The Global Lifting Industry’s Longest Running Magazine, Serving Since 1972.
In 2006, China completed The Star of Nanchang, which at 160 meters high cut short the 135-meter London Eye’s tenure as world’s tallest. But it is a traditional, compression-braced Ferris wheel built in the middle of nowhere. Nanchang was sleepy backwater until Ford built an automobile factory in 1995. The city got rich overnight and the city fathers commissioned the project, perhaps in a fit of civic pride.
In November 2007,construction crews in Beijing broke ground on the 208m bicycle-shape Great Beijing Wheel, now scheduled to open in 2009. The builder is the Shanghai Construction (Group) General Company. Several foreign veterans of London Eye worked on the project, including the Dutch engineers IV Bouw, Poma of France (observation capsules), and Bosch Rexroth (hydraulic drives).
