AIR RAGE TAKES OFF (IATA)
The International Air Transport Association, a trade group representing 83 percent of world air traffic, says incidents of air rage have shot skyward.
There were 10,854 cases reported by airlines in 2015, and 11 percent of them got physical. Compare that to 9.316 incidents the year before. Some 23 percent was thought to be connected to alcohol consumption.
The IATA blames the passenger. Its recommendations include forcing airports to cut back on alcohol sales and encouraging countries to tighten punishment laws for anti-social behavior.
The passengers, no doubt, blame the ever-restrictive and frustrating product delivered by the airlines, but the IATA doesn't acknowledge increasingly inhuman treatment by its member airlines as a contributing cause.
VISITING DISNEY WORLD HELPS PASS KIDNEY STONES (Daily Telegraph)
A patient suffering from kidney stones passed a stone after each of three consecutive rides on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom.
Word of that miracle got Michigan State University researchers thinking: Was there something to it? It turns out there was. Research concluded that yes, people are more likely to pass non-obstructive kidney stones if they are gently bounced by a roller coaster.
Why did it happen on a Disney coaster as opposed to other ones? Because researchers, who did tests using precise models of human kidney tubes, claim a milder ride—less than 40 mph and with no loops—were best for nudging stones out of place—and mild rides are Disney's specialty. The three-minute-long Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, which is ironically themed to a mine where rocks are being dislodged all the time, turns out to be perfectly suited to jostling our inner stones loose.
When the model was strapped in the front row of the ride, reports the Daily Telegraph, stones were passed at a rate of 16 percent. In the back seat, the rate was 63 percent.
When you wizz upon a car, your dreams come true, but if you're ailing at the moment, you'll have to hold it, because the Magic Kingdom version of the coaster is closed for refurbishment until November 18.
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad: It Truly Is the Wildest Ride in the Wildnerness (Photo: Gary Bogden)
SEAWORLD ENTERS AN ALTERNATE REALITY (Orlando Sentinel)
SeaWorld Orlando is breathing new life into its oldest roller coaster by adding virtual reality.
Starting next year on its steel Kraken coaster, riders will have the option to put on video goggles that will be attached to the cars. The eyewear will broadcast an animated undersea virtual-reality adventure that will be timed to match the physical sensations of the ride.
The park says it will sanitize goggles between rides, but it's not clear how that will be done or how much time that process might add to waits.
Kraken, a floorless coaster that plunges 150 feet and takes two minutes to ride, once attracted crowds who waited more than an hour for it, but in recent years, as newer and more innovative coasters were constructed in the park, it has rarely drawn much of a queue.
The idea of a virtual reality coaster was first tested in California this past summer by Six Flags for some its own aging coasters, with additional coasters nationwide set to receive the innovation in the 2017 season.
It's cheaper than building a new attraction, which also SeaWorld did this year with the construction of a well-received steel coaster, Mako.
SeaWorld recently announced that due to declining attendance, it was suspending the payment of dividends to its shareholders.
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