Talk:Flying Saucers (attraction)

When I first read the previous version of this article, the description of the ride's mechanism did not seem to correlate with my personal experience as a child growing up near Disneyland and, as an adolescent, actually having the opportunity to go under the attraction, into what I now know was referred to as the "plenum chamber." When one was aboard one of the saucers, the experience was very much as if one was on an independently powered unit, based on noise and vibration. Also, the ride seemed analogous to "bumper cars," which were in many amusement parks at the time. So, it seemed natural that these would function in the same manner, except using fans to create an air-cushion, rather than wheels. My certainty of this had only been reenforced by decades of memories. But, as I thought about why someone would report that the saucers were not self-powered, I suddenly became quite uncomfortable that I had allowed confirmation bias to influence my belief in how the ride, in fact, operated. I have now researched the saucers and included a link to the patent information (not in the original article) as to how they operated, and it is essentially as originally described. I edited the article in error and apologize for that temporary anomaly which has now been corrected with the addition of more information from a referenced source. What is amazing to me is that I was actually in the plenum chamber and was totally unaware of the air pressure differential being great enough to levitate multiple platforms and their occupants. The Flying Saucer attraction was indeed an amazing and complicated feat of engineering. Especially when one considers it was opened in 1961! I hope this information is not too personal and my only intent is to further inclusion of correct information on this topic and offer an example of how unintended bias can manifest with the best of intentions.

References

Penguinn12 (talk) 21:57, 6 May 2012 (UTC)