, formerly known as
Finnair SkyWheel, is the only Ferris wheel in the world with a
sauna in one of its gondola cabins.
Indoor Ferris wheels At some malls and amusement parks, indoor Ferris wheels were realized. The largest of its kind has a diameter of and is situated in the high
Alem Cultural and Entertainment Center in
Ashgabat.
Motorised capsules Wheels with passenger cars mounted externally to the rim and independently rotated by electric motors, as opposed to wheels with cars suspended from the rim and kept upright by gravity, are uncommon. Typically, they are called 'Observation wheels,' but there is no standardised terminology. Only a few Ferris wheels with motorised capsules have been built. • The
Bay Glory is China's first giant observation wheel with motorised capsules. • The
Ain Dubai, world's current tallest observation wheel. • The
High Roller, world's tallest from 2014 to 2021, has externally mounted motorised capsules of a
transparent spherical design, and is described as both a Ferris wheel and an observation wheel by the media. • The
Singapore Flyer has
cylindrical externally mounted motorised capsules and is described as an observation wheel by its operators, but was also credited as "world's largest Ferris wheel" by the
media when it opened in 2008. • The
London Eye, typically described as a "giant Ferris wheel" by the media, has
ovoidal externally mounted motorised capsules and is the "world's tallest cantilevered observation wheel" according to its operator. ), tallest in the
Southern Hemisphere, in 2008 • The
Melbourne Star (previously the Southern Star) in
Australia has
ovoidal externally mounted motorised capsules. Its operators describe it as "the only observation wheel in the southern hemisphere", but also as a Ferris wheel by the media. • The
Nanjing OCT Funland Ferris Wheel is China's second giant observation wheel with motorised capsules, which has passed national inspections in early 2023 and is about to open to the public. of the proposed
New York Wheel also show a wheel equipped with externally mounted motorised capsules.
Centreless wheels , a tall centreless wheel at
Tokyo Dome City in Japan In the centreless (sometimes called hubless or spokeless) wheel design, there is no central hub, and the rim of the wheel stays fixed in place. Instead, each car travels around the rim. The first centreless wheel built was the
Big O at
Tokyo Dome City in Japan. Its height has since been surpassed by the high
Bailang River Bridge Ferris Wheel on the upper deck of the Bailang River Bridge in
Shandong Province, China, which opened in 2017. The first centreless wheel in North America opened in January 2019 at the indoor Méga Parc in
Quebec City, Canada. The wheel at Méga Parc was designed and manufactured by Larson International.
Transportable wheels Transportable Ferris wheels are designed to be operated at multiple locations, whereas fixed wheels are usually intended for permanent installation. Small transportable designs may be permanently mounted on
trailers, and can be moved intact. Larger transportable wheels are designed to be repeatedly dismantled and rebuilt, some using water ballast instead of the permanent foundations of their fixed counterparts. Larger transportable wheels were designed with a self-erecting mechanism in the absence of mobile cranes reaching high enough since 1958 in Europe. Spokes must be stiff enough to carry their own weight and assemble the wheel without auxiliary scaffolding. Fixed wheels are also sometimes dismantled and relocated. Larger examples include the original
Ferris Wheel, which operated at two sites in
Chicago, Illinois, and a third in
St. Louis, Missouri;
Technocosmos/Technostar, which moved to
Expoland,
Osaka, after
Expo '85,
Tsukuba, Ibaraki, for which it was built, ended; and
Cosmo Clock 21, which added onto its original height when erected for the second time at
Minato Mirai 21,
Yokohama, in 1999. The world's tallest transportable wheel is the
Bussink Design R80XL. , a
Ronald Bussink R60 transportable wheel, at
Geleen in the Netherlands in 2005 One of the most famous transportable wheels is the
Roue de Paris, originally installed on the
Place de la Concorde in
Paris for the 2000
millennium celebrations. Roue de Paris left
France in 2002 and in 2003–04 operated in
Birmingham and
Manchester,
England. In 2005 it visited first
Geleen then
Amsterdam,
Netherlands, before returning to England to operate at
Gateshead. In 2006 it was erected at the
Suan Lum Night Bazaar in
Bangkok,
Thailand, and by 2008 had made its way to
Antwerp,
Belgium. Roue de Paris is a
Ronald Bussink series R60 design using of water ballast to provide a stable base. The R60 weighs , and can be erected in 72 hours and dismantled in 60 hours by a specialist team. Transport requires seven 20-foot container lorries, ten open trailer lorries, and one closed trailer lorry. Its 42-passenger cars can be loaded either 3 or 6 at a time; each car can carry 8 people. Bussink R60 wheels have operated in Australia (
Brisbane), Canada (
Niagara Falls), France (
Paris), Malaysia (
Kuala Lumpur & Malacca), México (
Puebla), UK (
Belfast,
Birmingham,
Manchester,
Sheffield), US (
Atlanta,
Myrtle Beach), and elsewhere. Other notable transportable wheels include the
Steiger Ferris Wheel, which was the world's tallest transportable wheel when it began operating in 1980. It has 42 passenger cars, and weighs 450 tons. On October 11, 2010, it collapsed at the Kramermarkt in
Oldenburg,
Germany, during deconstruction.
