Angle of Airtime: Does it Matter?

[DelPiero]

I'm just replying to a thread. Thread which is attached to a poll which contains the sentence :

So, yeah, some people might benefit from some clarification about what is actually going on physically. If it looks condescending, yeah, well, I'm sorry. Wasn't my intention, and you all know that.

Quoted text from Jarrett hasn't copied but you know what I'm quoting.
If Jarrett says something stupid then by all means rip his stupid post to shreds with your geekery we are fully aware of, but your post literally looked to address the whole site and made you look to be condescending. Maybe address the posting style slightly, like ATI did for a while.

I consider my good deed of the day done.

 

[balrog]

Quoted text from Jarrett hasn't copied but you know what I'm quoting.
If Jarrett says something stupid then by all means rip his stupid post to shreds with your geekery we are fully aware of, but your post literally looked to address the whole site and made you look to be condescending. Maybe address the posting style slightly, like ATI did for a while.

I consider my good deed of the day done.

I edited my previous post, during your replying. I'm well aware that many members know about the mechanics. I'm going to continue sharing informations with the ones who don't, whether you like it or not.

 

[DelPiero]

Good for you, but thanks for apologising, that was the right thing to do

 

[balrog]

So, what is your issue exactly, that I believe that even if about everyone on this forum know that airtime is "that floaty moment on a parabolic hill", a good amount don't really know how the physics behind it works ? Or that I'm trying to even the field by giving some clues to everyone ? Or just that I did not start my post with a disclaimer "you might already know all that is written below" ? Or that I wrote "Now I hope you have a clearer view of what airtime and ejector means." when a better sentence would have been
" I hope you now have a clear view of where airtime and ejector come from if you did not already know." ?

I'm still not sure.

 

[Lofty]

It's the fact you condescended everyone on the website as though you was a keynote speaker at a ****ing conference telling everyone about something you had invented. You could have just worded it slightly more friendly and not come across so abrasive.

 

[balrog]

Okay then. I just focused on the content and clearly overlooked the form of my message, I am going to edit it a bit to make it closer to what I actually intended. For my defence, I am more used to giving lectures and conference talks than explaining technical stuff on message boards, so I might have lost track of the context while I was writing the post.

Frankly, I is a shame that insults comes so easily on this forum. We are just talking about amusement rides, there should not be enough potential for antagonism for anyone to be called a twat, a tit or an a**hole. If you have an issue with what someone wrote, why not just explaining it in plain sentences ? Most of the time, he/she just wrote it to fast and without further check : it is a forum, people often pay minimum attention to what they write. We should be able to interact with each other like real human beings and not like those morons on reality TV.

 

[Lofty]

We should be able to interact with each other like real human beings and not like those morons on reality TV.

You literally can't help yourself can you? You've just said it ain't nice to call people names and in the next sentence come out with 'morons on reality TV'. I'm starting to find this hilarious.

 

[balrog]

Yeah, you pissed me off when calling me a :emoji_zipper_mouth: and I know you are miles away from apologizing for that.

And for the record, I'm not attacking your being, just condemning your actions. I think you know the difference.

 

[Ben]

You literally can’t stop being condescending can you?

 

[balrog]

You literally can’t stop being condescending can you?

That's called (petty) revenge.

 

[GuyWithAStick]

Enough of this. No need to stoop this low to try and prove a point.

Now let's all agree that Airtime only counts when you're vertically displaced at least 2.5 inches from your seat.

Sent from my VS820 using Tapatalk

 

[DelPiero]

Enough of this. No need to stoop this low to try and prove a point.

Now let's all agree that Airtime only counts when you're vertically displaced at least 2.5 inches from your seat.

Technically, you are required a minimum of 0.5 of a millimeter, but Balrog probably PM'd you already to clarify so ignore me.

 

[balrog]

Haha, funny ...
Now that it has been well established that I am a piece of :emoji_poop:. Maybe it is time for me to actually make the very point for which I had to write the problematic post in the first place.

The thing is, gravity not being a force, and as a falling body is actually submitted to no force, falling is physically equivalent to being alone in the void, with no force nor gravity applied to you. As a consequence, when you are falling, angle doesn't really make any difference. Whether you are upright, upside down or sideways, your body will be subject to the same absence of force. Your vision is the only thing that can make you guess at which angle you are actually at .

Now, if you are not weightless, the only force applied to you is the reaction of the train/restraint. Then again, the orientation doesn't really matter. If you are upright and the train accelerates downward faster than 1g (ejector) or if you are upside down and the train accelerate downward at a rate lower than 1g (hangtime) is going to feel the exact same as your body is subject to the exact same forces. The only difference, again ,will be in your eyes as if you are upside down, you will see the sky under you and the ground above.

Similarly, there will be no difference between a flat turn and an ejector hill taken sideways, you will feel the same reaction from the side of the train. Obviously, the whole sideway aspect will ad some funky visual aspect to the experience in the later, but apart from your eyes, your body won't tell the difference.

