They light the car park of Blackpool & The Fylde College's Ansdell campus also. I like the design a lot, it looks like it's giving you a cheeky smile  

I've recently aquired a couple of Thorn Jets (which I will update the collection thread with when I have pictures) and noticed a couple off oddities when comparing it to the Riga...

Presumably in the grand scheme of things the Jet is ranked below the Riga in terms of cost/performance etc, right? But it seems they were almost switched at birth as the Jet (in my opinion) has more desirable features that *should* be incorporated into the Rigas design.

To list a few:
- The Jet has a deeper reflector than the Riga, reducing the glare (quite significantly in fact).
- The Jet has 11 lamp positions (6 vertical and 6 horizonal) to give optimal control, yet the Riga only has 2 (Street and Residential).
- The Jet has an all aluminium construction whereas the Riga is plastic.
- The Jet more closely resembles the Civic which is odd considering the Riga is generally considered the Civic's smaller relative.

I'm sure there are a fair few more points I could list if I was feeling particularly picky, but overall what are your thoughts? The only benefits of the Riga that I can see is the arguably better appearance and post-top mounting capability.

The Riga is at the "bottom of the pile" and is a budget lantern. I believe it may be an older design than the Jet, but stand to be corrected..

If my memory serves correctly, the Jet was released after the Riga. This probably explains why it has improved features.

Yes the Jet is still a fairly 'new' lantern design... I think it's been around for 3-4 years but it came out after the Opalo. I would consider the Jet to be the successor to the Riga as it'll be cheaper to buy (~£60 unit price) than the Riga as well as being better equipped.
The 3 Jets I have are all CFL (two 57W and a 42W) and I have no real complaints about the lantern itself except for the massive spigot which a lot of new lanterns seen to have... though on the Jet you could post top the lantern sideways! With that massive spigot means you need long grub screws or a packer/shim - and the grub screws are more likely to bend and could eventually snap due to their length... likewise having the grub screws being accessed from the top means they'll corrode quicker. It's a budget lantern, but still does a decent job.

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The newer Thorn designs seem to be coming back into 'reality' if you see what I'm getting at. I mean they still have a few designs that I doubt councils would even consider.  60W CDO-TT Oracles are being installed across County Durham in residential areas on columns up to 8m and surprisingly at this height they provide more than enough light, which would lead me to believe that the wattage for 6m mounting height could be reduced.

In some cases they don't look so great such as when they are installed post-top on a concrete column, but on a concrete column with an outreach, or on a wooden pole combination bracket, they don't look too bad. Out of all the Oracles installed only two that I know of have had to be replaced. Not bad when you look at the amount of ZX2s that have been replaced either because of failed gear or storm damage.  And the fact they when they get installed on the same road, the Oracles provide better light using 60W that they do using 140W CDO-TT.

It raises the question of whether or not Thorn will release a revised version of the Riga (like they did with the Civic), possibly pulling in some features from the Jet.  Then again, would it be really worth it when the Civic, Oracle and Jet can all use 50/70w lamps? Seems there's quite a bit of overlap.

I was under the impression that Thorn pulled the plug on the A4 around the same time as A8? It is most likely that the council has some left in stock or they are cleaning up and re-using seconds.

The Alpha 4 was axed quite a few years after the Alpha 8. The Alpha 8 was taken off the website in the early-mid '00s, whereas the Alpha 4 was still listed up until the late '00s.

I thought that they both went around the same time as the council here installed the Alpha 8 as a staple SON lantern and the Alpha 4 as the staple SOX lantern. But obviously when they discontinued the Alpha 8, they moved away from Thorn. The SGS203 then became the lantern of choice for both SON and SOX replacements.