Double and triple wheels A double Ferris wheel with a horizontal turntable was patented in 1939 by John F. Courtney, working for Velare & Courtney. In Courtney's design, there were two independent Ferris wheels, each rotating at either end of a cantilever arm. The cantilever arm was supported at its midpoint by a tall vertical support, and the arm itself rotated about its middle pivot point. The design was similar to the earlier Aeriocycle, but the double wheel patented by Courtney allowed the cantilever arm to make a complete rotation, while the Aeriocycle was limited to a seesaw motion. Courtney continued to file additional patents on improved designs through the 1950s to make them more portable, and at about the same time, the Velare brothers patented the "Space Wheel", a side-by-side double with four total Ferris wheels. The design was later sold to the
Allan Herschell Company in 1959 and marketed as the "Sky Wheel"; the first sale as the Sky Wheel was to 20th Century Rides in October 1960. The Sky Wheel seated up to 32 riders in 16 two-person cars, with 8 cars per wheel, and riders reached a peak of approximately . The height and popularity of the Sky Wheel was eclipsed by larger single wheels in the late 1980s and early 1990s; it has since largely disappeared from common use. , there are four known Sky Wheels that remain in operation. In March 1966, Thomas Glen Robinson and Ralph G. Robinson received a patent for a Planetary Amusement Ride, a distinct double-wheel design. In the Robinsons' patent, the cantilever arm was bent at a slightly obtuse angle, and the cars were carried on a spoked "spider" rotating structure at each end of the cantilever. With the obtuse-angle cantilever, one spider could be lowered to the ground in a horizontal plane so that all the cars on that spider could be unloaded and loaded simultaneously, while the spider on the other end of the cantilever would continue to rotate in a near-vertical plane. Robinson sold two of these rides – Astrowheel, which operated at the former
Six Flags AstroWorld in
Houston, Texas, and
Galaxy, which operated at
Six Flags Magic Mountain in
Valencia, California. Both were manufactured by Astron International Corporation. Astrowheel was part of the original lineup of rides when Astroworld opened in 1968; it was removed in 1981 to make way for the Warp 10 ride. Astrowheel had an eight-spoked spider at the end of each arm, and each tip had a separate car for eight cars in total on each end. In contrast, Galaxy had double the capacity with a four-spoked spider at the end of each arm; each tip bore an independent four-spoked sub-spider for sixteen cars in total on each end. Like Astrowheel, Galaxy was part of the lineup at Magic Mountain when the park opened in 1971, and was removed in 1980 when Six Flags took over ownership of both parks. File:Giant Wheel.jpg|
Giant Wheel, a Waagner-Biro/Intamin double wheel File:Scorpion (Abandoned) (23706758666).jpg|Abandoned Scorpion at
Parque de la Ciudad (2015) File:Sky Whirl 2.jpg|
Sky Whirl, a triple wheel at
Gurnee Swiss broker
Intamin marketed a similar series of double wheels manufactured by
Waagner-Biro, comprising a vertical column supporting a straight cantilever arm, with each end of the cantilever arm ending in a spoked Ferris wheel. The first Intamin product was
Giant Wheel at
Hersheypark in
Hershey, Pennsylvania, which operated from 1973 to 2004. moved to
Wonderland Sydney and operated 1989–2004), Scorpion (
Parque de la Ciudad,
Buenos Aires, Argentina; 1982–2003), and Double Wheel (
Kuwait Entertainment City,
Kuwait City, Kuwait; 1984–91). A triple variant was custom designed for the
Marriott Corporation and debuted at both Marriott's Great America parks (now
Six Flags Great America,
Gurnee, Illinois, and
California's Great America,
Santa Clara) in 1976 as
Sky Whirl. Each ride had three main components: the three spiders/wheels with their passenger cars; the triple-spoked supporting arm; and the single central supporting column. Each wheel rotated about one of the three ends of the supporting arm. The supporting arm would, in turn, rotate about its central hub as a single unit at the top of the supporting column. The axis about which the supporting arm turned was offset from vertical (i.e., the plane of rotation was not horizontal), so that as the supporting arm rotated, each wheel was raised and lowered. When lowered, one wheel was horizontal at ground level. At the same time, the other wheels remained raised and continued to rotate in a near-vertical plane at considerable height. The lowered horizontal wheel was brought to a standstill for simultaneous loading and unloading of all its passenger cars. The Sky Whirl was also known as a triple Ferris wheel, Triple Giant Wheel, or Triple Tree Wheel; it was in height. The Sky Whirl in Santa Clara was filmed for a memorable rescue scene in
Beverly Hills Cop III (renamed to "The Spider" for the film). The Santa Clara ride, renamed Triple Wheel in post-Marriott years, closed on September 1, 1997. The Gurnee ride closed in 2000. or
coaster wheel) differs from a conventional Ferris wheel in that some or all of its passenger cars are not fixed directly to the rim of the wheel, but instead slide on rails between the rim and the hub as the wheel rotates. The two most famous eccentric wheels are
Wonder Wheel, at
Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park,
Coney Island, US, and
Pixar Pal-A-Round (previously Sun Wheel and Mickey's Fun Wheel), at
Disney California Adventure, US. The latter is a replica of the former. There is a second replica in
Yokohama Dreamland,
Japan. Inspired by
Coney Island's 1920 Wonder Wheel, it was designed by
Walt Disney Imagineering and
Waagner Biro, completed in 2001 as the Sun Wheel, later refurbished and reopened in 2009 as Mickey's Fun Wheel, and again rethemed as Pixar Pal-A-Round in 2018. File:Ferris.jpg|Hermann Eccentric Ferris Wheel with sliding cars, from US patent 1354436, 1915; forerunner of the 1920 Wonder Wheel, there is no record of it ever being built File:WonderWheelNewYork.jpg|
Wonder Wheel, a tall eccentric wheel at
Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park,
Coney Island, was built in 1920 by the Eccentric Ferris Wheel Company File:ParadisePier2010.JPG|
Disney California Adventure's Pixar Pal-A-Round, an eccentric wheel modelled on Wonder Wheel, was built in 2001 as Sun Wheel and became Mickey's Fun Wheel in 2009 and currently
Pixar Pal-A-Round in 2018 ==Gallery of notable wheels==