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[2024] Thorpe Park: Hyperia - Mack Hypercoaster

Shambhala will never ever be stale to me. 10 times in one night i went on that thing and every ride was as exciting as the last. I really not bothered about awkward unnatural transitions like outer banked turns etc i'm just happy to be lifted out of my seat for a couple of seconds.
 
Icon's track sensors can and do detect stall risk, and use the 2nd launch to stop the train. (It can be overridden by engineers during testing, if needed).

I'd imagine Hyperia would have the same, if not better equipment
 
Josh555 said:
I was there on AIR’s opening day and returned a couple of times that season.

Granted it was 23 years ago so I may not be remembering this correctly but I’m fairly sure it didn’t go down for almost 2 weeks shortly after opening and then go down a few times since to the extent this has?
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It went down multiple times in the first few weeks and months, but it wasn't so much of the waiting for a part type fix that caused the first closure on Hyperia. In a way Air was worse because it was still operating, just very very slowly, there were periods where they didn't dispatch for ten minutes or more while they worked on getting the right guests in the right seats so it could lock in place. A slow moving queue is probably worse than a total closure while waiting for a fix.
 
For me the issue with Hyperia is not that things have gone wrong, a lot of new rides have teething problems. It is the cumulation of issues, all of which have been different. You have the lift hill issue (mechanical/hardware), the block issue (software) and now the stalling (potential design issue) as well as the brake run causing throughput limitation.

A coaster can stall, that's not necessarily a problem on its own. Plenty of B&Ms have stalled in the past. But the fact that it has happen so soon after the other issues is lamentable. And anyone who has seen it test without people or dummies on board will not be surprised that it has stalled. It takes that element like a top hat on a launch coaster, and rollbacks are not uncommon on those. No problem though, as you just launch it again. Clearly it is a problem when said element does not follow a launch.

If this is the last of the issues and it runs relatively smoothly for the rest of the year, notwithstanding downtime that any coaster is going to have, then it will all quickly be forgotten. Right now though, whenever it is open it feels like you're just waiting for the next issue to occur.
 
Poisson said:
Can't use GPS accurately on coasters, the very track/train of the ride will cause problems.
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Oh gosh, I didn't mean as a safety-critical measure. Just it's cheap as chips to install, and you'd know where every car is (on track, in shed). Plus data on coaster at every moment - sure, not super accurate (well it is), but will give a good average to uncover latent issues.

What @Rob says about the Top Hat is right (like Stealth). Rollbacks are possible. But they're baked into the design. They are expected.

Islander said:
This isn’t really a gimmick ride though… yes UK’s tallest, but by no means world’s tallest, and no new or untested tech, unless I’m missing something. It’s a fairly standard coaster, surely?
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Absolutely. 1 foot taller, 1 mph faster. Pfft. Someone call John Wardley. Or RMC.
 
Genuinely now don’t see how it can run ‘normally’ without a major alteration.

During a routine stoppage where you need to send a few empty trains in the middle of a day, it would have little confidence it can be sent without dummies. Maybe loading is a feasible permanent solution but I suspect not.

You can claw back a little speed with wheel compounds etc maybe, but seems way out of its comfortable margin for error. I know it’s morning testing, but this is June. Imagine spring or autumn temperatures.

Seems like a liability without a booster or re-tracking of an element. Sounds extreme I know, but where else is the speed coming from? It is in danger of becoming the Odyssey of the South.
 
Smiley said:
Oh gosh, I didn't mean as a safety-critical measure. Just it's cheap as chips to install, and you'd know where every car is (on track, in shed). Plus data on coaster at every moment - sure, not super accurate (well it is), but will give a good average to uncover latent issues.
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Absolutely no point in installing new non-safety critical systems when the existing system shows you literally all that information already
 
If only the UK had another similar sized coaster we could go on in the mean time. While these teething problems are sorted. That was a bit more reliable.

For god sake if anyone knows of such a coaster don't mention it on this thread or your phone will mysteriously self combust.
 
Smiley said:
Oh gosh, I didn't mean as a safety-critical measure. Just it's cheap as chips to install, and you'd know where every car is (on track, in shed). Plus data on coaster at every moment - sure, not super accurate (well it is), but will give a good average to uncover latent issues.
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Pretty sure the system already knows where each car is.
 
Islander said:
Absolutely no point in installing new non-safety critical systems when the existing system shows you literally all that information already
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We can agree to disagree. It cost Merlin £50m+ for the Smiler incident. Probably £100k to put in GPS to the cars. GPS would have given extra info on car position, and additionally gives further info (per second operational info not currently available).
 
The ride computer will know the cycle time of each train already.

When it was cycling empty trains on Saturday it felt like it was approaching a stall at that exact same element, so I was surprised it then opened. The cycle times must have been above the minimum required.
 
jon81uk said:
Pretty sure the system already knows where each car is.
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Well it doesn't. Not exactly. GPS can be another tool, to look at per-second performance. You can combine that with weather/temp/whatever to understand stuff. You can probably crunch the data and predict/detect a bearing failure or similar.

If F1 uses GPS data, airplanes use it, missiles use it... - I think a roller coaster can use it. AFAIK there is no data collection for Xperia on track other than a few key locations.
 
Alsty said:
The ride computer will know the cycle time of each train already.

When it was cycling empty trains on Saturday it felt like it was approaching a stall at that exact same element, so I was surprised it then opened. The cycle times must have been above the minimum required.
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But that doesn't tell half of the story!
 
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