Texas Star Ferris Wheel
Friday, 22nd July 2005 by James Turnbull
Here at Google Sightseeing we're big fans of structures that hold the title of "world's largest something" and at 212 feet (65 meters) The Texas Star at Fair Park is the largest ferris wheel in the Western Hemisphere. The Texas Star opened in 1985 and has a maximum capacity of 260 persons (ground level shots).
Sadly there's no high-res shots of the world's largest ferris wheel, the Tempozan Harbor Village Ferris wheel in Japan.
Thanks: Chris & Jon
Yeah! One of mine got posted.
Sorry for the worthless post, I’m just excited that there really are people on the other end of the submission button.
I was going to bitch about the London Eye, but it turns out it’s 0.12 degrees east. Ho hum.
there are reasonably firm plans for a ‘London Eye’ here in Melbourne, AU. Could be a while before it turns up on google maps though!
Speaking about structures, may I take the liberty to show you one from WWII, more specifically from D-Day? (I just discovered Google Earth and I’m over the top with all this spiffy aerial viewing.)
See here: View Placemark (Is there any possibility to remove the “Paris, France” bit in the URL? Had to guide Google Maps a bit at first, that’s the reason it stays in there I suppose).
What you see is part of a concrete structure used for the debarcation in Normandy, before the coast of Arromanches to be exact. They were sort of concrete “boxes” that floated to France all the way from England and where set to sink once they arrived.
Move up a bit to the North you’ll see a whole line of them, I think the ones to the West were part of the actual part of the harbor where ships could moore.
Best regards and thanks a lot for this site!
In response to Flex Flint:
What you can see are called Mulbery Harbours. They were built on the south coast of the UK, and then towed across the channel and sunk in position, to provide a suitable landing/staging area to unload the numerous ships that formed part of that massive fleet.
I believe that they arrived on D+2 or D+3 (once the main invasion had moved inland a fair way)
Strictly speaking, the London Eye isn’t a Ferris Wheel anyway as it doesn’t have baskets that hang underneath, and is only supported on one site.
I guess it might depend on the definition of Ferris Wheel. London Eye is 135 metres tall and is in the Western Hemisphere (its west of Greenwich Observatory). Texas doesnt always have the biggest things then!
Thinking about it, there’s no way the London Eye’s EAST of Greenwich – surely it must be in the western hemisphere? It’s still not a Ferris Wheel though.
Sorry, posted my second comment before I’d seen Simon’s!
Check out this 95 meters wheel. It’s Eurowheel, at Mirabilandia park near Ravenna, Italy.
View Placemark
Simon Williams
The saying is “Things are bigger in Texas” not biggest. We’re not that concieted.
David Patrick: thanks for the explanation, we’ve got a lot to thank those people for.
Flint–who has just discovered that (in Google Earth), you can put yourself in a hypersonic orbit around our globe. Always wanted to be an astronaut :). Interesting fact: if you fly over both poles the compass reacts as it should. You can gain amazing speeds too! 🙂
It’s a strange thing, this claim of “the world’s largest ferris wheel’. When I checked the data for the ferris wheel I thought was the largest, The Odaiba Ferris Wheel in Tokyo, it says it’s 115 m tall with a diameter of 100 m, so it equals the Osaka one in diameter and edges it out in height.
But I can’t confirm that it’s the world’s tallest though.
View Placemark
What’s a Whell?
lol yeah should probably fix that typo in the title. i’m suprised it took so long to get noticed.
Me too.
americans always claim to have “the biggest” somehting in the world..jeesh, like come on
What typo? 😉