What's new

Thorpe Park | Hyperia | Mack Hyper Coaster | 2024

It's the "roller-coaster" spelling that also seems fishy to me!

Any why produce an invite leaflet that has no details on the consultation itself or even a link to the website... that seems pretty pointless too.
 
Sorry to double post, but I’ve got an idea; why doesn’t someone message Thorpe on Facebook or something and ask if it’s official?

I might do it myself, in fact; what do you guys think?
 
Sorry to double post, but I’ve got an idea; why doesn’t someone message Thorpe on Facebook or something and ask if it’s official?

I might do it myself, in fact; what do you guys think?
I reached out to them on Facebook about 30 minutes ago, but maybe try it as well or through email or something.
 
I must admit, I think it’s a rather sad indicator of how little faith people have in Thorpe Park/Merlin when something like this is revealed and people’s first instinct is to believe it’s fake and search for signs that it’s a hoax…

Admittedly, I can fully understand why people might have lost faith given some of the past “coaster teasers”, but I’m personally very excited and optimistic for Thorpe’s future, and I’ll admit that it makes me a little sad to see that optimism has dwindled so drastically…
I guess that's what happens when a park's fans spout rumours every single year, and the park's staff join in with fake teasers...

Like I said though, more than once now, I'm a lot more convinced it is genuine...

Excited to see what it will be...

I think my money is on a GCI or other woodie...

I'd most like an RMC, but I think it is amongst the least likely option.

My favourite 'realistically could happen' option is that B&M Hyper you long for :)
 
So the 3 coaster B&M deal must be true because of the coaster at the new Legoland in China, Chessington’s new coaster and this probably.

I hope it’s a ride like the Flight Of The Himalayan Eagle Music Coaster, for the people who don’t know what the heck I’m talking about, it’s a smaller model of the hyper coaster, which would not effect the flight path for Heathrow Airport.
 
So the 3 coaster B&M deal must be true because of the coaster at the new Legoland in China, Chessington’s new coaster and this probably.

I hope it’s a ride like the Flight Of The Himalayan Eagle Music Coaster, for the people who don’t know what the heck I’m talking about, it’s a smaller model of the hyper coaster, which would not effect the flight path for Heathrow Airport.
Heathrow's flight path doesn't effect the park below 500ft... (or 150M to be precise!)
 
I must admit, I think it’s a rather sad indicator of how little faith people have in Thorpe Park/Merlin when something like this is revealed and people’s first instinct is to believe it’s fake and search for signs that it’s a hoax…
I don't think it's so much that - a lot of us were young idealists like you once, Matt - but have been in this game a LONG time which has taught us to approach some things with trepidation - Alton crates, anyone? So this thread got me reconsidering what I said earlier about pessimism ;)

I passed an HS2 construction site the other day and joked to my Mum that I could get young enthusiasts excited if I posted a picture and lied about the location :p

Having said that, I have every confidence that we will see a new coaster from Thorpe this decade. Whether it's this one remains to be seen.
 
Heathrow's flight path doesn't effect the park below 500ft... (or 150M to be precise!)

Indeed, from what I can tell from certain documents, Thorpe Park falls just outside of the conical surface around Heathrow and in the outer horizontal surface, which has a height limit of 150m. Which raises the question of why so many people believe Thorpe are bound by 200ft-ish height limits.
 
I don’t know about you guys, but I honestly reckon we could learn a fair amount about Thorpe’s coaster from this consultation.

For instance, I’d expect that we’ll at very least discover a broad description of the ride that limits the scope of our guesses down to a much greater degree than it was previously; to use Chessington’s initial consultation in May as an example (given both are Merlin properties, I’d imagine that Merlin would want to keep procedures fairly consistent), the initial consultation they did revealed most of the key info. For instance:
  • It was revealed then that it would be a “family thrill” shuttle coaster with a potential inversion and a 1.4m height restriction.
  • The basic ride layout was also confirmed, as well as a rough idea of scale.
  • The big theming structure and the land with the 2 additional filler rides was also confirmed at the initial consultation.
  • I even remember the winged seating being thrown around by people who’d been to the consultation back then, although I’m unsure if winged seating was expressly confirmed at the initial consultation.
The only things the full planning application for Project Amazon a few months later really confirmed that we didn’t already know were the finer statistics (e.g. exact height, track length), the finer details of the land, and that B&M was officially confirmed as the manufacturer (although B&M had been thrown around as a very strong rumour ever since the initial consultation).

