Kingda Ka...
The world's tallest roller coaster.
This is definitely something special.
For engineering that packs a punch...
Oh, my gosh!
The sensation of a launch... This is something akin
to jet-fighter stuff we're talking about.
Designers had to look
to innovations from the past.
This is one of the last remaining rides of its type
in existence anywhere in the world.
These are U.S. Navy F-18s.
You can feel the power.
What an experience.
To make the impossible possible.
Captions by vitac... www.Vitac.Com
captions paid for by discovery communications
in ocean county, New Jersey, stands an engineering colossus.
This is Kingda Ka...
the fastest roller coaster in America...
and the tallest in the world...
with jet-like acceleration.
Arms down, head back, hold on!
And twice as high as the statue of Liberty at 456 feet.
This finely tuned construction
is the perfect balance of science and engineering.
And roller-coaster engineer Michael Reitz
was central to its construction.
You take it when loaded, a 22,000-pound train,
and you launch it up to 128 miles an hour in 3 1/2 seconds.
That in and of itself is an amazing feat.
This record-breaking roller coaster
has another engineering trick up its sleeve.
Built within the structure of the 456-foot top-hat tower
drop of doom...
the highest and fastest drop ride ever built.
I think a ride of this size and this complexity
doesn't come around very often.
It takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of money
and it takes a lot of energy to create something this dramatic.
This 3,100-foot-long, adrenaline-fueled ride
has pushed roller-coaster design to its limits.
A 12,500-peak horsepower launch system fires trains
from zero to 128 miles per hour in an astonishing 3.5 seconds.
After scaling the 456-foot tower,
riders plunge into a 3/4 spiral, crest a second hill,
and complete the ride in just under a minute.
And if that's not enough,
engineers also incorporated Zumanjaro,
a 415-foot, 90-mile-per-hour drop of doom.
With each rise and fall, twist and turn,
the rider experiences a mixture of acceleration
or gravitational forces
which form the foundation of the ride experience.
But to design and build a ride of this massive stature
meant pushing engineering
to match the limits of human endurance.
We're always looking for ways to top something
that's been done before.
We want to have the steepest drop
or the most inversions or the tallest or the fastest.
But it's hard to innovate.
I mean, physics are physics, you know?
You can only do so much to the human body.
So, how do you build a ride this tall and this fast
that people will still enjoy?
This would've been impossible without the breakthrough design
that brought gravity and physics together... the scenic railway.
It's said that 17th-century Russia
was the birthplace of the roller coaster.
Giant ice slides were constructed
to amuse the likes of Catherine the great.
Wahoo-shki!
But the slides relied on cold weather.
We are not amused.
Oy! that's my line.
In 1828, in Pennsylvania,
a gravity railway was built
to bring coal down from the mountains.
Yeehaw!
But it was so much fun
that tourists started paying to use it, too.
Scream if you want to go faster.
But while it took half an hour to ride down the mountain,
it took four hours for mules
to pull the carriage back to the top.
Bored now.
Fortunately, one man realized
the mountains didn't have to be real.
American inventor Lamarcus Thompson
was inspired by the gravity rides
of the Pennsylvanian coal railway.
Are you ready?
Oh, let's do this!
And science communicator Kate Mulcahy
is in the Danish capital, Copenhagen...
experiencing the ups and downs
of Thompson's truly game-changing design.
This is the Rutschebanen, one of the last remaining rides
of its type in existence anywhere in the world.
Back in 1914,
it was the pinnacle of roller-coaster design.
Its creator would go on to become known
as the father of the gravity thrill ride.
In 1887, Thompson introduced the scenic railway,
a purpose-built ride that incorporated artificial scenery.
With it,
he innovated a 2,000-foot-long figure-8 route.
The scenic railway allowed passengers to get on and off
at the same point...
And something else even more hair-raising.
There's an electric motor that operates a chain lift
that raises the passengers to the top.
At the top of the 85-foot-high hill,
the laws of physics take over.
As the cars roll down, gravity creates acceleration
and kinetic energy
until the next hill forms potential energy.
This pattern then repeats as the free-flowing
roller-coaster motion takes hold.
The Rutschebanen can reach speeds
of up to 36 miles an hour.
Now, because this ride relies on gravity alone...
Ooh!
