Splash Mountain Question

wedway71

Well-Known Member
Funny you brought this thred up.about 2 years ago I rode Splash Mountain and felt that I was going to fall out forward and as we leveled off at the bottom my face hit the the front of the log.I thought for a second I broke my nose.I was in total amazement thinking out of all the times I
 

monorailguy01

New Member
I dont know about anyone else, but I know when I go down "the big drop" I totaly come off the seat.. It is prob due to the fast movement of the log and the angle of the drop...
 

disneytati

New Member
I have never felt that..... When the news of that guy came to Brazil, people started calling me, saying that WDW wasn't so safe as I said, that I shouldn't go there anymore, blah, blah... And all I could say was: I don't know what happened, but I am sure this guy did something wrong. It's just impossible to fall out of the log, if you are sitting down. I always go down that drop with my arms up, and I never felt as if I were gonna fall out of the log. I wish I could feel that. It would be fun!:)
 

rainfully

Well-Known Member
I've never felt like I was going to fall out... but I SWEAR one time it felt like my log STOPPED immediately after the drop, forcing a wall of water to completely engulf the us. Now I'm not sure if that's just my imagination or what... I don't even know if it's possible... but it definitely felt very strange.
 

disneytati

New Member
rainfully said:
I've never felt like I was going to fall out... but I SWEAR one time it felt like my log STOPPED immediately after the drop, forcing a wall of water to completely engulf the us. Now I'm not sure if that's just my imagination or what... I don't even know if it's possible... but it definitely felt very strange.

That must have been thrilling!!!
 

Rob562

Well-Known Member
biggbird5182 said:
Well, how did he actually get OUT of the log?

He stood up and climbed out, just as any person can physically do. (Luckily only a few stupid people ACTUALLY do it...) There's no lapbars or seatbelts.

-Rob
 

HHI Surfer

New Member
slappy magoo said:
I'm no physics genius, but the sensaiton you feel probably has something to do with the fact, while gravity is technically the same, the length of the log (and the distribution of the weight contained therein) might make the log start to drop while you're already sorta kinda hanging out in the air.

Madison said:
The analogy is fun, but where Splash Mountain is concerned, it's not applicable.

"Airtime" that we feel on rides -- typically roller coasters -- comes when the ride vehicle accelerates faster than gravity while traveling up or down an incline. For the force to be pronounced, the change in acceleration or direction needs to happen quickly. Generally, the faster you change direction, the more you'll feel as if you're 'falling out' -- when in reality you're just falling slower than your ride vehicle.

Splash Mountain, as I'm sure you're aware, changes direction at the top of the drops very, very slowly. Thus, you will never feel airtime or leave your seat while on the ride. Your behind is as firmly planted to that bench during the drop as it is when your're slowly passing through the Laughing Place, as it were.

In fact, since Splash Mountain's largest drop falls away at a 45* angle, the speed at which you move downward matches that at which you move forward. You drop 90' while, at the same time, moving forward 90' -- making the forces acting upon your body in any direction pretty well exactly the same as those if you were instead sitting on a bench outside.

Well, I actually am a physics major (although certainly no "physics genius"), and this is not entirely true. If you draw a free-body diagram of your log going down the drop, at a 45* angle as you said, you'll find that the normal force that the seat exerts on you (and therefore the total force that you "feel") is reduced by a factor of (sqrt of 2)/2, or about 29.3%. So you feel like you weigh about 70.7% of what you do standing still while going down the drop.

The sense of weightless you get at the top is due to inertia of your body, or its resistance to a change in motion. Can you feel completely weightless, as in your feet and butt coming completely off the seat? Nah, I don't think so. That's only possible on rides like Tower of Terror, where you are free-falling at an acceleration faster than gravity, or on a roller coaster where you crest a hill and begin falling at such a high speed and sharp angle that the centripetal force acting on you equals (or exceeds, though hopefully not by too much) your weight.

The "catapult" analogy also wouldn't be applicable unless your log is really, really front-loaded.. and maybe not even then, because as Madison said the change in acceleration at the top is Imagineered to be a slow and gradual one, so that all parts of the bottom of the log are probably are in contact with the track at all times-it's not like you go from horizontal to 45* with no transition period. It's also not the same as a butter knife free-falling off the edge of a table because it isn't free fall, it's a guided fall with a gradual transition into a forty-five degree angle. This is also why I think it would be pretty hard to come off the seat unless you're physically trying to. Mass is really just an object's inertia, so I guess theoritcally if you weighed a couple tons, the log falling out from under you at a 45* degree angle would be enough to make you feel weightless.

What you're experiencing, as has been suggested, is probably due to nerves and stress. All those endorphins can do strange things to a person :)
 

Madison

New Member
HHI Surfer said:
Well, I actually am a physics major (although certainly no "physics genius"), and this is not entirely true. If you draw a free-body diagram of your log going down the drop, at a 45* angle as you said, you'll find that the normal force that the seat exerts on you (and therefore the total force that you "feel") is reduced by a factor of (sqrt of 2)/2, or about 29.3%. So you feel like you weigh about 70.7% of what you do standing still while going down the drop.

Quite right. You'll certainly feel a bit of that 'weightlessness,' but you're never going to physically leave your seat and that's the point I was trying to make. Reading it over again, I certainly could've worded that better as the forces acting upon your body aren't the same in all directions -- just cumulatively. Sorry for any confusion. :)
 

righttrack

Well-Known Member
IMO, a lot of the weight that holds your butt to the seat bottom is transferred to the back of the seat during the drop. This is because rate of decent is so high.
 

Sledge

Account Suspended
Tons of people have ridden Splash Mountain and only one or two have died. You'll be okay Boo. I pwomise. You'll love Splash. Tower of Terror on the other hand... you'll probably break MY hand. :lol:
 

Valawen9

New Member
Sledge said:
Tons of people have ridden Splash Mountain and only one or two have died. You'll be okay Boo. I pwomise. You'll love Splash. Tower of Terror on the other hand... you'll probably break MY hand. :lol:

Remember what you told me I could do if I didn't like ToT? :D
 

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