Posted on 07/07/2014 11:09:31 AM PDT by nickcarraway
It's like sliding off the top of a 15-story building on nothing more than an air mattress. That's the experience promised by the Verrückt, the attraction called the world's tallest water slide by the Schlitterbahn water park in Kansas City.
The giant water slide stands at 168 feet tall, resembling a NASA launchpad as it towers over its surroundings. Instead of a rocket, the slide launches people on a large raft that organizers say will reach speeds topping 60 mph before it comes to rest after completing an initial large drop that's followed by a second rise and fall.
The Schlitterbahn Development Group recently posted video of the first humans to try the ride, with water park designer Jeff Henry and ride engineer John Schooley testing their work. A "raw" version of the footage, without a musical soundtrack, includes several profanities. The company says its test camera stopped working during the test run.
The slide was scheduled to be open for business at the start of this summer. But as the tech site io9 notes, there were problems:
"Also, remember a few months back when we reported the rumor that sandbags were being launched off the ride, and then everyone freaked out because the park claimed that wasn't true. Well guess what? It was true. In earlier models of the ride sandbags were launched into the air. And on the actual ride itself, early tests showed the entire freaking raft lift off into the air."
We reported on a decidedly less heart-pounding water slide in May, as the city of Bristol, England, made way for a long water slide that let people take a leisurely trip down a central street.
Will I ride it?
All freakin day...
I answered just based on the description. ..then...I saw the video.
OH....HELL....YEAHHHHHH!!!!!
What? Fer sure he doesn’t wear a hat anymore...LOL
Exactly, they ignored fundamental physics in the design.. can’t imagine how the hell they got to having a full scale before they got bit. Thankfully they caught it before some poor group of college kids or something overloaded a boat.
This whole thing is just a flat out stupid idea.
Nothing to worry about, we're not sandbags....... :)
How many people will have coronaries from climbing up 15 flights of stairs in the heat..NO elevators?
Are you kidding me??? Action Park Lives! I can’t believe it... I mean in 2014, in order to get insurance they must have destroyed half of the attractions. Rite of passage for kids was leaving Action Park scraped up, bleeding, or otherwise maimed. This is BREAKING NEWS as far as I am concerned.
LOL, ya think?
I'd love to ride it .... once .... but I don't think I'd make it to the top
Never in a million years.
.
They need one in Gilroy.
Yeah, somethin besides a park of pretty trees....
Freakin awesome.
I rode the drop and the sling at Great America 4x a couple weeks ago and have a season pass.
I’m going again tomorrow or Wednesday.
“I feel the need. The need for speed!!!”
Yeah, I noticed that, too. I was thinking I hope it wasn’t his favorite, lucky hat, because it was a goner.
You’d have to be to do something like this. And I like water rides.
It was just built in response to a drunken bet.
< /sarc>
Keep the rodents amused...Give them rodent tubes to slide on...
Attention Walmart Shoppers, they did not screw the pooch. You are watching a viral marketing campaign. For those of you who spell “physics” with an “f,” the calculations are not difficult for this ride, and the opening date was always the same. All videos of potential catastrophe are deliberate test-to-fail studies for insurance purposes. If you still are not sure, if you still are worried, then the marketing scheme worked, because after you survive you will go at least once more, brag of your survival, and in that way bring in many more customers who will want to see if they survive too.
Anybody over 40 will only be able to do that slide once.
Look at all of those steps to get to the top!
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