There's a brake person behind me...
So if we get too fast,
the brake person manually slows us down.
Without that, there's a chance
that the carriages might lift off the track.
With his breakthrough engineering,
Thompson's scenic railways were in high demand,
and by 1888, his thrilling rides totaled 44 worldwide.
Thompson laid the foundation for the modern roller coaster.
He was a genius of his time.
And without his work,
this wouldn't nearly be as much fun.
Built from over 1,500 tons of tubular steel
and over 40,000 metal bolts,
Kingda Ka's truss frame construction
is a modern engineering masterpiece.
And like Thompson's scenic railway,
it relies on a mixture of momentum and gravity
to turn potential energy into kinetic energy...
But with a spine-tingling twist.
So, the easiest way to put energy into a roller coaster
is what we've traditionally done.
That's to take a train up to the top of a hill.
This flips that on its head,
and we're gonna put all of the energy in down on the ground.
Hold on!
The energy needed to reach that height is immense.
When the train launches,
it's unlike any other coaster.
Being pushed into the launch position.
That amount of energy,
from zero to 120 miles per hour in 3 1/2 seconds,
it's so intense, you're stuck to the seat.
You can't move.
I mean, you probably have never felt anything like it.
Oh, my gosh!
Whoo!
Known as an accelerator coaster,
the required kinetic energy is generated at the launch.
Oh, wow! We are up at the top already.
But crucially, for passengers, the speed is converted
into a ride experience that can be tolerated.
This misconception that people have
of height and speed relating to g-forces,
it's really only related to the acceleration.
I mean, as long as we stay within the accelerations
that have been established
and what the body is capable of handling,
then we can go taller, we can go faster.
Wow.
That ride is intense every time.
The human body can't feel speed,
only changes in speed.
But engineers can build controlled acceleration
into the track itself.
The radius and gradient of each curve
is carefully calculated
to keep g-forces within the realms of pleasure,
not pain.
Coming up with new ways to give people controlled fear,
it can be challenging.
It can be somewhat difficult
because we've pushed the limits of physics
and we've pushed the limits of building,
but somehow or another, we seem to keep doing it.
Kingda Ka's engineers have succeeded in building
one of the most audacious rides on the planet.
But to fire this roller coaster
over a 456-foot tower over 500 times each day,
engineers had to look to the past...
The pilots inside the plane experience 6 g.
That's double what astronauts underwent
during a space-shuttle launch.
To create more impossible engineering.
Kingda Ka is America's fastest roller coaster
and the tallest on earth.
In this 500-acre park,
Kingda Ka stands head and shoulders above the rest.
But what truly makes it a standout ride
is its explosive start.
To do this, engineers have gotten rid
of the traditional lift
to launch the 11-ton train up a vertical mountain of steel
known as the top hat.
This launch system needs to be fast.
It has to get that train over the top of that tower,
and that's 456 feet.
This presents some interesting challenges
because you have to release all of this energy
in a very, very short period of time.
In just 3 1/2 seconds,
Kingda Ka can reach 128 miles per hour.
But traditional chains or cogs
simply couldn't cope with such explosive energy.
So how you do you propel this super fast train?
This engineering challenge would've been impossible
without another great invention from the past...
The catapult launch.
Wow.
Engineer Andrew Smyth
is at the Patuxent river naval air station in Maryland
to reveal how the origins of the catapult launch
hold the key to launching Kingda Ka.
You can feel the power.
What an experience.
These are U.S. Navy F-18s, and their pilots
are currently training for one of the toughest challenges
a naval aviator will ever face...
Taking off and landing on an aircraft carrier.
During the second world war,
growing military demand for aircraft carriers
introduced a pressing problem.
Producing large, expensive aircraft carriers
in the numbers required just would not be possible.
Finding a way, then,
to put flight decks on smaller ships was the solution.
But with a shorter deck to launch from,
engineers would need to find a way
to get up to takeoff speed faster over a shorter distance.
And engineers drew from
an ancient Chinese invention.
This is a crossbow.
What makes it
such a game-changing piece of engineering
is its ability to store energy and release it on demand.
So, I pull back the string...
lock it...
and then we're going to load the arrow.
All the energy is stored in the string and in the bow.
And when I pull the trigger, the energy will be released.
