I loved this ride more than anything else at the fair. It's like some instrument of medieval torture. For all of your new fangled mega-rides and giant roller coasters, no fairground ride every came close to the terror and discomfort inflicted upon riders as the unpredictable and complex physical forces created by the Zipper's conflicting 3-way motion. It was like 5 minutes of hell that was so bad you couldn't stop laughing and wanted to get straight back on. Beautiful machine. I just wish the newer ones were as fast as the ones they had in the 60's and 70's, but I guess too many people got hurt. 
 

 
 

Yes
No
What?
I don't know

Ya, my zipper is stuck right now too.

Watch this video full screen if you regret eating breakfast this morning. 
 

 
The thing I loved about the Zipper is that you really have no idea where you are or which way you're going from one moment to the next. One minute the interaction of the three equations has you suspended in midair without moving much, the next you're flying head over heels in an impossible arc and plummeting toward the ground upside down at a 45 degree angle thinking that humans were never meant to get themselves into such unholy situations. 
 
I love the physics of this ride. If you watch this video at around the 00:45 mark you can see what happens when it reverses direction - the whole thing seems to fold in on itself in a beautiful display of mathematics. 
 

I wonder, should this thread be archived? 

bapu
Ya, my zipper is stuck right now too.

 
Frank or beans ?

sharke
Watch this video full screen if you regret eating breakfast this morning. 
 

 
 

That would be a good one for virtual reality.

Most dangerous thing about that ride is the people that assembled it.
 
JR

auto_da_fe
Most dangerous thing about that ride is the people that assembled it.
 
JR

Worker 1 - "Is that bolt big enough?"
 
Worker 2 - "Yeah, it should hold..."