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Is RMC Raptor a bust?

Jarrett

Jarrett

Most Obnoxious Member 2016
I love Wonder Woman Golden Lasso Coaster and I’m excited to ride Railblazer this weekend, but Six Flags Day is upon us and so far, it doesn’t look too promising that we might see a third Raptor pop up two years later. And I have a theory on why.

Arrow’s wild mouse model did not sell well because it was financially out of reach for the target audience: small parks. They were small, compact coasters that rode well but were so over engineered that they cost $2 million, something most parks in that demographic couldn’t afford. As stated in the Legacy of Arrow documentary ACE did, “if there’s ever a natural disaster, get on an Arrow mouse.”

Could RMC Raptor be the next Arrow mouse? The target audience is clear: small parks. Only eight people per train and three trains max, capacity like that isn’t at all reasonable for parks like Six Flags Great America or Kings Island. However, could parks such as Coney Island (Cinci), Beech Bend, or Waldameer afford to drop $7 million? (Think that’s what I heard, not 100% sure how accurate this cost is). Granted there are smaller models that cost less, but could even these be out of range for small parks?

My opinion? It’s more for mid-sized parks than it is for the really tiny ones. Indiana Beach, Kentucky Kingdom, Morey’s Piers, and other parks with stable ownership and 5-7 coasters to their name are perfect for these, at least the Railblazer model. Now is there a market for this? Would any of these parks be willing to still drop the money on it? That’s a mystery, but when corporate parks can get something with better throughput for the same amount and small parks can’t afford it, I think this might explain why they’re not exactly popping up like weeds like some of us hoped.
 
There's no way Cincy Coney Island can drop 7 mil on a Raptor. The grass spots they've got, I assume they're saving those for their annual 4th of July Balloon Glow. They won't be adding any coasters any time soon.

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Yeah I got to agree. Raptor was meant for parks like Alabama Splash and Lakeside, but its not being sought after by those parks. They need to either lower the price or offer a smaller model.
 
Yeah, it's way to early to say that. They had a lot of issues the first year with restraints so it's not a surprise none sold last year. There was one supposedly going to China for this year, but that went dark or nobody covered it.

I expect more to start showing up next year once the issues iron out. The small parks want to make sure there won't be as many issues I'm sure.

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Wasn't there a model being made for larger capacity? T-Rex, was it?

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I believe one issue could be that RMC is trying to push as many stock models onto parks, and although the parks may want a raptor, they don't necessarily want the stock ride.
 
If my memory serves me correctly, the two Raptor models we see were meant to be prototypes for a more custom design. Eventually leading up to the larger model T-Rex. We don't have any inside information on what orders are in the works for RMC but my guess is that they are at capacity with orders and some projects are not being pushed.

I wouldn't call the Raptor a bust but would say its a model not being pushed right now.
 
From what I've heard both Raptors had problems and parks have been cautious about buying more.
 
Sounds about right. Too low capacity for the parks with the means to buy them, too expensive for the parks that could tolerate the capacity. And then there's the reliability issues.

Maybe the two-seater model (not the T-Rex, just an upscaled Raptor) would perform better. I guess we'll see eventually.
 
Capacity isn't necessarily the problem with them if they're running properly; big parks have installed coasters with much smaller theoretical capacities, including within the Six Flags chain, but with reliable coasters: those Premiere sky rocket things for example.

Wonder Woman had huge issues though - which should be expected with a prototype - meaning that it's capacity wasn't being reached.

I don't know how it's running now, but it was a s**tshow this time last year. Any announcements for coasters next year would have been mostly decided at least a year ago while Wonder Woman was experiencing all those issues.

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I think its way too early to decide whether the model is a success or a failure yet. It only debuted last year, these things might sell like hot cakes for all we know in the next 5 years!
Look at B&M dives, debuted in 1998 and it took ages for that model to take off. I think RMC are also pretty stacked right now with their Ibox model.
 
I honestly see Six Flags building more of these in the future.. They don't seem to cost much and are quite versatile, the throughput is bad but Great Adventure has 5 B&M's to soak up crowds so i think they'll be okay.
 
Furiustobaco said:
I honestly see Six Flags building more of these in the future.. They don't seem to cost much and are quite versatile, the throughput is bad but Great Adventure has 5 B&M's to soak up crowds so i think they'll be okay.
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Combine that with @CrashCoaster's observation of 4 maintenance bays (meaning Jersey Devil can hold up to 4 trains) as well as the 12 riders per train opposed to the 8 riders per train on Wonder Woman, and it appears that Six Flags and RMC have worked together to find a Raptor design that has a capacity high enough to keep up to their larger parks' demands.
 
Well shows what I know! Haha. :p

However, I will admit that it looks like a lot of “give us a standard RMC Topper layout but with the Raptor system” instead of fully utilizing the ride system’s engineering benefits. Still looks incredible, just not how I personally expected it to evolve.

So they’re using it as a bigger, badder e-ticket coaster instead of keeping it a compact crazy experience and cloning the hell out of it. It’s going to be the next RMC I-box, not the next Joker Clone or Larson Loop.
 
I dunno why people make such a big deal about the throughput, it has become such a meme.

Train length is only one side of the coin, dispatch interval is important too.

Heaps of parks have Eurofighters or their derivatives with only 8 seats, but on Raptors it's a problem because???

This will have 12 seats, just like Maverick, Fahrenheit, Red Force.

I daresay these could have their own advantages in terms of loading, because you don't have to shuffle across a row of seats, and the operator doesn't have to lean across as far to check.

As for this, yeah looks fantastic, looks like it was designed by an enthusiast. I wouldn't have minded a couple of turns or corkscrews towards the end though to make it a little less out and back ish.
 
Jarrett said:
Well shows what I know! Haha. :p

However, I will admit that it looks like a lot of “give us a standard RMC Topper layout but with the Raptor system” instead of fully utilizing the ride system’s engineering benefits. Still looks incredible, just not how I personally expected it to evolve.

So they’re using it as a bigger, badder e-ticket coaster instead of keeping it a compact crazy experience and cloning the hell out of it. It’s going to be the next RMC I-box, not the next Joker Clone or Larson Loop.
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The potential for this ride type is huge, but I honestly think that was Six Flags' thought process here. Call it a record-breaker and make it look cooler than it would if it were a wooden layout.

Jersey Devil would be ****ing fantastic as a woodie, btw.
 
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