Roller Coaster Engineer Answers Roller Coaster Questions From Twitter
Roller coaster engineer Korey Kiepert joins WIRED to answer the internet's burning questions about roller coasters and the people who design them. How do roller coasters work? Who invented the first roller coaster? How are roller coasters tested? What the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world? How do they stay on the rails while looping and speeding down the track? Engineer Korey Kiepert answers each of these questions plus plenty more on Roller Coaster Support.Director: Jackie PhillipsDirector of Photography: AJ YoungEditor: Richard TrammellTalent: Korey KiepertLine Producer: Joseph BuscemiAssociate Producer: Paul GulyasProduction Manager: Peter BrunetteProduction Coordinator: Rhyan LarkCasting Producer: Nicholas SawyerCamera Operator: Lucas VilicichSound Mixer: Paul CornettProduction Assistant: Lauren BoucherPost Production Supervisor: Christian OlguinPost Production Coordinator: Ian BryantSupervising Editor: Doug LarsenAdditional Editor: Jason Malizia; JC ScruggsAssistant Editor: Billy WardThe photo of Gold Reef City was taken by NOLWEEN and used under the Creative Commons 3.0 license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/The photo of the Wildcat Coaster was taken by WILDCAT1 and has been released into the public domain by the author.
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00:00Hi, I'm Corey Kiepert. I'm a roller coaster engineer.
00:02Let's answer some questions from the internet.
00:04This is Roller Coaster Support.
00:11At MudFence asked,
00:13What's the tallest roller coaster in the USA and the fastest in the world?
00:17The tallest roller coaster in the world and the fastest roller coaster in the world
00:21currently is Kingda Ka Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey.
00:25456 feet tall, 128 miles per hour.
00:31I would not want to be the one inspecting that ride. Use a drone.
00:34At Kristen Marie,
00:36Has anyone thought who invented the first roller coaster?
00:38Were they just like, let's sit in a cart and drop up and down on rails for fun.
00:43The first roller coaster actually goes back to Russian ice slides.
00:47So basically like sliding down a hill on a block of ice.
00:50And then it evolved into like mine carts and people said,
00:53Hey, maybe I could make money off of this coal mining operation.
00:58Like when it's not in use.
00:59You can sort of see some of this in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
01:06Nat actually has a little bit of truth.
01:09Someone named Lamarcus Thompson opened the switchback railway at Coney Island in 1884.
01:14He's known to many people as the father of roller coasters.
01:18At Shuffleupagus,
01:19What causes that weightless feeling we get on roller coasters
01:23when experiencing a big drop or a loop?
01:26You at home right now, you're experiencing one G.
01:29That's one times your body weight.
01:31Now, when you're accelerating down, like through a valley of a roller coaster,
01:35suddenly you're experiencing maybe three or four Gs,
01:39three or four times your normal weight.
01:42When I'm going over a hill, there's a force, a centripetal force.
01:45It's like V squared over R.
01:47So you have one G down normally, right?
01:50And then you have another G pushing up.
01:52And that zeros each other out.
01:54So you actually feel this weightless feeling.
01:57Similarly, like if I'm on a swing set,
01:59when I get to the very top, there's that instant before I fall back
02:03where you again feel that weightless sensation.
02:05We're trying to give you some places on the ride
02:08where you feel like no Gs, where you feel that weightless feeling
02:12like an astronaut in space floating would feel.
02:14And then there are other places on ride where we just want to push you into the seat
02:18and make you feel three Gs or four Gs on some rides.
02:21There are some rides where it's just like up to almost six Gs.
02:24That's basically what a ride designer does
02:27is how can we manipulate the G forces
02:29and give you like a thrilling ride experience.
02:32That's 610 Sports KC says,
02:34where is the best seat on a roller coaster?
02:36I think in general, think about the extremes,
02:39the front seat or the back seat.
02:40The back seat of a ride, that's where going down the first drop,
02:43you get the airtime.
02:44But if a ride has something like a double up,
02:46then you get that front seat airtime as you go into those hills.
02:50When you have a really long train,
02:52you might only experience more extreme airtime
02:55on the front end or the back end of a ride.
02:57But I think there's a whole group of rides
02:59where you have just a fun experience,
03:01no matter where you're sitting on the ride.
03:03Like I know a ride that we recently did,
03:05I sat in all 12 different seats
03:07and I just had greater time everywhere.
03:09Really, the best answer is like,
03:12you need to try every seat on every roller coaster.
03:15At CO Swoji, how do roller coasters get tested?
03:19The very first time rides go around,
03:22we fill them up with test dummies.
03:24Many times parks use like water dummies
03:26that are kind of shaped sort of like the body.
03:29We send it around the track and we have something like this.
