What’s the tallest loop-the-loop roller coaster that we could ever build and ride safely?
Amusement park physics taken to the next level.
Roller coasters have been the feature attractions of amusement parks for as long as they have been around. The thrill of being hurtled along a track of sharp dips and turns in a speeding car is unmatched by any everyday sensation. But one innovation in particular elevated the thrill of thrill rides to a completely different level — the vertical loop.
The first vertical loop, or “loop-the-loop” roller coaster was constructed in 1845 in Paris.
Hey, I know the image is pretty grainy, but I can see enough to know that it would take a lot to get me on that thing. Luckily for us, though, modern-day loop-the-loop coasters have come a long way in the past 170 years, using steel instead of wooden frames and changing the shape of the loop slightly to protect riders from potentially harmful accelerations.
And as they’ve become more safe, they’ve also become much bigger. Currently the title for the world’s tallest belongs to Six Flags’s “Full Throttle,” which features an immense loop…
