When it comes to putting the “thrill” in thrill rides, sometimes designers can go too far — like the folks behind the Human Catapult in the United Kingdom. It’s one of five entries on Popular Mechanics’ 5 Theme Park Rides That Pushed the Limits of Common Sense (via Fark).

The craziest has to be the Human Catapult. For $66, it flung a rider 75 feet through the air at 60 mph to a huge net suspended above the ground. Unfortunately, the net wasn’t large enough, resulting in one rider falling off and breaking her pelvis and another rider missing the net altogether and dying. Gulp. Talk about medieval. But see for yourself:

Other crazy rides include a water slide with a highly unsafe perfect-circle loop and an alpine slide, both at the defunct Action Park in New Jersey (which the writer seems obsessed with). I have to say that the alpine slide doesn’t sound much different than the one at Lutsen on the North Shore  (and surely other ones around the world at summer-mode ski resorts). I still have the scar from when my elbow was rubbed raw on the fiberglass track as I tried to keep myself from flipping over while barreling down Eagle Mountain. It was great fun.

The other two entries were/are actually monstrous successes. The original Ferris wheel sounded daunting in its day — be sure to read the description, and even check out The Devil and the White City for more background  – but it turned out to be a classic in the making, despite its unsettling design.

And all I can say about Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure (also in  New Jersey — go figure) is that I can’t wait to ride the world’s tallest, fastest coaster, after watching this incredible video:

But I’ll pass on the fly-by-knight Human Catapult, thank you.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 at 8:32 am and is filed under Techno chatter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.