'AAAAAAARGH!!!' The air is filled with hysteria and bad language but the motley crew of adults and schoolchildren is actually enjoying its role as guinea pigs for the latest in rollercoaster technology. Screaming around a cat's cradle of steel at 50 miles per hour, we are one of the first groups to try Air, the latest ride at Alton Towers theme-park which opened earlier this month.
The £12-million cutting-edge rollercoaster, which suspends its riders beneath the track, is billed as 'the closest most of us will ever get to flying'. However, the loading process of this 'inverted coaster' makes us feel more like turkeys trussed up and cranked off for slaughter. Our ankles are manacled tight, then rubber vests and yokes press our upper torsos to the seat backs; I am told that complex electronics manipulate the vest so that riders are pinned to the contraption with just the right level of tension.
Then the floor drops away and the seats tilt forward, leaving the passengers suspended in a kneeling position, with arms hanging down and heads lolling. Too nervous to feel undignified, we slowly chug out of the loading bay and up an incline to meet our fate. As gravity and the motors take control, so does the joy of giving my body over to uncontrollable forces.
Suddenly, the point of hanging beneath the track becomes clear. We are flying face first, arms out, at one moment skimming the pampas grass and trees beneath, at the next hurtling towards the sun. The exhilaration is tremendous as my body weight fluctuates from four Gs (four times as heavy as usual) to zero Gs (weightless).
The ride lasts two minutes, although in my euphoric state it feels like a few seconds. As we rumble back into the unloading bay, whoops of delight from the pupils of Ryecroft Middle School, Rocester, Staffordshire are punctuated with shrieks of 'That was brilliant'.
'That was not funny,' says my neighbour, Gareth Jones, 11, a broad grin lighting up his face. The pupils' verdicts - 'Wicked... class'; 'The best ride I've ever been on'; 'It felt like I was flying' - sum up the feelings of all of us, as we race to get back on as quickly as possible.
Air is the latest 'first' in the ever-evolving history of the rollercoaster, which dates back to sixteenth-century Russia where ice slides - wooden constructions coated in ice - were created so that thrill-seekers, including Catherine the Great, could sledge down them.
The first rollercoasters which were locked to the track were made in the early 1800s, and by the middle of that century the first to loop the loop was operating in Paris. Roaring Twenties USA went wild for increasingly long, high and quick contraptions. The Matterhorn Bobsled, introduced at Disneyland in California in the Seventies, was the pioneer which first utilised much of the science, steel tubing and fibreglass that makes today's coasters possible.
John Wardley, the brains behind Air, has been fascinated by the idea of using technology for pleasure since he was 'the kind of boy who preferred the box to the toy that came in it'. He remembers trying to fashion motor vehicles from pram wheels and wood, and winching a friend across a pond on a cablecar hung from a washing line (perhaps the forerunner of Air). His enthusiasm has only grown with his professional involvement in earlier Alton Towers rides, such as Nemesis and Oblivion.
'I'm so delighted with Air. You've got to ride it more than once because on the first trip you're so exhilarated that you don't know what's going on,' he says.
Wardley also conceived another British rollercoaster project unveiled this month. While Air is considered a 'coaster hero', a ride that should frighten no one, Colossus at Thorpe Park is a 'villain'. It has more inversions - 10 in a breathtaking minute and a half - than any other roller- coaster in the world.
The riders are cranked up to 100 feet above ground, then plunged straight into a 360-degree loop-the-loop at more than 60 miles per hour. Several corkscrews, cobra loops and in-line twists follow. With the kind of casual sadism prized by the adrenaline junkies of the rollercoaster world, Wardley has fashioned one stretch of track so it feels as if you're heading for a collision with a bridge, before being dragged just underneath. The bridge has also been equipped with a glass screen so that ghoulish queuers can ponder their impending fate.
So why are these things so popular? 'People like to lose control,' Wardley replies. Thorpe Park has made the wise move of employing a 'junior board of directors', composed of eight 12- to 15-year-olds, to advise on what will thrill the sneers off the average adolescent (they are paid in free rides).
The teenage think-tank's latest idea is that an interactive element should be added to these rides so that the rider has some measure of control over their progress.
Wardley explains that this could involve riders firing laser-beam guns at targets in order to influence the direction and duration of the ride. I imagine such a concept ten or so years down the line: white-lipped, fear-crazed adults blazing laser beams to end the ride, while gimlet-eyed school children casually pick off targets to prolong the manic progress of the coaster.
Clearly the future of the British roller coaster is in appropriately unsafe hands. An adrenaline rush awaits you.
Factfile
Air is the latest attraction at Alton Towers (08705 204060). The 2002 season opened 16 March and ends 3 November. A day pass costs between £18.50 and £25 for an adult and £15.50 and £20 for a child (under 12).
Colossus is the latest attraction at Thorpe Park (0870 444 4466). The 2002 season opened 22 March and ends 3 November. A day pass costs between £17 and £23 for an adult and £14.50 and £18 for a child (under 12). Those not wanting to queue half an hour for a two-minute ride can now book a ride time while purchasing tickets online.
