ORLANDO, July 31 — Orlando is set to become home to the tallest roller coaster in the world, with plans to build a thrill ride equal to a 27-storey drop.

Riders of The Skyscraper, set to be built at a sprawling retail and entertainment complex in Orlando called Skyplex, will experience a heart-pumping drop from 570 feet (174 metres) in the air on a vertical roller coaster that will also feature loops, dives, spirals and inversions.

Instead of covering a lot of ground, artist renderings reveal a ride that scales around and down the length of a monolithic tower in a vertical drop, a novel concept that takes up a small footprint.

When it’s completed, The Skyscraper will beat the existing record for the tallest roller coaster by 193 feet (59 metres).

The current record-holder is the Tower of Terror at the Dreamworld amusement park in Queensland, Australia.

The Orlando roller coaster will be part of a US$200 million (RM639.2 million) indoor entertainment complex dubbed Skyplex that will span 12 acres.

Another attraction is also slated for Orlando. The 400-foot-tall Orlando Eye will be located at the I-Drive 360 entertainment complex on International Drive and will feature air-conditioned glass capsules from which guests can take in the landscape. It is scheduled to open in 2015.

Skyplex is scheduled to open in 2016. — AFP-Relaxnews

*AFP-Relaxnews issued a correction for a story published June 6 about the world's tallest roller coaster in Orlando that provided incorrect information about the location of the Orlando Eye, an observation wheel which is also currently under construction.