Whoa. not bad.
And with the advent of jets,
British commander Colin Mitchell wanted to launch aircraft
with a catapult mechanism like this,
powered by steam from the aircraft carrier's boiler.
The secret of the steam catapult
lies beneath the runway.
Beneath me are two cylinders with two pistons
connected to this shuttle, which connects to the aircraft.
Two tow bars keep the shuttle in place for takeoff.
At the point of launch,
pressurized steam is released into the cylinders,
forcing the aircraft down the runway.
Like an arrow shot from a crossbow,
the f-18 remains attached to its shuttle...
Before the tow bars disengage and release the plane.
With the catapult launch,
jets could take off on 75% shorter runways,
reducing the necessary length of the carriers.
To this day, his design is used
by navies around the globe.
In New Jersey,
engineer Michael Reitz and his team
are taking the catapult-launch concept
to fire off one of the world's fastest roller coasters.
The sensation of a launch on this ride
is unlike anything you've ever felt.
Like a superbike,
the acceleration might be half as much.
I mean, this is something akin
to jet-fighter stuff we're talking about.
And like an f-18 jet,
Kingda Ka's hydraulic launch has its own catapult system
to propel the 11-ton train.
Its crucial mechanism is a track-mounted shuttle,
called a catch-car.
This is what connects to the bottom of the train
when it's launching.
As the train rolls into its ready position,
a lever known as a dog connects the train to the catch-car.
So, the dog is on the bottom of the train,
and when the train comes into the launch position,
it falls inside of this pocket.
In just a second,
we'll hear the dog drop from the bottom of the train.
There it is. Arms down...
With the launch catapult in place...
Rolled back. We're locked and loaded.
The roller coaster is now ready
for one of the world's most thrilling
engineering achievements.
Arms down, head back, hold on!
Oh, man!
When the catch-car disengages after 2,000 feet,
pure momentum propels the riders up a 90-degree vertical track.
Staring at the ground.
Oh, man.
Whoo!
It never gets old.
Moving from zero to 128 miles per hour
in 3 1/2 seconds is faster than a formula 1 car.
But this speedy start requires serious power.
And to produce such explosive energy from a standing start,
engineers had to turn to the past...
Check out this piece of engineering history.
To make the impossible possible.
Kingda Ka is America's faster roller coaster.
This thrilling ride can go from zero to 128 miles per hour
in a mere 3.5 seconds.
But to achieve this degree of acceleration,
engineers had to turn to a breakthrough innovation
of the past... hydraulics.
Physicist Andrew Steele is in the port of Grimsby, England,
the birthplace of a now-widespread
energy-storage system made possible with hydraulics.
When this tower was opened in 1854,
it was actually the world's tallest nonreligious building.
And even today, it stands high above everything else
here in Grimsby docks.
During the industrial revolution,
Grimsby's desire to trade with Europe
was being stifled by an old, inaccessible harbor.
So engineer William Armstrong took on the challenge
of operating the harbor's huge, newly renovated gates
and cranes, and he used water-powered hydraulics.
But for this, he needed a high-pressure water supply,
which he could get by building up...
309 feet, to be exact.
Check out this piece of engineering history.
This is the guts of Armstrong's machine.
The way it works is that they would pump water
from a nearby well up in this pipe,
and it would go all the way up to the top of this tower
into a 150,000-liter tank.
Now, for every meter that you give some water,
the force of gravity means that you gain
.1 atmospheres of pressure.
So by the time you're all the way at the top of this thing,
you're looking at about
10 atmospheres of hydraulic pressure.
With this tower, Armstrong had created
the world's first hydraulic accumulator.
Because of gravity, water stored at heights like these
pressurizes the water when released at ground level.
From the tank above,
a vertical pipe connects to machinery on the dock below.
By opening a valve on each machine,
the highly pressurized water allowed the gates to open
and cranes to lift.
Grimsby tower turned around the harbor's fortunes,
and although it now stands idle,
Armstrong's hydraulic genius lives on.
Over 150 years later, in New Jersey,
engineers are harnessing hydraulics
to rocket riders of the world's tallest roller coaster...
Kingda Ka.
Engineer Michael Reitz is behind the scenes
to reveal the inner workings of this 12,500-horsepower launch.
