By Andrew Liszewski
Thanks to years and years of lawsuits, those of us living in the US or Canada tend to miss out on products that actually look like they’d be quite fun, just because there’s an abnormally high chance you could break your neck with them. Case in point, this inflatable bungee ride which is manufactured by a handful of different Chinese amusement companies. It features a set of heavy-duty bungee cords which are connected to 3 or 4 inflatable towers. Once you’re strapped into a harness of some sort (I hope) the tension on the bungee cables is increased (most likely by a couple of carnies pulling you towards the ground) until you’re released and launched skyward where you enjoy several seconds of uncontrolled tumbling and spinning until gravity returns you to the Earth.
I really have no idea how much a setup like this costs, and even if you were seriously interested, I’m pretty sure you’d have a heck of a time importing one into North America.
[ Inflatable Bungee: the Ultimate Backyard Toy VIA BallerHouse.com ]
Looks kinda Phallic to me…
It’s just an inflatable version of the powerjump/eurobungee thing, which seems to have become a staple with the travelling carnival-ride set. They usually already have an inflatable trampoline at the bottom, so I’m not so sure inflatable towers would be any less risky than the folding sort. Or maybe less so… usually when an inflatable fails it’s not as catastrophic as “Whoops, guess we forgot to tighten something when we whipped that together at oh-dark-hundred this morning…”