03:31This here is actually an accelerometer.
03:33What it does is it takes impulses of voltage
03:36and relates them to the G-forces of the ride.
03:38Like as you're going down the ride,
03:40this thing will react to the accelerations.
03:44If you look on my screen,
03:45you can see I'm measuring the G-forces.
03:48Me, I'm one G, that's my weight.
03:50But if we're going through that valley,
03:53suddenly I might have like three times my weight,
03:55three Gs or something.
03:56We'll use a device like this mounted in the train
03:59and then we'll correlate that with our design data
04:02that says, hey, at this point in the ride,
04:04we should have been this many G-forces.
04:05And then year after year, test the ride
04:08to make sure that it's not changing.
04:10There's other testing that we do
04:11throughout the process of the rides as well.
04:13You know, like I have this part
04:15that might be made out of steel
04:16and I might do some non-destructive testing on that
04:18to make sure that there are no cracks
04:20from a material defect or from a machining defect.
04:24There's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes
04:26at an amusement park to keep you safe.
04:28Testing isn't just something that happens
04:30before it opens up to the public.
04:32It's an ongoing process.
04:34Atconingsteve says, which coaster is better?
04:36Old school wood or modern metal?
04:38Before we can get into this,
04:40we got to figure out like what's a wood
04:42versus a metal coaster.
04:44Lucky for you, I happen to have brought
04:47some wooden roller coaster track
04:48and some steel roller coaster track.
04:50On a wooden roller coaster,
04:52you can see I've got all these layers of wood.
04:54And then on the top, I have this piece of running steel.
04:58There'd be two of these.
04:59There'd be a mirror image over here.
05:00Wood changes, you know, on a day when it's wet,
05:03it expands a little bit.
05:04So you get a different ride depending on the environment.
05:07Steel roller coasters, the top wheel might've been here
05:10and the side wheel here.
05:11And then there'd be a mirror image,
05:12like another piece of steel over here.
05:15And then there'd be another tube down below.
05:17They'd take this steel and they'd bend it
05:19into the shape with your curves and your drops.
05:21Some you sit above the track.
05:23Some you're sitting below the track.
05:24Some you're flying like Superman on the tracks.
05:27I personally like all the hard work
05:29that goes into a wooden coaster.
05:31I think they're more beautiful,
05:32but I've had some amazing rides
05:34on steel roller coasters too.
05:36Atfreeddejohnwells asked,
05:37how do roller coasters stay on the tracks?
05:40I'm gonna bring out my handy dandy
05:43wooden roller coaster track model again.
05:46It's quite a workout for me today.
05:48When you look at this track,
05:49and the same is true with the steel coaster piece
05:52that I have, there's a running surface
05:54for a top wheel, a side wheel.
05:57And then what's really cool is there's this place
06:00on this track for an undercarriage wheel.
06:02So we have multiple wheels that are holding it on track.
06:05This is a model of a roller coaster car
06:07where you can see the top wheel, some side wheels,
06:11and then an uplift wheel.
06:12And that just kind of locks on this track
06:15and prevents it from coming off.
06:16That technology actually goes back to the early 1900s.
06:20John Miller, who's a classic wooden roller coaster designer
06:23that was trying to push the limits.
06:26That was something that he patented.
06:27So technology from the early 1900s is still used today.
06:32Etjo Cornick said, how do roller coaster designers
06:35determine the perfect balance between thrill and comfort
06:38for maximum rideability?
06:40Oh man, that's like the Colonel's seven herbs
06:43and spices, totally secret, right?
06:46To me, the measure of success isn't like seeing
06:49how many people are running toward the trashcan puking.
06:51The measure of success is like, are people laughing?
06:55Are they smiling?
06:56Are they getting off the ride
06:58and wanting to just go through that turnstile
07:00and ride that ride again?
07:02I think as humans, we love the bouncy feel.
07:04I think that's why airtime is just so much fun.
07:06But I mean, we all love like race car drivers
07:09and just like being banked, going around that curve
07:12at a high speed, being pushed into your seat.
07:14And it's like music.
07:16We only have so many notes, but we're varying the rhythm.
07:19We're varying the order of the notes
07:21and how fast we play certain notes.
07:23We haven't come up with every song that exists yet.
07:26And similarly, we haven't come up
07:28with every like combination of G-forces that exists
07:31that can really thrill and excite people.
07:34Atmisneed said, engineers are so cool.
07:36Like how TF, you build a whole roller coaster.
07:39Thank you, by the way, for calling me cool.
07:42First of all, these are not roller coaster building hands.
07:44These are mouse clicking hands.
07:46I spend a lot of my time behind a computer
07:48doing calculations and CAD work.
07:50The first thing that we do is we like to look at
07:52like say a Google Earth image or a site plan of the park.
07:56And then I love going to the parks and just walking around
07:58and getting a sense for the site.
08:00If there are certain hills or undulations
08:02or if there's a certain ride that's nearby
08:04that I could interact with,
08:06that's gonna add to the experience.
08:07There was a ride once where we had the first drop
08:10and then there was a log flume
08:11that was coming in the opposite direction.
08:13And if you time that ride just right,
08:15the way we designed it,
08:16you can get splashed from that log flume.
08:18And to me, that just added like a little bit
08:20of extra something special to the ride.
08:22At Dan Spencer says, being a roller coaster designer
08:25seems pretty easy.
08:26How big was the last one?
08:27Yeah, yeah, make this one bigger, maybe faster too.
08:30Different parks have different criteria.
08:32Sometimes a park might be saying,
08:34I want something with this marketing hook.
08:36I want something that's taller, faster, steeper.
08:38But there are a lot of times where parks might be,
08:41you know, we want something that's for families.
08:43There are just so many different levels
08:45to the design of a ride from both the structure,
08:48the ride path, and then also just the ride vehicle itself.
08:51For us, it's all about numbers.
08:53I can look at a table of numbers
08:56and know whether a ride's gonna be good or not
08:58before I sit down and ride it.
09:01At Jake Coasters says, why do all inverts
09:04have a curved first drop?
09:05Would a regular drop be painful, not thrilling?
09:08So I think like the inverted rides
09:10that you're talking about, it's true.
09:11Like there's like Batman the Ride,
09:13Alpengeist, different rides like that
09:14that might all have like a curving drop.
09:16Some of it could have to do with clearances.
09:18When you have people's legs dangling,
09:20you have to make sure that you can keep an adequate distance
09:23from one car to the next car.
09:24It could also have to do with the parks.
09:26Parks will say, hey, I want the high point of the ride here.
09:30The only way you can have a high point there
09:31is if you have an immediate curve.
09:33I like a nice straight drop
09:34so that I can have good airtime
09:36in the back seat going down that drop.
09:38Other people are like, I want something majestic.
09:41I want you to see the scenery around you.
09:43At Mae Lecabour said, how many roller coasters
09:47does a roller coaster designer design
09:49over their roller coaster designing career?
09:52I think that really varies.
09:53John Miller is a prolific wooden roller coaster designer
09:57from the early 1900s.
09:59Lamarcus Thompson, you know,
10:00the father of wooden roller coasters.
10:02At 19 years old, he brought John Miller under his wing.
10:06And then John Miller did like over a hundred patents,
10:08some of which we still use today.
10:10Like at Kennywood Amusement Park,
10:12there's the Racer, the Thunderbolt.
10:13They're still fantastic today.
10:15He started designing in the like late 1800s
10:18to the mid 1900s or so.
10:19He did like over a hundred rides, like all over.
10:22I've worked on like in the 30s to 40s now.
10:25At TheMulletMan513 asked,
10:27how do roller coasters work?
10:29It's all about energy.
10:31We have like kinetic energy.
10:32We have potential energy, friction.
10:34You're putting some energy into the system
10:37so that you can go on a crazy path.
10:38Sometimes like instead of like adding the potential,
10:40like having the lift hill,
10:42we'll put energy in like through some type
10:43of launch mechanism, like a limb or an LSM.
10:47We take energy out of the system at the end
10:49and that's the ride.
10:50And we do that in a safe manner.
10:52So hopefully we make it seem like you got off your sofa
10:56and had like some type of crazy thrilling experience.
10:59At Gia Maria asked, carnival rides are very sketchy.
11:03If a roller coaster can be folded up and trucked away,
11:06that just ain't safe, to paraphrase.
11:08One of my bucket list rides that I would love to ride
11:11is something called Olympia Looping,
11:13which is the tallest, largest portable steel roller coaster.
11:17And it goes around Europe all the time.
11:18It's like 110 feet tall and over 4,000 feet long.
11:22So it's not a little kiddie coaster.
11:24That ride, you know, was designed by Schwarzkopf,
11:26who's a very legitimate ride designer.
11:29You know, I think it's unfair to just isolate
11:31and say carnival rides are sketchy.
11:33The same people that inspect rides at amusement parks
11:35are inspecting rides at carnivals.
11:38If I made a portable roller coaster,
11:39the people at the carnival company,
11:41they'd have a checklist of daily inspections,
11:43weekly, monthly, and yearly inspections
11:45that they need to do on the ride.
11:46At I'm Sheo asked, why do roller coasters
11:49only last two minutes?
11:50Can they be longer?
11:52The length of a roller coaster is a function of the cost.