So it would be easy to conclude that, because their is no difference in terms of forces an kinematics, angle doesn't matter, but the visual aspect is actually really important, and can really offer a different experience to different riders as different people are more or less subject to disorientation. And lets remind that an ejector hill taken sideway feels like a flat turn more than a regular ejector hill, which I believe explains why people don't necessarily see sideway ejector as airtime.


So yeah, I might be an a**, but I really wanted to give you my point of view. And as it is quite physics heavy, I couldn't really do it without sharing some insight on the physics first if I wanted everyone to understand provided they wanted to. I understand it all came out wrong, but I really wasn't trying to undermine anyone.

 

[Hixee]

Is that sensation that you get in your stomach and "airtime" two completely separate things then? Or is that weightlessness?
I've always wanted to know but was too embarrassed to ask

The sensation you get in your stomach is all of your organs no longer "pressing down" on the stuff underneath them. It's essentially just the opposite of you feeling heavier when experiencing a pull out (higher Gs). Weightlessness is a slightly funny term, colloquially given to objects experiencing "zero-g".

So yeah, I might be an a**, but I really wanted to give you my point of view. And as it is quite physics heavy, I couldn't really do it without sharing some insight on the physics first if I wanted everyone to understand provided they wanted to. I understand it all came out wrong, but I really wasn't trying to undermine anyone.

I'm an engineer, and so anything that causes a mass to accelerate is a force*.

*Don't worry, I'm well aware of the physics and the difference between true zero-g and effective zero-g (micro-gravity). I guess the problem is, you can throw as much technical physics at it as you like, "airtime" is not something that [most] enthusiasts quantify with vector diagrams. So you end up having questions like Jarrett's. Do you consider "hangtime" the same as "airtime", or is the ejector on Lightning Rod's wave turn the same as the ejector on Storm Chaser. In physics terms, yes, but in enthusiast sensation terms? I'm not sure. They certainly do feel very different!

 

[balrog]

I'm an engineer, and so anything that causes a mass to accelerate is a force*.

Indeed, but to be accurate, it really depend on which type of engineering you are working on, a spaceprobe engineer might have a different POV than a plane engineer on the matter . To get overly precise, acceleration is relative, and gravity only make things accelerate in non-galilean reference frames as a galilean frame must be free moving (therefore free falling) by definition. A force that only exist when the system is studied in a non galilean frame is called an effective force. Earth's surface being non galilean, it is usual to consider weight a force as long as we stay on earth and light trajectory doesn't matter in our system (Because light also accelerates downward, but it is massless so shouldn't be affected by forces, which is the very effect that gave away the fact that gravity isn't about forces in the early XXth century)

*Don't worry, I'm well aware of the physics and the difference between true zero-g and effective zero-g (micro-gravity). I guess the problem is, you can throw as much technical physics at it as you like, "airtime" is not something that [most] enthusiasts quantify with vector diagrams. So you end up having questions like Jarrett's. Do you consider "hangtime" the same as "airtime", or is the ejector on Lightning Rod's wave turn the same as the ejector on Storm Chaser. In physics terms, yes, but in enthusiast sensation terms? I'm not sure. They certainly do feel very different!

Yes, and that is perfectly fine. I'm really you really don't need to know all that stuff to enjoy coasters and understand airtime, ejector, laterals and high-g turns, the experience speaks for itself anyway. The main use of knowing the mechanics is to be able to be very precise when talking about it, it doesn't change the ride.
But as ypu know all that stuff, I'm going to be precise and say that the only,thing tjat influences how an element feels is the avceleration vector written in a galilean frame, or a-g as written in the ground's frame, airspeed, and the visual aspect, which depends on orientation, indoor v outdoor, theming...

 

[Lofty]

 

[Ben]

Ok first of all, we get it you understand physics. Congratulations, can I get a round of applause for Balrog.

What you seem to be missing is that people don’t actually give a **** about the technicalities of it, we’re talking about how different sensations feel.

So yes, angle of airtime does make a massive difference, as does speed and numerous other factors.

Frankly you can shove the fact that gravity isn’t a force in to your forceless vacuum and stop condescending people who are having a perfectly valid conversation cause you like science and not having social skills.

 

[balrog]

Frankly, you don't get it. This is not us being condescending, this is you acting like a jerk. I have every right to have a conversation with hixee on a thread that corresponds to what we are talking about. You don't have to mind it if you don't want to. It is not like we were using all the time available for discussion : IT'S A MESSAGE BOARD. You don't like physics, we get it. I'm not trying to force you into it.

 

[Ben]

Hixee is not engaging you in a conversation because he actually wants to talk to you about this, he’s engaging you because you’re being a dick head.

 

[ThomVD]

You're all a bunch of dicks pointing at each other. Just get back on topic ffs. All of these topics derailing into meaningless arguments is really getting tiring.