Is Apollo's chariot really the first B&M hyper?

[Coaster_fan_07]

Apollo's chariot is located at Busch Garden Williamsburg is 170 FT tall with a 210FT drop, it is often considered the first B&M hyper however it does not reach the 200FT mark so iI would like to ask is it the first ever B&M hyper or does that honor go to raging bull?

 

[RcTmix]

with a 210FT drop

So it’s a hyper in my book. Just like Phantom’s Revenge is a hyper.

 

[Rob Coasters]

I do think this whole "is it a hyper/giga" thing is rather silly but in my eyes it's a hyper if either the height or the drop is at least 200ft. So yes. And yes, some alpine coasters end up being stratas because of this.

I award hyper/giga/strata status to whichever is the bigger number - if a coaster is 270ft tall with a 300ft drop then it's a giga. If a coaster is 400ft tall with a 230ft drop then it's a strata.

 

[solarfall]

1. As others have said, yes, the drop is higher than 200 feet. Only counting the standing height does a disservice to terrain coasters.
   
   
2. Even if the drop were less than 200 feet, I would argue that the je na sais quoi of a hypercoaster (big drop, long, fast, big camel backs, usually some airtime) is more important than an arbitrary height limit. This is why I consider Steel Eel, Goliath (both La Ronde and Walibi Holland), Kondaa, etc to all essentially be hyper coasters despite not having a 200' drop; they all feel like hypers. Conversely I'd hesitate to describe SteVe, Steel Curtain, or Zadra as hypers, and I'd go so far as to say that Xcelerator, Mr. Freeze, and every B&M dive coaster above 200' are NOT hyper coasters.
   
   
3. Most of the world doesn't even use the English system of measurement, so there's really nothing significant about 200' anyways
   
   
4. Really the only positive thing that can come from arbitrarily classifying roller coasters is being able to recommend something similar if someone enjoys a certain ride type. See point #2

tl;dr yes

 

[Nicky Borrill]

For me, hyper is purely a drop height classification. It helps me keep things simple in my simple mind. So anything with a drop between 200 and 299 ft is a hyper. I do however use the term 'traditional hyper' to identify the kind of hyper solarfall refers to above. But I digress.

210 ft coaster with a 170ft drop... Not a hyper

170ft tall coaster with a 210 ft drop... Is a hyper

This makes sense to me, as It's the drop that we ride... Otherwise a coaster with an elevation variance of just 10 feet could be classed as a hyper if it's built 200 ft off the ground.

Feel like I've said this before

 

[Hyde]

Magnum XL-200, Apollo’s Chariot, Superman SFA, Steel Curtain, Orion, Goliath SFOG; the list goes on of example coasters with drops or height that are lower than the hyper/giga designation.

I tend to side with @RobCoasters, in the spirit of experiencing 200 ft. of something qualifies a coaster. There’s quite a lot of grey area in how coaster specs stack up; focus on enjoying the ride, not the stats.

 

[rob666]

I have realised that as well as not counting coasters, and ranking coasters, I don't classify coasters either.
Big or small, wood or steel, It really does not matter which pigeon hole you put them in, the geek classifications are meaningless outside the "community".
And the geeks can't even agree where the boundaries are...I like that bit!

 

[Hixee]

See I'd come at it two ways.

It is a B&M hyper coaster, or a B&M Hyper coaster.

Because for the latter, then regardless of how you'd classify a the height vs drop argument, the model line from B&M is called "Hyper Coaster" and it was the first one of those. It's pretty simple.

For the former, you then are just having the age-old debate of height vs drop. I think I generally fall on the "drop" side of the fence, for what it's worth.

 

[JoshC.]

My understanding, from a historical point of view, was that the term "hyper coaster" was coined when Cedar Point built Magnum-XL 200, and referred to a coaster whose height exceeded 200ft.
The terms "giga" and "strata" followed thereafter for the first coaster whose height exceeded 300ft and 400ft respectively.

But then, again thinking historically, these coinages can be argued because at the time the first hyper, giga and strata coasters were built, there were no coasters which had drops longer than 200/300/400ft. So you could easily argue that you take the maximum number of height and drop, and then use the corresponding term.

My main answer is that it doesn't matter. Hyper / giga are just marketing terms to make a big roller coaster sound big. Obviously there's the point that Hixee makes about a hyper B&M coaster, and a B&M hyper coaster, which is a technical term for a product name. But just these number classifications, it doesn't matter to me all that much.
If you asked me to give a definitive answer though, I would go by the maximum height, not the maximum drop.


As a side note, I find it a bit sad that when the marketing people were coming up with a cool name for hyper coaster, they didn't opt to choose a multiplication factor prefix. It would be nice and neat if a 200ft+ coaster was a mega coaster, a 300ft+ a giga coaster, a 400ft+ a tera coaster, 500ft+ a peta coaster, etc etc.

 

[RcTmix]

^I like the idea of mega, giga and tera coasters… Peta coaster sounds like the name of a hunger games themed wacky worm

 

[Nitefly]

I do think this whole "is it a hyper/giga" thing is rather silly but in my eyes it's a hyper if either the height or the drop is at least 200ft. So yes. And yes, some alpine coasters end up being stratas because of this.

I award hyper/giga/strata status to whichever is the bigger number - if a coaster is 270ft tall with a 300ft drop then it's a giga. If a coaster is 400ft tall with a 230ft drop then it's a strata.

I think it would be worthwhile considering a ‘minimum degree of incline’ to qualify as there being a drop. Not that any such thing needs great consideration, but to my mind a perpetual yet gradual climb down a hill is more of a ‘decent’ than a ‘drop’.

‘Drop’, in the context of a coaster stats, infers a sort of ‘deliberate suddenness’