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[202X] Project Horizon (SW9?): Planning Approved

Benjsh said:
I think you're being a bit precious on this point tbh.

It's a coaster than can travel on all sides of a coaster track. It's like nothing we've seen before. It's definitely going to shake up the coaster world a bit whether you like the manufacturer or not.
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Never say never but I’m not convinced on axis for a couple of reasons:

1) This will almost certainly be a launch coaster, S&S launches are noisy, Towers doesn’t want noise.

2) The rider impact of spinning in that direction benefits from seeing the horizon, as an indoor coaster that isn’t a thing.

3) The wide envelope the rotation requires limits how much ride you can pack into an indoor coaster.

As I say never say never but if I was building an indoor coaster it isn’t the ride option I would pick.
 
I also reckon that an Axis coaster would be more thrilling than Towers might want for this project.

They’ve said in the EIA that they’re not doing any digging (there was a section that specified that, but I can’t remember exactly where), and 65ft isn’t too much height, so I reckon this will be more of a family coaster myself.

Interestingly, the building will apparently also have a “hipped roof”… which is more like what you get on a house than what you typically see on a dark ride building.
 
Yeah I'm pretty sure one of the things they specifically mentioned was that the land is currently flat and will not need to change for this development. They also said the colour and shape of the building would be chosen to minimise visual impact, or something along those lines.
 
ATI said:
Ahem...

1664404334437.png

Looks about the right height and land area use, just sayin'.
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This building is to be a bit bigger than TWD:TR’s.

This building will be 4,000m2 according to the planning application, whereas I think multiple people in this thread have measured TWD’s at around 2,500m2, even when including Black Mirror at the back and all of the queue line/corridor space at the front.

I could see Alton’s ride being something of that sort of scale, though. A 65ft building probably wouldn’t lend itself to a ride much over 50ft, which would make TWD’s 43ft around the sort of height we could expect from an indoor coaster in this building. Perhaps a bit shorter, but I’m not sure a ride an awful lot bigger than 43ft would have enough clearance to fit inside the building… I’d say that the 50-55ft ballpark seems like the very maximum I’d expect from an indoor coaster in a 65ft building.
 
Hipped roof? 20mtrs will be its highest point then, which means that actually it's height in most parts will be much, much lower than this.

If you think about it, 20 mtrs is still lower that most of what Alton's coaster lineup currently reach. When you factor in clearance as well, I don't agree that's a great height for an indoor coaster at all. They can of course just launch it which means a coaster can't be ruled out, but I wouldn't say a coaster is a given like everyone else seems to think. Even if they did launch it, it's land mass isn't very big for a significant layout. So if it is an coaster, it would have to be one hell of a good layout with awesome effects or it'll end up being short and crap.
 
Matt N said:
This building will be 4,000m2 according to the planning application
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You're missing a key phrase here, "up to".

The document states "an aluminium warehouse type up to 4,000m2 GEA, and up to 75 metres by 57 metres with a height of up to 20m from ground level." None of those measurements are precise, just the very upper limits of the envelope the building will fall within.

In fact, from the exhibition, it looks like we already know that the proposed ride building is 71m by 46m, with an extra 40m by 10m for an indoor queue, so in reality we're already talking more like a 3,200m2 ride area, if in fact the building is a regular rectangle (other than the extension). However, you also have to factor in a maintenance bay and storage into that area, which will also take out a chunk of floor space.
 
Matt.GC said:
Hipped roof? 20mtrs will be its highest point then, which means that actually it's height in most parts will be much, much lower than this.

If you think about it, 20 mtrs is still lower that most of what Alton's coaster lineup currently reach. When you factor in clearance as well, I don't agree that's a great height for an indoor coaster at all. They can of course just launch it which means a coaster can't be ruled out, but I wouldn't say a coaster is a given like everyone else seems to think. Even if they did launch it, it's land mass isn't very big for a significant layout. So if it is an coaster, it would have to be one hell of a good layout with awesome effects or it'll end up being short and crap.
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This is why I’m inclined to believe that it might be a family or family thrill indoor coaster rather than a proper hardcore thrill indoor coaster (e.g. Rock’n’Rollercoaster). The area this building takes up is large enough to accommodate a family-size indoor coaster (it’s larger than TWD at Thorpe, which is 2,500m2, and also similar in size to the indoor part of Arthur at Europa Park), and a 20m building height would allow for a good 15m coaster height if they put the highest point of the coaster at the highest point of the roof.

For some idea, the new DarKoaster at Busch Gardens Williamsburg is going in a building no bigger than this ride will inhabit, and that looks really cool, with a high speed switch track that will allow it to do 2 circuits while running multiple trains!

The thing I’d ask you is; if this were to be a regular dark ride, why would they need a 20m high, 3,000-4,000m2 building with such an atypical shape? Most dark ride buildings are little larger than 10m in height, have flat roofs and aren’t as large as this building (for some idea, Duel is 3,000m2 or a little under even when including its indoor queue, and DBGT is 2,306m2 and 10m tall. Both rides also have flat roofs).
 
Matt N said:
The thing I’d ask you is; if this were to be a regular dark ride, why would they need a 20m high, 3,000-4,000m2 building with such an atypical shape? Most dark ride buildings are little larger than 10m in height, have flat roofs and aren’t as large as this building (for some idea, Duel is 3,000m2 or a little under even when including its indoor queue, and DBGT is 2,306m2 and 10m tall. Both rides also have flat roofs).
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But similarly, why would they not put a flat roof on an indoor coaster as well? I'm not saying it won't be a coaster, but it's not a done deal. All we know so far is that they have a few ideas about building something (which, with the fast moving economic crisis in the UK, there's no guarantee this will even mount to anything), where they would build it and the maximum dimensions of the building. Key word there is maximum. We have no idea how pitched the roof will be, the buildings shape, what the exact height and internal floor space will be. We're still at the stage where this could be absolutely anything.
 
Matt.GC said:
But similarly, why would they not put a flat roof on an indoor coaster as well? I'm not saying it won't be a coaster, but it's not a done deal. All we know so far is that they have a few ideas about building something (which, with the fast moving economic crisis in the UK, there's no guarantee this will even mount to anything), where they would build it and the maximum dimensions of the building. Key word there is maximum. We have no idea how pitched the roof will be, the buildings shape, what the exact height and internal floor space will be. We're still at the stage where this could be absolutely anything.
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They absolutely could put a flat roof on an indoor coaster, but from my experience, atypical building shapes are more typical of indoor coasters than dark rides.
 
jon81uk said:
Isn’t that the brake run on Black Hole?
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The brake run on Black Hole had a 'Brakes Ahead' sign IIRC and that sudden stop on the breaks which were so powerful that they honestly knocked the wind out of you. I still remember that after all these years.

But all of you, stop teasing me that BH is coming back...its all getting too real by this point! o_O
 
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