Gold Coast Bulletin demonstrates little knowledge of hypercoasters

The famed bastion of truth and journalistic standards that is the Gold Coast Bulletin extolls the virtues of a hypercoaster in a piece that more or less confirms the style of ride that Warner Bros. Movie World is building for 2017.

The piece by Andrew Potts appeared two days ago, citing advertisements for subcontractors and suppliers by construction company Alder Construction as the source for the scoop on the ride style. It would seem that Warner Bros. Movie World is in fact building a hypercoaster.

Most ardent followers of Parkz would indeed know that Warner Bros. Movie World is building a roller coaster. Most would also know that it's being built by Mack Rides. This new piece of the puzzle is exciting news for theme park fans; the revelation essentially confirms that we're likely see the largest roller coaster ever built in Australia.

The report gets a few basic facts correct: a hypercoaster is a roller coaster 200ft (61m) or greater in height, generally following a traditional roller coaster format with emphasis on drops, hills and turns.

To spice things up however, the Bulletin article is accompanied by a seemingly random array of photos and videos that would only be slightly less relevant if they included the first bunch of results from a Google Images search for tinned soup.

Right below the headline as the article's feature video is of Six Flags Great Adventure's El Diablo. Far from being a hypercoaster: the ride is not even a roller coaster by any real defintion.

This ride is definitely a hypercoaster and not a carousel at Six Flags St. Louis.

As the article continues, its first photo is of Leviathan at Canada's Wonderland. At 306ft tall this ride is referred to as a gigacoaster, the bigger brother to the hypercoaster. 

The second photo is of Valravn; though meeting the 200ft height, it's more correctly classed as a dive coaster: a Bolliger & Mabillard built roller coaster featuring short, wide trains where the main emphasis is on vertical drops.

Ignore that big orange thing in the background. This is a photo of two cars at Six Flags Over Texas that are also a hypercoaster.

Next Potts shows us Goliath at Six Flags Great America, a 180ft tall wooden roller coaster. So close! If only he'd shown us Goliath at Six Flags Magic Mountain, you know... an actual hypercoaster.

Finally we're given a point-of-view video. The ride chosen to sum up a hypercoaster for Gold Coast Bulletin readers? Titan MAX at Space World, a 166ft tall roller coaster built in 1994 that not only doesn't meet the minimum height for a hypercoaster, but is also a really good example of a particularly bland roller coaster.

Two airborn aquatic mammal hypercoasters at Sea World.

Mack Rides is building Warner Bros. Movie World's 2017 roller coaster. The company has built just one hypercoaster to date, Flash at Lewa Adventure in China. Flash is different from most hypercoasters in that it includes a couple of inversions, but follows the tried-and-true formula of most hypercoasters.

We've shared this video before, but here it is again, for what is probably the closest indication of what Movie World is building.