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 ride is 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. An amusement ride is any number of devices found in funfairs and amusement parks meant to appeal to various senses of the rider. ... The expression centrifugal force is used to express that if an object is being swung around on a string the object seems to be pulling on the string. ...

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. Pneumatics, from the Greek πνευματικός (pneumatikos, coming from the wind) is the use of pressurized air in science and technology. ...

This article about an amusement park or fairground ride is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Ferris wheel at a fair in Yate, Bristol, England. ... Six Flags New England, an amusement park in Springfield, Massachusetts. ... A travelling funfair has many attractions, run by different showmen, who all converge for the duration of the fair, then go their separate ways to set up at fairs in other towns. ... Wikipedia is a Web-based, multi-language, free-content encyclopedia written collaboratively by volunteers and sponsored by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. ...

References

• All the Fun of the Fair description of the Paratrooper.