Nobody really gets to see this amazing piece of machinery
back here.
This really is the heart of Kingda Ka.
This is what enables us to launch that train.
But unlike Armstrong's gravity-fed 300-foot tower,
Kingda Ka's hydraulic power is created
by a variety of cutting-edge technologies.
What you see in the middle is a giant reservoir
holding a lot of the hydraulic fluid.
Down below, there's four 500-horsepower pumps.
Those pumps pull the fluid out of that reservoir,
and they pump it into this giant piston here.
As the piston fills, it's pushed in,
compressing nitrogen that's stored in four accumulators.
Once the system's charged,
the valve on the piston is opened,
and the pressurized nitrogen forces the fluid back out,
into the winch mechanism, launching the train above.
It happens so quickly,
these accumulators are charged with the nitrogen
to about 4,000 psi.
For comparison, your car tire only takes about 40 psi.
When we launch a train,
no one's allowed to be inside this hydraulic room.
It is a sight to see.
It's like a thunderous roar in here.
The power of this technological marvel
is truly impressive,
but to complete America's fastest roller coaster,
its designers had to draw on more inspired inventions
from the past...
Oh!
Wow! for a hundred years old, it still really packs a punch!
To produce more impossible engineering.
Kingda Ka, built in just 14 months
using nearly 16,000 tons of steel.
This 456-foot-tall mega ride towers above
every other roller coaster in America
and can be seen from as far as 20 miles away.
At speeds of 128 miles per hour...
this accelerator coaster is engineered for fun
and exploits nature's gravitational forces
while still keeping the train on the tracks.
In a sense, what the rider feels,
the train also feels.
So that means that as you're at the bottom of the tower
and you head into that curve, if it's sticking me in the seat,
it's sticking the train to the track.
When it twists,
there's some lateral forces that would happen with the train,
and guide wheels will help control that on the track.
On launch, the rider feels pushed back into the seat,
which is linear g-force.
On sudden climbs and turns,
the rider feels an increase in weight,
which is positive g-force.
And because the train itself endures these same forces,
keeping it connected to the track is a big design challenge.
Though it's the most fun,
the most difficult force to contend with
is the sensation of weightlessness,
called zero g.
That's all a result
of the shape of the track or the shape of the curve.
Again, what the rider feels, the train also feels.
So the train wants to come off of the track,
so that's what we have to design for
in controlling the train with respect to those g-forces.
So, how do you prevent a 22,000-pound,
fully loaded roller coaster from flying off the track
in a state of weightlessness?
Engineers had to look to one of history's
greatest innovations... Up-stop wheels.
Dr. Rhys Morgan is in the seaside town
of Blackpool, England,
to experience an historic piece of roller-coaster engineering.
I have to say, it's about 10 years
since I've been on a roller coaster.
I'm really quite nervous.
This is the big Dipper,
a wonderful piece of historic engineering genius.
The cars travel up to 35 miles per hour.
Here we go.
Oh.
Oh!
Oh, my gosh!
It went faster and had bigger hills
than any roller coaster previously!
It's all because of one man and his genius design.
John Miller was an American
designer and entrepreneur
who patented over 100 key roller-coaster innovations.
Wow! for a hundred years old, it still really packs a punch!
Prior to Miller's design,
engineers faced a problem.
Ahh.
They could only design rides
with relatively small hills because as the trains
accelerated down and then uphill,
the high speed would cause them to lift off
or even fly off of the track.
To overcome this problem,
Miller designed the up-stop wheel.
Oh, wow. This is really exciting.
So, here we are, underneath the roller coaster itself.
And this is what it's all about.
This is Miller's innovative design.
These are the underfriction, or up-stop, wheels.
They go underneath the track.
Here's the track over here.
You've got the running wheels on top.
And then, as the cars go up to the top of a hill,
to prevent the cars from flying away,
these up-stop wheels just push against the bottom of the track.
It's such a simple and elegant solution,
and it absolutely revolutionized
the way roller coasters were designed for the future.
The big Dipper remains an icon
of roller-coaster engineering.
Wow!
When you get to the top of the hill,
you want to take off,
but it's thanks to the up-stop wheels
that you're not flying into the air.
Oh.
Up-stop wheels allowed engineers
to build bigger and faster,
and they're still used on every roller coaster designed today.
