When you're falling towards the ground at 165 miles an hr, you actually don't accept time to recall about everything that went into making that terrifying moment happen. In the adrenaline-pumping moments riding a big-time roller coaster, information technology's difficult to imagine it was all carefully planned out years ago by a team of creative designers.

But roller coaster thrills don't happen by accident, and the people who design every loop, banking company, inversion, and drib spend literally one-half a decade crafting your experience. We chatted with Jeff Havlik, a roller coaster design expert with renowned design firm PGAV Destinations, who has designed such coasters at the Manta at SeaWorld Orlando and the Parrot Coaster at Chimelong Ocean Kingdom in Guangdong, Cathay. He gave us some rare insight into the action-packed world of roller coaster design.

Finding a story and theme to lucifer a park's objective

Before doing anything, designers work with park owners to figure out what, exactly, they're trying to attain with a ride. Are they trying to rebrand themselves as a thrill park? Outdo the crazy coaster at a competing park? Bring in a new demographic?

When PGAV designed a new coaster for SeaWorld, for example, the aim was to appeal to the "teen veto" factor where adults and small children would want to visit the park, but teens would reject the idea considering in that location was goose egg for them to do.

"This was how nosotros developed Journeying to Atlantis," Havlik said of SeaWorld's first developed-oriented coaster. "It was designed to have a rich storyline and an aquatic theme but be thrilling enough teens would want to ride it."

From there, designers develop a storyline to run throughout the ride, beginning in the queueing area, continuing to the boarding station, onto the ride itself, and into the exit/souvenir shop.

"One of the best examples of that is the Manta Ray at SeaWorld," Havlik said. "We started past figuring out how to tell the story of body of water and rays. So we had the queue go through an extensive ray showroom and then people could come across how they glide, move, and interact. Then nosotros wanted to translate that feeling of flying through the water similar a manta ray on the ride. But you're flying through the air on a coaster."

And then Havlik and his team developed a flying coaster, one whose track is to a higher place the rider to give the sensation of flying. Though information technology'due south non a particularly ambitious ride, the ii-infinitesimal-and-36-second ride takes guests gliding, diving, and looping like a ray might in the ocean.

Designing a roller coaster for everyone — even people not riding

Roller coaster riders brand up as lilliputian equally twenty percent of guests at a theme park, and they rarely incorporate more one-half. Which means a good coaster must too capture the imagination of those non riding information technology.

"1 of the things we think is very important is non excluding the people who don't ride the ride," Havlik said. "With Manta, you can see the same aquarium queued riders run into in a carve up line. At the loop right afterwards the drop, the ride goes correct into a trench, and if your family is standing there, they can come across you and accept your photo."

The ride's signature move, a "wing dip" where the coaster appears to skim across the h2o spraying water in all directions, isn't even visible to riders as the h2o actually follows the cars. It's meant entirely for the spectators.

Pacing a ride though the art of anticipation

Once the storyline and aesthetics are finished, designers begin looking at how the ride volition catamenia.

"We don't want to do full-out scream experiences, where you're disoriented the entire time," Havlik said. "Nosotros look at it more similar creating a symphony, with rises, falls, and crescendos."

To do that, designers play on the psychology of anticipation.

The anticipation builds as the riders stand up in line, engulfing them in the story they are virtually to experience. It continues in the boarding station, equally they're purposefully meant to run across other people finishing the ride, looking exhilarated and wind-blown. This both builds apprehension and subtly instructs riders on how to enter and exit the coaster to make the process faster.

Next comes the "lift," or the first big build of the ride. It'due south meant to make the ride feel like it lasts longer and hold that giddy, nervous sense of, "What's going to happen next," so when the big drop does come it feels fifty-fifty more than intense than if you'd shot straight into it.

From in that location the coaster is meant to mimic life, with highs, lows, and lulls in between. Only it can't exist all twists and turns, nor can it be a gentle careening trip through the park.

"In that location'southward a balancing human activity," Havlik said. "It's a symphony of anticipation and surprises. You're not ever telling the guest what's gonna happen but also non making them uncomfortable. Not knowing what'due south coming side by side means y'all can't brace for it, and then that adds to the thrill factor. Just information technology too adds to the uncomfortable-ness of the ride."

Instead, designers footstep the ride with precise detail, leaving intense moments followed by moments simply long enough for you to process what y'all've been through earlier careening through another corkscrew.

Using human water bottles to make sure it works

Subsequently the pace of the ride is set, designers determine how the coaster will fit on the site, where each element will exist, and how information technology will work with the park and its pathways. They'll go over information technology with the park owners, then with the ride manufacturer, which makes its ain aligning. The program goes back and forth two or iii times earlier settling on a final.

Once everyone agrees on a pattern, PGAV creates a 3D model and so owners can "ride the ride" in a mocked upwards surround chosen "The Hive."

Later on that'south approved, manufacturers become through a series of structural calculations, figuring out things like the corporeality of Thousand-forces that will be on each guest and how much steel is needed for the desired columns. One time they complete calculations, the manufacturer begins making track sections, assembling columns, and putting together all the pieces that will someday make a roller coaster. Everything is constructed over several months and shipped slice by slice to the coaster site.

Over the next few months, the coaster is assembled on site, then must undergo two to three months of testing before a single person is allowed on. Testers use h2o bottles meant to simulate human bodies to examine the furnishings of gravity on potential guests, and the ride must get through a predetermined number of testing hours before it tin be certified by the American Social club of Testing and Materials (Europe and the Centre Due east accept their ain certification trunk, the TUV).

"It's also a breaking-in flow, like sitting in a new leather chair that feels kinda difficult, then after a while it conforms and feels comfortable," Havlik added. "Aforementioned thing with a coaster. Brand new wheels, bearings, everything is all tightened up; it doesn't run every bit smoothly until it's gone around the track several hundred times."

After the coaster is tested and cleaved in, it's ready for its starting time riders. The unabridged process takes anywhere from three to 5 years, from inception to opening, and sometimes puts parks in the hole $thirty-60 1000000 before a single person steps onboard. Think about that the next time y'all wonder why your access ticket is $100.

These figures, Havlik said, are for custom coasters fabricated with existing engineering science. Coasters that duplicate existing rides with slight modifications for space will take less time. Prototypical coasters like the ones plant at Disney parks and Universal Studios can accept up to viii years. All of them are expensive.

Merely when you're being hurtled upside-downwardly high above the Ohio countryside, none of that seems to matter. It'south a long journey from thought to thrill, just for those brief couple of minutes, it all seems worth it. Just think the next fourth dimension y'all're sweating through a hot afternoon on a roller coaster line that y'all're not the simply i who put in hours for this all to happen.

More than like this