What does G force mean on a roller coaster?

Several forces are felt when riding a coaster, and keeping these within safe values is a vital skill for coaster designers. These forces are known as G-Forces or “G's”. G stands for Gravity and the number in front of it represents how many times the force of gravity is felt at a particular point.



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Zero-G rolls are designed to make riders feel weightless — by hitting a G-force of, you guessed it, zero. The track twists 360 degrees to spin riders completely around in a short period of time. It's whippy, thrilling and perfectly disorienting.

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Utah's S&S Worldwide, which makes roller coasters and drop towers, sets its restraints for a maximum weight of 300 pounds and equips its seatbelt locking mechanisms with no-go sensors that restrict over-sized riders.

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A g-force is a measure of acceleration. 1G is the acceleration we feel due to the force of gravity. It's what keeps our feet firmly planted on the ground. Gravity is measured in metres per second squared, or m/s2.

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When the retinal cells experience hypoxia (oxygen deprivation), they fail to react to light normally, causing a dimming of visual perception. You can experience these symptoms when: prior to fainting (or blacking out) low blood pressure like in orthostatic hypotension (when you stand up too fast)

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While commercial flights exert only very minimal positive and negative G-forces on passengers, several orders of magnitude greater are the G-forces experienced by astronauts, fighter pilots and stunt pilots. These types of pilots can experience brief periods of extreme forces of nine and 10 Gs.

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When the lift of an aircraft is greater than the force of gravity, controlled flight becomes possible as the Wright Brothers demonstrated to the world in 1903. On a normal flight, at take off the g force is around 0.4g.

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Under 9 g, you're going to have a very hard time moving your head sideways or backwards, seeing as it feels nine times as heavy as it actually is. When a passenger aircraft takes off and we are suddenly stuck to our seat – that's a force equaling approximately 2 g. Rollercoasters usually only go as far as 4 g.

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