by guys with bachelors degrees using handbooks based on decades of avoiding real-world failures, or if it was designed by guys with doctorates, computers, no real-world experience, and with penny-pinching managers.

So I try to ride the ones with obvious signs of years of normal maintenance, figuring that they're the ones that have stood the test of time...

Try a Tilt-A-Whirl? Designed by a woodworker? :-) -->

A UK political party

Stress fracture, internal corrosion, oxidation, centripetal force, creep, dissimilar metals/electrolysis, moments of inertia, conservation of momentum, Murphy's law, that guy in engineering school with the drinking problem, 2nd derivative of velocity, torque vs. arthritis... Ah, the carefree joys of amusement park rides.

My father-in-law was a machine shop operator with only a high school education, yet was one of the most literate, well-read, persons I've ever known.

He loved proselytizers. When they would come to his door he would debate them for hours... leaving them very unsure of their religion ;-)

I don't ride amusement park rides... period!

...Jim Thompson

org/-A UK political party

Ron Tomor At ArrowDynamics was good enough to rate a Nova Special while I was a kid, did lots of data collection tests and built the coasters on a patch of land at the factory for R&D. But he would never ride his own creations, which are some of the best in the world.Since engineers would fight to work for him, he had plenty of staff test riders. Ohio has a big enough collection of coasters to have a dedicated state inspection team, and I am comfortable riding rides in Ohio. Elsewhere I look things over twice before getting on a coaster.

I road the one at coney island just before it was torn down, NO way would I have been dumb enough for a second go. I like the wood ones, less fatigue and few welds.

Its worth dragging up that episode of Nova if its on Youtube.

Steve

UK

Not to mention how nice they are to your back when you're a statistical outlier (193 cm tall, 18 stone 13).

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

FFS - seeing a huge bastard like you on my ride is an immediate bailout condition! Stress, stress, out of balance, beyond spec... etc That's almost as bad as a weightwatchers day out at the fair.

Yeah - I hate the things. Last time I was forced into riding one by the kids last week I was already starting to come down with what felt like swine flu. Lucky for them I didn't puke up while in motion. A few hours of lying on the grass shivering in the sunshine almost got me back to where I was in the first place - feeling like shit.

party

In Excelsior, MN, when I was about pubescent (1950's-ish), there was an amusement park with a wood coaster and a "fun house" that had all the fun dangerous crap - the spinning disk, the rotating tube - I was just big enough to stand in the rotating tube, put my hands on the "other" side, and spin around with the tube.

The attendant chewed me out and chased me away.

I also did an experiment on the coaster - I sat in the very front, and got big G's downward at the bottoms of the dips but very mild negative G's at the top of the humps. Then I rode it again, in the very back, and the negative G's almost lifted me out of the seat, but the dips were very mild.

Something to do with inertia, I suppose. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

party

Did you ever ride the old wood coaster at Lesourdsville Lake/Americana near Monroe before the park closed? Or one of their wood paddle boats on their lake?

As a Child way back when , perhaps 25 years ago we did Lesourdesville, ONCE.

Dad liked Geauga Lake better, and it closed 3 years ago, Cedar Point bought it to kill it after Sea World closed.

Now only Kings Island and Cedar Point are left. and Kennywood is no fun if your single like me, with their minimum two rider rule.

Steve

I grew up about ten minutes from there. I installed the sound systems on the paddle boats, and repaired a lot of oddball things when they were one of my industrial customers.

I went to Sea World once.

I went to Kings Island several times. Once was the day before I left for the service. We arrived early, and were first in line when the gates opened, and they threw us out at closing time. I took my girlfriend home, then put my car into storage. An hour later my dad drove me to the bus station for the long ride to Ft. Knox. It was almost four days with no sleep.

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I have often gotten my kicks shredding proselytizers one way or another. It finally got boring. I love roller coasters though, preferring more extreme ones.

--=20 Transmitted with recycled bits. Damnly my frank, I don't give a dear

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Our local big amusment park has cameras for every seat row on every car now,,and spread spectrum downlink in real time, You can now buy a video on CD of your ride. I'd hate to be the poor slob who had to find 12 video links per car that could take the Gs and have a protocol with no dropouts, and yet not conflict with nearby rides. Think of the repetitive shock loads and the fact that its running off a generator on a wheel.

Now that is engineering.

Steve

I've often found myself wondering, "how many channels must they be using?" in NASCAR or Indy-car races. There's not only a camera in each car (maybe more than one), but all of that telemetry and two- way communication with the crew chief, the spotters, and who knows what else.

How do they do that?

Thanks, Rich

Multiplexing comes to mind, pretty much like what DVB-T does...

part one is easy, for voice, most teams use 850 mhz biz band, and somehow are allowed to scramble, unlike the rest of us.

part two, how they do the car data for broadcast:

next up,it looks like Telemetry during the race is a no-no quote"Clearly, information is power, which is why this use of telemetry is limited to vehicle tests. It's banned from NASCAR races."

The on board data loggers are made by PI Systems Inc.

which leaves the video, which I cannot find data on.

Steve

I would certainly buffer the generator with a battery, and then dump the files back at the station. Reduces the constraints considerably. Particularly if you only interrogate/transport the video paid for seats. Think flash sticks.

Telemetry and voice is CDMA. The video is keyed, non-continuous, and not more than a few cars at the same time.