“I have known Andreas (Project Author) for many years as a pioneer with a meticulously professional approach that turns ideas into reality. So the feasibility of ArmanKala is not an issue. I can hardly wait to see who will be first to realise the potential of this unique and compelling project.”

The ambitious and widely advanced project ArmanKala will not touch the stars, but reaching for the moon is a big challenge, too.

An aerostatic platform filled with helium is attached with three cables made of high-strength synthetic fibres. By this construction the platform follows the wind at the height of 1’500m like a ship lying at anchor. The lifting body with a volume of 100’000m3 is a perfect shaped sphere with a diameter of 60m. The illuminated surface is visible within a radius of 12km around the ground station as huge and bright as the moon.

Designed as an aerial cableway two aerodynamic formed gondola with a stabilising tail fin carry the visitors with 50km/h to the “lunar“ viewing platform, which is at a height 5 times the size of the Eiffel Tower. Arriving at the top the daily 2’500 visitors await a gently shaking partially glazed platform with a breathtaking panoramic view at the “South Pole” of the moon. Who ever wants to fly a higher game, is taken by a lift to the open “North Pole” on the top of the sphere, where the unforgettable impress-sions can be readily digested at a bar.

The counterpart of the moon – the ground or mooring station – is a circular building with a diameter of 120m, which is hemispherically covered with diaphragm like elements. Following the wind, they always keep an open path for the connecting ropes; thus the colossal-filigree building appears like the moving eye of a chameleon. For maintenance or during a storm the elements of the hemisphere can be opened in a way to enclose and secure the whole lifting body. The access and exit for the visi-tors takes place through submerged, transparent tubes. As a contrast to the attract-tion, the huge aquarium appears as a counterweight and a pivot bearing with mini-mized friction.

ArmanKala is not the extrapolation of an already existing attraction. It is the symbol of an agile – movable and simultaneously secure – solid, novel conception, which bursts all previous scales regarding height and minimum use of material and energy. ArmanKala brings together breakeven performance with poetical charm. Expressing structurally engineered and entrepreneurial spiritedness, ArmanKala represents an ambitious, national identity – comparable with the Eiffel Tower 121 years ago.

The essential elements of ArmanKala are patented, extensive engineering simulations are available, the aerodynamics of the gondola were tested in a wind tunnel, the performance of the key components has been verified and optimized in a 1:10 scaled model; key suppliers have been selected.