11:56Whatever the building material is of the ride,
11:59that's a direct cost driver of how long that ride is.
12:03When I was growing up in the 1990s,
12:05there was kind of an arms race of roller coasters
12:08where parks were always trying to outdo one another.
12:10The Beast, which is the longest wooden roller coaster
12:13in the world, it's over 7,000 feet long.
12:16That ride can take about six minutes.
12:17There's a ride in Saudi Arabia at Six Flags,
12:20Kidia that's opening soon that's almost 14,000 feet long.
12:23Parks are also concerned about throughput,
12:25like how many people can ride that ride every hour.
12:28You need to have more and more trains
12:30and all of those things add cost.
12:32At Johnny453 asked, is America the best at roller coasters?
12:36What other countries are in the running?
12:38Everybody talks about going to VelociCoaster
12:41or the Hagrid's Motorbike.
12:43I mean, you've got some good rides in Florida.
12:45You also have an amazing collection of rides overseas
12:48in Europe, Australia, China,
12:51just about every developed nation in the world.
12:53In fact, the biggest G-force of any ride is in South Africa.
12:56We have roller coaster manufacturers here in America.
12:59That's where I'm based.
13:00But you also have a whole slew
13:02of roller coaster manufacturers in Europe.
13:05There's a big park being built in the Middle East right now,
13:07Six Flags, Kidia, that's gonna have
13:08the new longest roller coaster in the world.
13:11You've got amazing rides all over.
13:14At Ayakuni Yuki asks,
13:16what are roller coasters going to be like in 40 years?
13:20If I think about Coney Island and the Cyclone,
13:22like that thing's been there forever
13:24and it's probably gonna continue to be there forever.
13:27There are rides that are a hundred years old,
13:28like the Wildcat at Lake Compounce
13:30here in the United States.
13:32So I think 40 years from now,
13:33some of those same rides that are classics now
13:36are gonna be classics in the future as well.
13:39I also think some of the amazing thrill rides
13:42that we just are blown away by right now,
13:44you know, like Kingda Ka or Top Thrill 2.
13:47I think there's still a place for them
13:49in the future as well.
13:50There's still gonna be good rides produced tomorrow.
13:52We already have drops that go 90 degrees.
13:54So maybe we'll continue to push that envelope.
13:57Maybe they'll put a roller coaster on the moon
13:59and then they'll deal with other gravitational problems.
14:02At Blakeademic asks,
14:03why do roller coasters put that little break
14:06in the middle of the ride?
14:08That's called a block break.
14:09That allows them to have another zone
14:12so that they can have another train on the track.
14:14You have to break up a ride into multiple zones
14:18so that you can have space
14:19between the different roller coaster trains
14:21that are on the track at a given time.
14:23That has to do with capacity.
14:24You wanna maximize the number of people
14:27that can ride an attraction.
14:28At Britbrat14, why do coasters make me tired?
14:33Anytime we have a ride,
14:34we have like a lot of adrenaline rush,
14:36like we're super scared.
14:37You come down off of that afterwards
14:39and you're like, I need a nap now.
14:41At Slam13, why do roller coasters always break down?
14:45Well, first of all,
14:46I don't know that roller coasters always break down.
14:49Sometimes like there's new technology
14:51that you have to develop for a ride
14:53and you're doing it on a roller coaster for the first time.
14:55It's not a very great environment.
14:57You've got rain, wind, snow, earthquake.
15:00You also have like the vibration from the ride itself.
15:03When you have a lot of moving parts,
15:04when you have a lot of electrical parts,
15:06from time to time,
15:07there are things that might need to be replaced or looked at.
15:10And unfortunately,
15:11sometimes that does happen on the day that you visit a park.
15:14Just know like from our hearts
15:16that we're doing all we can
15:18to keep rides open as much as possible.
15:21At CoasterTouring,
15:23how thick does the metal running plate
15:25on a wood coaster have to be
15:27before it's a steel coaster?
15:30I think what Marcus is getting at is,
15:33see on the top,
15:34I have this like ittle bitty layer of steel.
15:37You know, maybe it's like three eighths
15:38of an inch thick or so.
15:40There are some rides
15:42where they're replacing this wood,
15:44you know, with more and more steel
15:45to the point where some of it,
15:47they keep the form factor,
15:48the shape that you might see on a wooden roller coaster,
15:51but it's really not made of wood anymore.
15:53Once it becomes something that's just cosmetic
15:55and not there for structural value,
15:57it's no longer a wooden roller coaster.
15:58It's a hybrid.
15:59All right.
16:00Well, thank you so much.
16:01That's all the questions for today.
16:02Don't forget to go out and ride those roller coasters.
16:05Thanks for watching Roller Coaster Support.