Paratrooper (ride)

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John Flack's Xenon lifting Paratrooper being dismantled at the end of the fair.

Two girls take the last ride of the day on a Paratrooper.

A Paratrooper also known as an "Umbrella Ride" is a type of fairground ride based on cars suspended below a wheel which rotates at an oblique angle. The cars are free to rock sideways and swing out under centrifugal force and the wheel rotates. Invariably, the cars on a paratrooper have an umbrella or other shaped canopy above the riders.

Older Paratroopers have a rotating wheel which is permanently raised, which has the disadvantage that riders can only embark, two at a time, as each car is brought to hang vertically at the lowest point of the wheel.

More modern Paratroopers use a pneumatic lifting piston to raise the ride to its riding angle before spinning the cars. In its lowered position, all the cars hang vertically near the ground and can be loaded simultaneously.

[edit] Force 10 Ride

The Force 10 is a ride made by Tivoli Enterprises that has many things in common with this ride. It might not have umbrella's on top of the cars, but it does some of the same motion of the Paratrooper. It is one of the more modern rides that come down to the ground, and all the cars can be loaded at the same time.

Just like the umbrella ride/Paratrooper, it will start to tilt 40 degrees, but the difference is that it will go extremely fast when doing this. Also, the ride will also move to the 180 degree mark (like it's flat) during it's cycle, and then go back to the 40 degree or so mark.

The ride does have over the head metal bars in the cars. The problem with this ride is that it is really intense, and Tivoli Enterprises doesn't even sell it through the American representatives Amtech International.