engineering

Skylon Tower

Skylon Tower is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Skylon Tower rather than just read about it. In short: The Skylon Tower is an observation tower in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. It overlooks the American Falls, Horseshoe Falls and Niagara River.

Key takeaways

Skylon Tower belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Skylon Tower to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Skylon Tower from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Skylon Tower is an observation tower in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. It overlooks the American Falls, Horseshoe Falls and Niagara River.

History Construction of the Skylon began in May 1964. The tower was opened on October 6, 1965, by New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and Ontario Premier John Robarts. Costing $7 million at the time of its construction, the Skylon Tower was owned by a private partnership called Niagara International Centre, which was financed by Hershey Foods shareholdings of Charles Richard Reese, former co-owner of the H. B. Reese Candy Company of Hershey, Pennsylvania. Canadian Pacific Hotels (CPH) was hired to operate the tower restaurants and lounges. On October 1, 1975, CPH purchased the tower from Mr. Reese and his partners for $11 million. The tower's summit features a verdigris-green copper roof similar to CPH's other properties, including the Château Frontenac in Quebec City and the Banff Springs Hotel in Banff, Alberta. CPH owned and operated the tower until 1986, when it was sold for $18 million to two local Niagara hotel owners, John Gruyich of Michael's Inn and George Yerich of the Holiday Inn By The Falls Motel. In 1988, George Yerich bought out John Gruyich's ownership share of the Skylon for $13 million, however Milicent Gruyich continues to own the land the tower is built on. Mr. Yerich's Skylon land lease will expire in 2060, at which time the Skylon Tower will revert to total ownership by the heirs of Milicent Gruyich. While much redevelopment has taken place in the surrounding city, the Skylon Tower complex still retains much of its look and feel from the 1970s and 1980s. However the property has recently been expanded to include a 3D/4D Theatre, a Starbucks franchise, other quick-service franchises and a bridge connecting the complex with the newly completed Fallsview Casino. In August and September 2008 the roof of Skylon was restored to its original bright copper colour. The Skylon Tower is now illuminated using 12 RGB wash fixtures and projectors along with 3 image projectors.

Features Standing at 160 metres (520 ft) from street level and 236 metres (775 ft) from the bottom of the falls, the tower required approval from both Canadian and United States air transport authorities, due to its proximity to the international boundary. It was the second tower to be built using the slipform method, in which concrete is continuously poured into a form moving slowly up the tower. It was built by Pigott Construction of Hamilton, Ontario. The same methods were also used to build the Inco Superstack in Sudbury, and the CN Tower in Toronto. The tower features three outside-mounted "Yellow Bug" elevators. At the time of their construction, they were the first such elevators in Canada. They were designed, engineered and maintained by a division of the Otis Elevator Company from Hamilton, Ontario and can carry passengers to the top of the tower in 52 seconds. Unlike conventional elevators that are guided by side rails, the Skylon elevators operate with a guide rail on the backside only. Special equipment is employed to prevent the cables from becoming tangled in the wind or impeded by snow and ice in the winter. A curtain wall on the outside of the tower behind each elevator protects the counterweight and travelling cables from the elements. The tower has two restaurants at its top, the Revolving Dining Room and the upper Summit Suite Buffet. The Revolving Dining Room seats 276 people and revolves once every hour by resting on a circular rail that is propelled by a 3 horsepower (2.2 kW) motor. An observation deck sits at the tower's summit. The base of the tower features a number of gift shops, and fast food restaurants. A floor for conventions is also available, but is seldom utilized. The base of the tower also features a family entertainment centre. Historically, the arcade has featured a large number of Sega arcade games, some of which still in operation (including a "Super Deluxe" Galaxy Force II machine). In the past, the area contained an indoor amusement park with rides such as a Ferris wheel, carousel, and Sega's R360 motion simulator.

Gallery

See also Calgary Tower, a tower in Calgary, Alberta designed similarly to the Skylon Tower Casino Niagara Clifton Hill Fallsview Casino List of towers Maid of the Mist Maple Leaf Village Spanish Aerocar Tower Hotel (Niagara Falls), formerly the Konica Minolta Tower Centre

References

External links

Official website Skylon at Structurae Google Maps aerial photo Images from the Historic Niagara Digital Collections at Niagara Falls Public Library Video: "Skylon Tower elevator ride". YouTube. April 30, 2012. Video: "Populuxe in Niagara Falls (feat. Skylon Tower)". YouTube. August 20, 2012.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Skylon Tower

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Skylon Tower claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Skylon Tower before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Skylon Tower ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Skylon Tower

In research: Skylon Tower appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Skylon Tower in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Skylon Tower is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1965 establishments in Ontario, Buildings and structures in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Googie architecture, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Skylon Tower outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Skylon Tower in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Skylon Tower means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Skylon Tower out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Skylon Tower in simple terms?

The Skylon Tower is an observation tower in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. It overlooks the American Falls, Horseshoe Falls and Niagara River.

Why does Skylon Tower matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Skylon Tower?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Skylon Tower.