Sky Tower
Tuesday, 10th June 2008 by Alex Turnbull
The 12th tallest member of the World Federation of Great Towers, Auckland's Sky Tower is 328 metres tall (from ground level to the top of the mast), which makes it the tallest free-standing structure in the Southern Hemisphere1.
Friend of Google Sightseeing, Nev, is currently doing a 29000 mile trip around the planet, and yesterday (or today, or possibly tomorrow depending on your time zone) decided to leap off this very tower. Twice.
He was able to achieve this death-defying feat thanks to a "fan descender free fall system" that controlled his descent over 192 metres! Here's a picture of someone engaging in this utterly ridiculous pastime.
If you're thinking this all sounds a bit familiar, then you may have read our 2005 post on the Macau Sky Tower, which was commissioned by billionaire Stanley Ho Hung-Sun after he saw the Auckland Sky Tower, and decided he wanted one for himself. A little bit taller, naturally.
You can read more about the Auckland Sky Tower at Wikipedia, or entertain yourself with posts about other members of the World Federation of Great Towers that we've featured in the past.
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You'll recall that antenna are allowed in height category 4 of the world's tallest buildings. ↩︎
About the author
Alex has decided that his title will be Senior Vice President of Stuff.
I’ve been to the SkyTower and it is truly awful, there are puke stains on the carpets and most of the glass is so scratched it is impossible to see out of.
I’ve been there too, and loved it. They say Auckland is the city of sails, but really it’s the city of rainbows — we saw one every day there and several from in the Sky Tower.
They also have part of the floor replaced with glass. I know it’s as strong as the surrounding concrete, but I couldn’t make myself walk across it.
@Matt: Yeah, the glass flooring is pretty scratched but the glass you spend most of your time looking out of is perfectly clear.
@John: The glass floor is perfectly sound. I jumped up and down on it a few times to make sure.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and jump out of a plane.
The Sky Tower was – a bit like the rest of Auckland – quite disappointing to me, especially compared to the rest of New Zealand.
@Nev: Tell me how that jumping out of a plane went! I’ve done it at Lake Taupo, and it’s totally craaaaazy! 🙂
I would also like to boast about my visit to Auckland and New Zealand – after all, it’s the other side of the world (if you look at it from this side of the world, that is). I didn’t visit the Sky Tower, but you can get a nice view over the city for free from some of the old volcanic hilltops like this one here: https://www.googlesightseeing.com/maps?p=&c=&t=k&hl=en&ll=-36.876162,174.765626&z=17
@Romanov: The skydiving was simply the best sngle thing that I’ve ever done. 15,000 feet and 65 seconds of freefall over the Remarkables. Stunning.
Hmm, what a unique and original design.