More on the Challenger Slide at Atlantis

The Challenger Slide is a pair of side-by-side water slides. The top is about 60 feet up. The slide is not straight; it initially drops at, oh, maybe 45 degrees, then it flattens out briefly, then it pitches back down to 45 degrees, and then it flattens out again at the bottom. There is an optical sensor across the slide, a few feet from where you start, breaking which starts the clock. There is another sensor across the slide at the bottom, breaking which stops the clock.

Usually the people who work there want you to sit down in the slide and start by grabbing the sides of the slide, pulling yourself along, and laying back and letting gravity take over. If you're a full-grown adult, you pull as hard as you can, you help by sliding your butt the right way, and you avoid hitting the sides of the slide on the way down, you can get a little under five seconds with this technique. Most adults were getting between 5 and 5.4 seconds. Kids generally clocked in closer to 6 seconds.

I tried the "two pull" strategy: I sat back as far as I could on the top of the slide, pulled a little to get myself started, and then I grabbed the sides and pulled myself again (before my feet got to the starting optical sensor). A real good second pull followed by good and lucky technique down the slide allowed me to hit 4.6 seconds regularly.

I was all kinds of proud of my 4.6 seconds until the afternoon I met a group of guys from Vermont. The Atlantis personnel were letting these guys go down more aggressively, because they (the Vermonters) were sober, respectful, and probably pushed the envelope a little at a time. By the time I showed up and joined them, they were being allowed to brace their feet on the back wall of the slide, hold on to the wall on each side of the slide entrance, and start by pushing hard off the feet and pulling hard with the hands. This start allows you to actually catch a little air before you land on the slide. The times these guys were getting ranged from 4.35 seconds for a fellow that was in pretty good shape for his apparent sixty or so years of age, to 4.15 seconds for the sixteen-year-old in their group.

I joined them and we started egging each other on. I did manage 4.24 seconds with this aggressive starting technique, but then I slowed down (I was probably getting tired). One of the Vermonters popped a 3.93 while I was racing against him. He totally smoked me. It was excellent. We suspect that he pulled/jumped hard enough that his butt, or even his back, was what actually broke the top beam, instead of the feet as usual.

The people working there tell stories at various levels of probable exaggeration about the times they've gotten or seen. The young woman who was lifeguarding at the bottom of the slides, while the Vermonters were in full form, said the fastest she'd ever seen was 3.90. She and the guy working the top were certainly very impressed with the 3.93. Maybe that's the fastest they'd seen by a hotel guest rather than a local. An extremely athletic man working at the neighboring kid pool said he'd once gotten a 3.6-something, but that he had taken a running jump. I believe him, in part because he explained that, when you take a running jump, you have to be very careful to land straight on your butt and back, because twisting around and landing crooked really hurts and risks injury. There was a vague claim about someone getting close to three seconds flat, but I kind of have a hard time believing that. If I'm doing the math right, a mass would go down a frictionless 60-foot high slide, pitched at 45 degrees throughout, at just under three seconds. The fact that there is friction on the slide, and it is not 45 degrees throughout, makes me believe that 3 seconds flat is just plain physically impossible. I think the curves and the friction much more than compensate for the fact that really aggressive jumping technique might give you 8 fps speed along the slide by the time you break the top beam.

Of course, I could be wrong about the pitch and height of the slide. But I'm pretty sure I'm pretty close. They make a big deal about the Leap of Faith slide being 60 feet high, and the Challenger is the same height.

Anyway, I'm still reasonably proud of my 4.24 seconds, and that random Vermont guy can be very proud of his 3.93.

Any inferences drawn about my inherently competitive nature, and propensity to bring the geekitude even when on vacation, are probably justified.

--JMike