It is at the heart of London on the south financial institution of the Thames , near Westminster Bridge .

Construction of the Ferris wheel was in 1998. On 10 October 1999, the construction was lifted up. The opening was delayed for visitors resulting from technical problems till 9 March 2000. The inventors had their idea throughout a contest for the Millennium celebrations brought up by the British Parliament. The London Eye was initially meant to be only for a restricted period of five years. Given it is nice success however it has survived to this day.

The London Eye has 32 absolutely air-conditioned almost fully of glass shaped gondolas, every able to accommodating up to 25 people. The glass gondolas in rotating rings are mounted so that the gondolas are always in the horizontal. The gondolas are exterior of the wheel, allowing an virtually unrestricted view. The wheel rotates at a speed of 0.26 m / s and takes a flip for about 30-forty minutes. Since the wheel has virtually by no means stops, the passengers get on whereas it's rotating, and it stops solely to allow, for instance, wheelchair access. It's powered by 4 items, each with four wheels and tires, that are set by the wheel rim and so they rotate it. General, due to this fact 4x4 = sixteen drive wheels. If the visibility is optimal, one can from the Ferris seel as much as forty km away, and amongst different issues to simply outside London it may possibly see Windsor Castle.

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The Ferris wheel was designed by architects David Marks and Julia Barfield. The design of the vehicles is from Nick Bailey . The overall construction was carried out by the Dutch design firm Hollandia. The axis of rotation and the pillars have been created by the Czech engineering firm Skoda. The capsules and the stabilization system is from the French company Sigma. The drive was developed by the Bosch subsidiary Bosch Rexroth. On 10 September 1999 the Dutch specialist firm Smit Tak with one of many largest floating cranes on this planet assembled the wheel of the London Eye to erect it, however the try failed. Solely a month later the wheel was first raised by 60 degrees. It took another week to be able to elevate it into its closing position.

The Merlin Entertainments Group owns and operates the Ferris wheel, and is sponsored by British Airways . At the opening in 1999 it was nonetheless part of the Tussauds Group and British Airways and Marks Barfield Architects household together. In 2006 Tussaud acquired the shares of the other house owners in 2007 and then itself obtained taken over by Merlin.

At the moment it's the third largest Ferris wheel within the world. By four January 2004 it was renamed the London Eye, the tallest Ferris wheel in the world, however was then overwhelmed by a new 160-meter-high Ferris wheel, the " Star of Nanchang in Nanchang China, which, in flip, with the opening of the Singapore Flyer on 1 March 2008 was additionally beaten as the largest Ferris wheel in the world.