Kings Dominion this morning announced its new roller coaster for 2025 - Rapterra.
Billed by the park as the world's tallest and longest launched wing coaster, this Bolliger & Mabillard production will stand 145 feet tall and run for 3,086 feet. It will reach a top speed of 65 mph and feature three inversions.
Here is a front-row concept POV for Rapterra.
And here is Kings Dominion's backstory for the new coaster.
Centuries ago, ancient leaders built a shrine to honor the mighty Jungle Hawk. People who entered the shrine became spiritually linked to — and temporarily possessed — the powers and abilities of the bird of prey.Building the temple at the base of a volcano, Mt. Inferna, proved unfortunate. The ground surrounding the magma chamber collapsed, burying the Jungle Hawk temple under mounds of volcanic rock. The temple seemingly vanished from the earth.
Archaeologists recently discovered the volcanic site and unearthed the remains of the Jungle Hawk shrine. The bird’s ferocious spirit remains at the site, launching brave riders to exhilarating new heights.
"This extraordinary addition promises new thrills for our guests, making it the perfect centerpiece for our 50th anniversary celebration and reaffirming why Kings Dominion is the ultimate destination for unforgettable memories and exhilarating excitement," Vice President and General Manager Bridgette Bywater said.
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It looks like they saw Pipeline and said give us that, but as a wing coaster instead of a standup.
So it will occupy the space vacated by Volcano. Looks fine but I miss Volcano, which was truly unique, and BTW Volcano was taller at its highest point.
I was in Europe when this was announced, but I have looked at the POV and press release, and my first impression was "meh". It was pretty obvious from the track that arrived onsite that the new coaster was going to be a B&M launched wing coaster, but I'm disappointed that it looks like KD has not taken advantage of the best elements that consistently appear on almost every other B&M wing coaster, near-miss "keyholes". There's a bit of that on the launch section, but aside from that, the rest of the course is completely devoid of near-miss elements.
I also HATE when theme parks use worthless stats to bill a coaster as the "biggest" and "best". As far as I know, there are only 3 other launching wing coasters in the world (Furius Baco at Port Adventura - Intamin with hydraulic launch, Mandrill Mayhem - B&M shuttle at Chessington, and Thunderbird at Holiday World), so it's not like there are a lot of coasters to compare this to in terms of stats. Of those, I've only ridden Thunderbird, and it's not the launch that makes that coaster, it's the keyhole elements through the barns that really make it great. The same goes for other wing coaster like Swarm, Gatekeeper, and X-Flight, where those keyhole elements make re-rides a must to experience the coaster for both sides of the train.
As far as the elements, wing coasters always look deceptively slow on POVs, but even taking that into account, there really isn't anything on Rapterra that's earth shattering, but I anticipate that the final flat spin will be the highlight of the course. The other feature I see in the POV is how much of the course if above walking paths around the Jungle-X area, which almost certainly means guests will have to walk through metal detectors or be subject to a strict no loose article policy. I'll talk about this some more when I post some articles about our trip to European theme parks, but I'm even more disgusted at American theme parks trying to leverage locker rentals for profit when seeing how smooth and efficient European parks manage bags and loose articles.
Finally, that name....It's decent, but Cedar Point already has a coaster called "Raptor", and given the jungle motif of the land, I was hoping for the name to be Condor, or some spin on that bird family. Nonetheless, it's hard to complain about a pretty unique coaster being installed an hour from where I live, and this is a worthy addition for Kings Dominion's 50th Anniversary.
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I hope they manage to have at least one great keyhole element, which is one of the best things about B&M Wingcoasters (whether to ride, or to watch).