So from this consultation, I’d imagine we should expect:
  • A broad description of what the ride is and what it does. A manufacturer may or may not be confirmed, but I’d imagine we may be able to take a fair stab based on what the park says about the ride. In terms of what I mean here; if the ride were a hyper coaster, for instance, the park would probably say that they were building a tall out and back coaster with lots of large airtime hills.
  • A basic overview of the layout. Even though they probably won’t delve too much into specifics, they’ll probably show the footprint the ride will take up, the basic layout and the essence of what it does, the rough scale they expect (we expect the ride to be around [x]ft tall with [x] high points).
  • With the site being picked, I’d also imagine that Thorpe may specify what’s being removed in terms of rides, infrastructure, trees etc.
  • We may also get some hint at the theme, such as any theming structures being included. Chessington’s consultation revealed the basic jungle style theme, as well as the big theming structure.
Of course, this is all conjecture on my part, but I’d personally say there’s a fair chance that we’ll get these sorts of things (or at least, something similar) revealed on the 10th based on what Chessington’s consultation for Project Amazon was like.
 
Indeed, from what I can tell from certain documents, Thorpe Park falls just outside of the conical surface around Heathrow and in the outer horizontal surface, which has a height limit of 150m. Which raises the question of why so many people believe Thorpe are bound by 200ft-ish height limits.
Yes, exactly! Although it does appear part of the park lies inside the IHS, (interestingly, the part containing Stealth) it also appears that old town lies inside the OHS... And outside the IHS

Even if the entire park lies inside the IHS, the limit is 67.87M AOD which equals 222ft... Thorpe Park also sits around 10M below the threshold for 09R.

I wish we could put to bed this 'they can't build tall because of Heathrow' thing once and for all. I mean, have you seen the height of some of the buildings on the approach to 27L and 27R!!!!
 
What are these IHS and OHS abbreviations standing for, out of interest? And how can you see what areas they encompass in regard to Thorpe?
 
What are these IHS and OHS abbreviations standing for, out of interest? And how can you see what areas they encompass in regard to Thorpe?
Sorry Matt, Benjacobs had already used the full term in his post, so I assumed that I could use the abbreviations…

They are Inner horizontal surface and outer horizontal surface… They are zones, spreading out from an airport, that amongst other things, define protected areas, such as areas with certain build height limits. So Heathrow has a small roughly 4-5km ish radius area around it with a 68m height limit, and also a bigger radius around it with a 150m height limit.

This is the rough copy of Heathrow’s (there’s a much more detailed map available too, but it’s pdf)

7E97EA71-95A2-4DD7-82C1-AFD17C323B4E.jpeg
 
Sorry Matt, Benjacobs had already used the full term in his post, so I assumed that I could use the abbreviations…

They are Inner horizontal surface and outer horizontal surface… They are zones, spreading out from an airport, that amongst other things, define protected areas, such as areas with certain build height limits. So Heathrow has a small roughly 4-5km ish radius area around it with a 68m height limit, and also a bigger radius around it with a 150m height limit.

This is the rough copy of Heathrow’s (there’s a much more detailed map available too, but it’s pdf)

View attachment 14704
Cheers @Nicky Borrill; thanks for clarifying that! I’ll admit I know very little about this sort of thing and have been trying to do some research in order to justify that a hyper could be built over on another forum. This is very helpful!

For what it’s worth, I looked at Thorpe on Google Earth, and it’s apparently around 6.5km as the crow flies from Heathrow, if we look at the southernmost extremity of Heathrow and the northernmost extremity of Thorpe Park (I went with the top of the car park where cars actually enter the site).

Out of interest, how can you tell what bits of Thorpe are within the inner area?
 
Cheers @Nicky Borrill; thanks for clarifying that! I’ll admit I know very little about this sort of thing and have been trying to do some research in order to justify that a hyper could be built over on another forum. This is very helpful!

For what it’s worth, I looked at Thorpe on Google Earth, and it’s apparently around 6.5km as the crow flies from Heathrow, if we look at the southernmost extremity of Heathrow and the northernmost extremity of Thorpe Park (I went with the top of the car park where cars actually enter the site).

Out of interest, how can you tell what bits of Thorpe are within the inner area?
Actually Matt... Found this for you, explains it WAYYYY better than I ever could! https://www.pagerpower.com/news/about-obstacle-limitation-surfaces-overview/

Out of interest, how can you tell what bits of Thorpe are within the inner area?

Without access to the detailed zoomable plan, I can't, I can only make a rough guess... But the point is, the limit is at least 222ft either way, giving them scope to build the UK's tallest coaster. And lying on the very edge, would give them a very high chance of gaining permission to exceed that height even if they are just inside anyway.

Thorpe have a much bigger job on their hands getting around local council planning than they do getting around Heathrow limitations... I don't see them struggling there to be fair either.
 
Cheers for the link; very helpful!

So in theory, Thorpe is far enough from Heathrow for it not to be within the inner surface?
 
Top