World’s Largest Weather Vane

Wednesday, 21st January 2009 by

The world's largest weather vane can be found in Yukon, alongside the runway at Whitehorse airport, in the unusual form of a DC-3 plane.

After 28 years of service, mostly among Canada's northern communities, the plane was retired in 1970 and lay idle for a while. Volunteer effort led to its restoration and it was mounted on a carefully designed pedestal in 1981. The plane is so well balanced that a wind of only 5 knots will cause it to turn. According to Wikipedia, the DC-3 is almost 20m long, 5m high and weighs over 8000kg.

I should mention that, from what I can tell, the plane has not been officially recognised, with the Guinness World Record currently being held by a weather vane atop the Tio Pepe facility in Jerez, Spain. However, as it's somewhat smaller than a plane, and the Google images are not great, it's hard to spot. Live Maps has a clearer view.

It's difficult to find much information about the Tio Pepe weather vane - this site describes it as standing almost 40m tall (but judging from the pictures that height must includes the building it is atop) and weighing 2700kg.

In addition, there is a weather vane in Montague, MI staking a claim to be the largest, though again - at 14m tall and 8m long - it may be taller than a DC-3, but is not quite as big! The Google imagery of the town is very low resolution, but Live Maps has a pretty good bird's eye view.