Amusement Intelligence by Mitch Rily
In my continuing efforts to explore and understand the inner workings of the most interesting attractions and effects of the amusement park industry, I’ve come across another intriguing conundrum:
How can a waterslide go uphill?
To understand this, I had to go back a few years to the creation of another amazing advancement in water attraction technology: the FlowRider. Introduced in 1991, the FlowRider made it possible for surfers to catch a wave even when they were nowhere near an actual beach. By producing the fixed mold of a wave with a thin sheet of water traveling over the form, Wave Loch, Inc created a ride that let amateurs or experts surf, slide, or ride their way down a realistic swell in the comfort of their favorite water park. The system is amazingly friendly for both spectators and riders, and its tension fabric cushioning makes even the scariest wipeouts remarkably safe. But it’s the water injection technology, invented by Wave Loch CEO Thomas J. Lochtefeld, which moved designers to climb to new heights in the water ride world.
Jeff Henry, the former CEO of NBGS International and one of the owners of Schlitterbahn Waterpark in New Braunfels, Texas, had been creating and designing water attractions for over twenty years when FlowRider splashed its way on to the water park scene. When FlowRider was first installed at Schlitterbahn New Braunfels, Henry and Lochtefeld worked together to find further uses for the patented water injection technology. What came about was the Master Blaster, the engineering feat that lets water sliders climb uphill on a flow of water.
The Master Blaster technology propels a high-speed sheet of water along the waterslide, driving each rider forward with more power than gravity alone. With jets positioned at the bottom of each hill, the combined force of momentum and the pressurized water boosts riders up, up, and away.
Schlitterbahn’s Master Blaster water coaster starts riders over six stories above ground, dispatches them down and up over 1000 feet of tubes and flumes, and has seven drops and six upward sections rising as steep as 24 degrees. The Master Blaster ride is one of the most popular water rides around, not only at Schlitterbahn, but in over 50 parks around the world.
And if that’s not enough, NBGS is taking their uphill water technology to a new level, designing a ride that will connect other rides and pools within a park. The new ride, called Transportainment, will bring together lift systems and Master Blaster jets to provide a fun and fluid queue for rides. Before we know it, they may even find a way to wash you right back out to your car when you’re done for the day.
For more information about amazing advancements in water slide design, visit www.flowrider.com, www.nbgsintl.com, or tour the Schlitterbahn website at www.schlitterbahn.com. And for answers to your questions about the science of the amusement park world, send them to [email protected].
