Orbiter (ride)

At night time, an Orbiter in full motion is a bewildering blur of lights.

In daylight, it is a little easier to see how the cars are arranged.

The Orbiter is a fairground ride invented by Richard Woolls in 1976.

It has a number of articulated arms radiating from a central rotating vertical axis. Each arm supports a cluster of cars, which are lifted through 90° into the horizontal position once the ride is spinning. At the same time, each cluster of cars rotates around its arm's axis.

Some Carnivals/Amusement Parks With these Rides

• Orbiter—Perry Fair—Perry, Georgia.
• Flying Machine (Orbiter without top)—Busch Gardens Europe.
• Orbiter—NAME (Cooke's Amusements)http://cookesamusements.com/.
• Orbiter—Seattle Center.
• Orbiter—Wade Shows.
• Sandstorm (Orbiter without top)—Busch Gardens Tampa Bay.
• Orbiter—Grays fairs—East Anglia (UK).
• Typhoon—Murphy Brothers.
• Vortex—Adventureland in UK.
• Orbiter—Mighty Bluegrass Shows, Bill Hames Shows.
• Orbiter—Strates Shows.
• Remix (Nicknamed Techno Power)—Wood Entertainment.
• Remix II—RCS Shows.
• Remix—Strates Shows.
• Remix II—Fiesta Shows.
• Orbiter—Illinois state fair.
• Orbiter—Enka Fair—Winchester, Ma.
• Extreme—John Parrish—East Anglia (UK).
• Transformer—Stanley Thurston—East Anglia (UK).
• Typhoon—Mr. Ed's Magical Midway.
• Predator—Windy City Amusements http://www.windycityamusements.com/
• Orbiter—J&J Amusements.
• Typhoon—David Rowland and sons Fun Fair.
• Extreme—Pleasure Beach, Skegness, UK.
• Orbiter—Champlain Valley Fair—Essex Junction, VT.
• Extreme Ride Orbiter—William Danter, (UK).
• Extreme Orbiter—Wayne Smith, (UK).

Trivia

• The Orbiter is made by Tivoli manufacturing, a British company. In the U.S. their representative is Amtech.
• The Orbiter comes in at least three different names. The names are the Orbiter, Predator, and Typhoon. The Orbiter and Predator both have a cylinder ball on top (if they didn't take it off), and the Typhoon has lightning bolts.
• The Orbiter/Typhoon/Predator arms don't always tilt at the same height (90%). Some might tilt all the way while others don't tilt a lot.
• Most Orbiters consist of six arms, and have three cars for each arm with up to two people sitting in each car.
• There is a metal lap bar that comes down on the car for the restraint.
• The Extreme Orbiter is actually called a Remix. It's a completely different experience. The Extreme variant of the Orbiter has much shorter arms, and are a completely different shape to that of the original Orbiter. The ram joint is located higher up on the arm, meaning at full hydraulic pressure the ride can lift the arms and gondola units through a complete 120 degree angle.
• In Scotland from 1979 to the early 80s a company called Norson Power made a few clones of the Orbiter called the Invader.The ride was almost identical in looks and motion except that it's carriages held three passengers each.

References

• National Fairground Archive history of the Orbiter
• Remix Accident