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Disney Launches Fireworks With Compressed Air
rtphokie writes "When Disney debuted its new firework show at Disneyland recently, they also debuted some new technology which uses compressed air to lift fireworks. This virtually eliminates the need for smoke-producing black powder and other materials at launch, significantly reducing ground-level smoke, and apparently: 'Disney is in the process of donating all seven patents associated with the new air launch technology to a non-profit organization so these patents can be licensed to other pyrotechnic providers'. Something to think about for those of us attending fireworks shows this weekend in the U.S."
That don't actually make that loud of a bang when they are shot, and regulations require crowds to be at sufficient distance from firing sites (at least in MN) that you rarely actually hear them being shot. You only hear the explosions of the shells at altitude.
- Invented/installed the fireflys in Pirates of the Carribean
- Came up with putting the green-eyed rats at the end of Pirates as you go up back to ground level. We have a bunch of them at home and put them in windows and under the Christmas tree
- Invented the light flicker-ers that have been used at Dland for almost 30 years to make plain lightbulbs in opaque houseings look like they are flame
Tell your dad he's my new hero for today. Those three things are, no joke, three specific details that my brother and I were discussing a few months ago when we were talking about the old-school Disneyland detail.
On a pedantic note, most aerial fireworks, at least in the US, are not rockets. They're fired from mortars, think cannons pointed up.
In case anyone is interested, here is the fireworks page from How Stuff Works.
If they are using nitrogen, it's a non-issue.
From what I understand the fireworks are self-igniting based on input from some onboard logic so it's not like you have to worry about blowing them out - I'd use nitrogen gas.
Having self-igniting fireworks is potentially very cool, especially if you could get a nice cheap altimeter on a chip. If you coupled that with an accelerometer on a chip (analog devices makes a couple of different models) you could detect launch, free fall, terminal velocity, and make sure that the fireworks are over a certain altitude before firing.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Actually, they don't use anything to fire 1000 pound projectiles from the Iowa. She was decommissioned in 1990 after the accident in #2 turret and never repaird. She's been in San Francisco since then, and would require tens of millions of dollars in repairs to be considered battleworthy, probably including complete replacement of the damaged turret.
And the Iowa-class battleships had 16" guns, not 21", firing projectiles ranging from 1900 to 2700 pounds propelled by 550 to 650 pounds of powder. The largest deployed naval guns were on the Japanese Yamato-class battleships, and were 18.1" bore diameter.
They are impressive, though.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
The actual detonation is probably handled by a MagicFire device.
People like Mike Hiskey at Los Alamos have been contracted by Disney to make fireworks that are based on organic molecules, and use smaller amounts of chemical salts for the color. He also works on high-nitrogen explosives, along with several others working in the specialized field of novel explosives design and synthesis.
But they aren't putting it in the public domain.
Strangly, not really true.
Although fire is a big risk, you are all (hopefully) shooting with the same gear on as a low-budget fire department, so the odds of you catching on fire are pretty slim. The entire time you are shooting (if it's a hand-fire), you are being rained on by burning embers (barring good winds)
It's the concussion of the charge that will get you. Whenever you are loading or handling fireworks, you always keep your back to an open area, so if something happens you get thrown away instead of thrown into something solid. The buildings that they build fireworks in will blow to pieces much easier than any normal building so that anyone inside doesn't get compressed by all that pesky expanding gas.
I've only done around a dozen shoots, and am not a licenced pyrotechnician, but on two of the shoots we have had misfires. One was one of my tubes on a hand-fire, and fortunately blew out the other side of the rack (it was my first shoot). The second misfire was on a finale so everyone was quite a ways away, we didn't even really realize what happened until we were cleaning up and found a 2-by-4 twenty yards or so away and a half of a rack with a pretty much destroyed tube. Fireworks are fun.
I do some work for the Mouse. They've been working on this for several years. When I heard about it, the solution was similar to a gatling gun. All shells for a show could be fired from a single piece of equipment mounted on a truck bed. Add space saving to the list of advantages.
The Disney gatlin gun uses compressed air to launch shells in the 4 to 8 inch range. At least this was the sizes they launched a few years ago when I saw the system, maybe they they go up to 10 inch but Disney doesn't shoot many 12 inch shells anyway.
They have a large several hundred horsepower air compressor at each air launch system for the lifting oumph. No nitrogen involved as it is too expensive to use in the quantities required.
The shells are plastic encased shells that are a little enlongated (not sperical like normal shells, think eggish). Inside each shell is a little electronic circuit and electric match. The circuit is engergized by a inductive coil in the base of the fiberglass launch tube. The circuit doesn't use altitude per se but a timed interval instructed in the coding pulse at the launch event.
The bulk of the show will still be fired normally as they have lots of ground level effects and lots of smaller shells that would be too numerous to fire in the air launch system unless they have made great strides in its firing rate. I shot many a show that had 100 of 3 and 4 inch shells going up per second.
Still plenty of smoke to be smelled around the lake in Epcot.
Ken