Ferris wheel: Encyclopedia - Ferris wheel

Ferris wheel

A Ferris wheel (or, more commonly in the UK, big wheel) is an amusement ride consisting of an upright wheel with passenger gondolas suspended from the rim.

Ferris wheel - History

It is named after George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., who designed a 75-meter (250-foot) wheel for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois in 1893. It was designed as a rival to the Eiffel Tower, the centerpiece of the 1889 Paris exhibition. This first wheel weighed 2000 tonnes (2200 tons) and could carry 2,160 persons at a time; Its axle was the largest piece of steel yet cast at that time. At 26 stories it was four stories taller than the tallest skyscraper in the world—also in Chicago—but only a quarter of the Eiffel Tower's height. It was reused at the St. Louis World's Fair.

Another famous Ferris wheel with a height of 65 meters, dating back to 1897, is the Riesenrad in Vienna's Prater in the second district of Leopoldstadt - see also World's Fair.

London, UK had its very own 'Gigantic Wheel' built at Earls Court in 1895, which was modelled on the original one in Chicago. This wheel stayed in service until 1906 by which time it had carried over 2.5 million passengers. It was built by two young Australian engineers named Adam Gaddelin and Gareth Watson and was the first of over 200 ferris wheels that they built world-wide.

At 212 feet (65 meters), The Texas Star at Fair Park is the largest ferris wheel in the Western Hemisphere. The wheel opened in 1985 and has a maximum capacity of 260 persons. Sky Dream Fukuoka in Fukuoka, Japan, at 112 meters in diameter and 120 meters from ground to top, is the largest Ferris wheel in the world.

The earliest ancestor of the Ferris wheel is the Ups-and-Downs, a crude, hand-turned device, which dates back at least to the 17th century and is still in use in some parts of the world.

Ferris wheel - Observation wheels

Some people consider Ferris wheels to be a distinct category from observation wheels, of which the London Eye is currently the largest example in the world. Although they are very similar, they differ in a some minor technical respects, most notably in that the passenger cars are not suspended from the wheel's circumference but are mounted on its exterior. This requires them to be stabilised mechanically, making observation wheels a more technically complex form of the Ferris wheel.

Ferris wheel - Double and Triple Wheels

In the mid to late 1970's, coaster giant Intamin AG invented a new twist on the common ferris wheel, using long arms to hold the massive wheels, they created a way to load and unload ferris wheels quicker. In 1976, 2 Sky Whirls opened at Marriott's Great America (IL, CA) and were the first triple wheels. One was also installed at Paramount's Kings Island in Ohio. Triple Wheels were attached to three long arms and when loading/unloading passengers, the massive structure would rotate and bring another wheel of cars to the ground. Today, none of them operate.

See also

• Roue De Paris
• Steiger-60-metres Ferris Wheel
• Hablützel Ferris Wheel
• Jupiter Ferris Wheel
• Europa Ferris Wheel
• Sky Whirl
• Transportable Ferris-Wheels in Germany

Ferris wheel - External link

• Ferris wheel patents
• Bellevue Ferris wheel at Luxembourg Schueberfouer
• Information about a Triple Wheel, Sky Whirl

Categories: Amusement rides | Ferris wheels

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Ferris wheel", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki