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Parabolic hills


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I've been really digging DB and the fact that if you float with it just right-you're butt can leave the seat on the way up a hill and not touch the seat again until you bottom out. It is like nothing else I've ridden.

I then noticed (as sort of an algebra/calc dork), the the 2nd and 3rd hills are shaped like parabola (x=-y squared), where the steepness increases (and decreases) at an accelerating rate, emanating from the origin (very top of the hill). Going into the hill, it begins very steep and fast. But as you shoot up the hill, you flatten out at an accelerating (exponential) rate, blasting you out of the seat. Once you pass the very top, the track gets exponentially steeper as you descend-keeping you in the air until you reach the bottom of the hill.

I've felt negative Gs before, but it was always a 'bump' that was centered around the very crest. The shape of DB's track creates negative Gs for the duration of the hill. The direction of the train is always changing at an increasing rate. Sorry for posting if this is common knowledge, but it just occurred to me that those things look like they're straight out of a math textbook.

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That is why Intamin and B&M are dominating the industry. Arrow, Togo, Vekoma, and others have all had "airtime hills" in their rides, but they never come out right. They've (I & BM) mastered float airtime through the math you're referencing. On a side, the "bump" you mentioned is called "ejector airtime" by a lot of folks.

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I've been really digging DB and the fact that if you float with it just right-you're butt can leave the seat on the way up a hill and not touch the seat again until you bottom out. It is like nothing else I've ridden.

I then noticed (as sort of an algebra/calc dork), the the 2nd and 3rd hills are shaped like parabola (x=-y squared), where the steepness increases (and decreases) at an accelerating rate, emanating from the origin (very top of the hill). Going into the hill, it begins very steep and fast. But as you shoot up the hill, you flatten out at an accelerating (exponential) rate, blasting you out of the seat. Once you pass the very top, the track gets exponentially steeper as you descend-keeping you in the air until you reach the bottom of the hill.

As a commercial pilot, to achieve weight-lessness, we fly parabolic flight. NASA actually does anti-gravity research

for the astronauts aboard a jet called the Vomit Comet:

http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/b...vomitcomet.html

However, you can do the same thing in a single prop plane like a Cessna-172.

I haven't had the chance to ride DB yet, but it does sound similar.

Where's Coaster RZ when you need him. lol

pilotank

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