Lighthearted article about roller coasters. I'm a bit of a roller coaster junkie, but have been very limited in my ability to ride the great ones. Of the giga coasters I've only been on two. I'm from NJ, so I've been to Six Flags a lot. I've been in love with heights since I was little having zip-lined, and bungee jumped (My hope is to sky dive eventually). If you've ever been on a giga coaster feel free to share your experience? Actually, feel free to share any roller coaster experience of yours.
I'll tell you of the first time I ever rode a roller coaster. It was a very small one in Hershey Park I believe, and I was maybe 7. It had one loop, and wasn't very long. I remember feeling really nervous about the whole endeavor, but even more excited. My dad kept asking me if I was ok to go on the ride, and I would just shoo him away trying to prepare myself. I remember feeling the wind in my against my face as we hit the loop. It was all history after that. I rode on every roller coaster I could find; faster the better. Eventually as I grew up they weren't enough I needed more height, and more speed.
That article hits an interesting point. Though it's really understandable - because mechanically speaking, rollercoasters can only get so fast before they hit three (related) barriers: how much strain can the structure take, how many Gs the riders can take and how do the riders breathe.
Personally, I can see the rollercoasters going in two directions, and both of them will eventually require pressurized (partially or fully) rider cabins - one of them takes them so much higher, maybe evenutally up to where the air gets rareified. The other motorizes the cabins (I could see a few ways of doing it - gasoline or diesel engine at the front of the ride, electric rails and motors like a subway, or now that we have the means, internal power supply that gets charged or swapped out every time the train is in station) to take the riders to even faster speeds (and of course, to make sure not too much force is given on either the structure and riders, that implies also making tracks with MUCH milder features - having things being much more round and spread out, with either windshields/closed cabins/pressurized cabins depending on the speed.
Advantages of the former (at least, as far as my Roller Coaster Tycoon experience gives) is that the ride is much more generalized - those seeking a thrill still find one while keeping the ride still relatively mild for most people (and provided they get to the heights fast enough, it could even be a multi-stage coaster constantly going down - which sounds amazing).
Advantages of the latter? It's MUCH easier to get negative G's - the free-floating effect. Because if you already have the speed, there's absolutely nothing stopping roller-coaster makers from turning every single 45 or 60 degrees slope into a 315/300 degrees negative slope, making a full downwards loop before sending people up, and pulling other shenanigans like these.
Overall, rollercoasters are hitting a plateau right now - and only innovation will get them through. I'm excited to see what's going to be in the future of rollercoasters.