Oh, my god.
Get me off this thing.
Ugh.
In New Jersey, engineers are not only using
Miller's up-stop wheels,
they're incorporating an entire series of guide wheels
crucial for the safety of the epic Kingda Ka.
This is one of the trains,
and we're gonna have a look at the wheels,
which are controlling the motion of the train.
And up top, what you'll see is,
we call this a road wheel or a load wheel.
Those are the wheels that the train runs on all the time.
These are called the guide wheels,
and they sit to the side of the track.
And they control the left-right motion of the train.
These are called the up-stop wheels.
Made of ultra smooth
and durable low-friction polyurethane,
these up-stop wheels make or break the coaster's success.
To demonstrate their importance,
Michael is once again taking to the coaster.
Oh!
Whoo!
After summiting the 456-foot tower,
the 22,000-pound train plunges downward.
This generates enough speed to climb the ride's hill,
called camelback,
which creates the zero-g sensation of weightlessness.
These up-stop wheels
are in contact with the track all the time,
but they really don't come into play
until the train feels a zero g or a negative g,
an area where the train wants to come off.
Whoo! climb the hill.
When it wants to come off, these wheels engage hard
and stop the train from lifting off the track.
The up-stop wheels are so strong,
they stop the equivalent weight of two adult elephants
from flying off the track.
Here we are, back home again.
These up-stop wheels are extremely important.
That allows us to go faster and allows us to go taller,
it allows us to do the things we want to do,
because without them,
there's really no way this train is gonna stay on the track.
The engineers of Kingda Ka
are setting a new benchmark in extreme ride design.
But to ensure each 128-mile-per-hour,
adrenaline-fueled ride comes to a safe end,
engineers had to look to the past...
Whoo-hoo!
It's putting lots of toll on the steering system,
on the suspension, but above all, the brakes.
To produce more impossible engineering.
Kingda Ka in New Jersey
is the fastest roller coaster in America
and the tallest on earth.
But for Michael Reitz and the team,
the record-breaking rides don't end there.
We are standing in the station of Zumanjaro,
the tallest drop ride in the world.
415 feet tall, 90 miles an hour.
Ingeniously built within
the roller coaster's top-hat tower,
the Zumanjaro drop of doom drives by gravity alone.
But with each 10-second, 90-mile-per-hour ride,
the engineers had to design with safety in mind.
Anytime we design a ride, hands down,
the most important thing to us is safety,
and that means it has to stop and it has to stop reliably
and it has to stop every single time.
But achieving this
was a colossal engineering challenge.
When you've got a fully loaded gondola,
you're trying to stop thousands of pounds
in a relatively short distance.
With the ride in constant use,
a braking system susceptible to wear and tear is not an option.
So how can engineers ensure the drop of doom
will safely stop before it hits the ground?
This would've been impossible without
the breakthrough discovery of... Eddy-current brakes.
This is awesome!
These souped-up pickup trucks are going at incredible speed.
Science communicator Kate Mulcahy
is at Rockingham racetrack in Northamptonshire, England...
to discover the pitfalls of braking
in the most demanding of environments.
When you've got vehicles traveling at such huge speeds,
it's putting lots of toll on the steering system,
on the suspension, but above all, the brakes.
Vehicle braking systems
have traditionally relied on friction,
no matter how extreme the conditions...
as Kate finds out firsthand.
The way the brake system works is,
when the driver presses on the brake pedal,
the brake pads press against the disc,
and that friction slows us down.
But that same friction also has adverse side effects.
Awesome.
That was awesome.
What we're looking at here is the braking pad,
which, at the moment, is in pretty good condition.
But if a pad is repeatedly subjected
to high levels of friction, it's a different story.
Eventually, this friction will wear down the brake pad,
and if you let it get way too far,
you can end up with this kind of erosion here,
which can be actually quite dangerous.
Racing teams have the luxury
of changing their pads after every race.
But if a vehicle has to rely on extreme braking
for months on end, it could spell disaster.
Over 150 years ago, French physicist Léon Foucault
made a discovery that offered an ingenious solution.
He identified a peculiar electrical phenomenon
known as eddy currents.
These emerged when a nonmagnetic metal, like copper,
moved quickly by a magnet.
To demonstrate how eddy currents work,
I'm going to do a very simple experiment
using this apparatus here.
First thing I have is a metal plate.
It's made of copper.
It's able to move freely on this slider,
so it can slide up and down.
And I have a little mount.
By introducing an egg,
Kate demonstrates the forces at work.
What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna release my plate,
send it down, and see what happens next.
Here it goes.
It gathers speed...
Oh!
So, now, this time, I'm gonna repeat the experiment,
but I'm just gonna introduce this very powerful magnet.
So it's hovering over my metal plate.
Copper is nonmagnetic,
so when it's stationary,
it's not attracted to the magnet.
So, if I move my plate back up to the start...
I'll add my second passenger.
But when copper moves past a magnet,
something incredible happens.
We'll let it go, and hopefully, we should see a difference.
Wow! so, there you have it.
It slowed right down, and the question is, why?
And the answer not only provided a road map
that revolutionized braking systems the world over,
it also paved the way for the drop of doom
to brake safely and reliably.
Kingda Ka in New Jersey
is the tallest roller coaster on the planet,
and built into this high-flying structure
is the Zumanjaro: Drop of doom,
which is the tallest drop ride in the world.
But braking a carriage hurling downward at 90 miles per hour
constantly and reliably would've been impossible
without the breakthrough discovery of eddy currents.
Wow! so there you have it.
It slowed right down, and the question is, why?
Eddy currents emerge
when nonmagnetic metals like copper
pass through a magnetic field.
That's because motion brings out the metal's
electrically conductive qualities.
When my copper plate passed underneath the magnet,
it was in a changing magnetic field.
This induces circular currents, also known as eddy currents,
and the magnetic force of those
pushes against the magnetic force of the magnet,
and that slows the plate down.
When scaled up, Foucault's eddy-current systems
were employed in wide-ranging braking systems everywhere,
from high-speed trains to power tools.
Back in New Jersey,
Michael Reitz is putting his faith in eddy-current brakes...
to bring the world's tallest drop ride to a safe stop.
Oh, boy.
We are just about at the top.
What an amazing view. Oh, my god. Here we go.
Oh, the anticipation.
Oh, boy!
Oh! hoo-hoo! Whoa!
Where are the brakes?! Oh!
Man, every time.
That drop is so intense.
Hoo!
Hits a speed of about 90 miles per hour on that drop.
That's a lot of energy.
And to remove that energy, you have the braking,
which starts about 150 feet off the ground.
Zumanjaro's track is rigged
with a series of electrically conductive aluminum fins.
When the gondola reaches the fins,
its magnets on the rear electrically interact with them.
This creates the crucial eddy currents,
which slow the gondola down.
Incredibly, the effectiveness of this electrical braking system
actually improves the faster the gondola goes,
and Michael demonstrates just how effective it is.
What you have is two sets of magnets here,
and in between the magnets, there's a gap.
If I take this aluminum fin and it put it inside of this gap,
I can feel a little bit of resistance.
It's not too hard.
But as soon as I try to put any kind of speed
on that fin and move it quickly,
it becomes nearly impossible to do.
It's... it's super hard.
I could get a workout doing that.
Because of this,
slowing down a 90-mile-per-hour gondola is no problem,
and these innovative, contactless brakes
do the job day in, day out, for months on end.
They are frictionless.
They don't require much maintenance.
And most importantly, they're on all the time.
They're failsafe.
I would say that eddy-current brakes
kind of changed the game in amusement rides
because they're like a perfect solution.
The beauty of magnetism.
After 150 years of roller-coaster development,
many believed that thrill-ride design had reached its limits.
But with the opening of Zumanjaro and Kingda Ka in 2005,
engineers have pushed the boundaries
further than many thought possible.
This is definitely something special.
Knowing that it was the tallest and the fastest
and that I was part of that, it's cool.
And seeing people come off it for the very first time,
that just makes you happy.
By drawing from the pioneers of the past,
adapting their ideas,
and making discoveries of their own...
Oh, wow!
Engineers have taken roller coasters
to a whole new level, making the impossible...
Whoa! where are the brakes?!
Possible.
Looking back down on this ride from above,
I remember when we built it,
and that kind of takes you back to all the challenges
and all the time spent making it reality.
And you just get a little proud. You're proud of what you create.