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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."
Part of the whole fireworks experience for me, and I'm sure for others, is the bombarding of the senses: sight, sound, and even smell.
Fireworks with no gunpowder smell? With no black snow falling? I have so many memories of watching the fireworks over the lake in Epcot, the clouds of smoke only visible when the fireworks explode and light up the sky.
Sounds like something I could just watch on my computer or TV, if I wanted. I'll pass. It was bad enough that they had to take away Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, now they're robbing of me of smoke filled fireworks.
...how long it will be before you'll be able to buy one of those compressed air launchers at rest stops in South Carolina along route 95.
The cloud that's created from launch turns into the color of the current firework going off. It just adds to the experience. So does the smell of the gunpowder. I guess that's why laser shows bore me.
I also hate the crowds at firework shows. That's another rant.
I work at Disneyland, and this is something that has been talked about quite a bit at work. I do crowd control for Fantasmic!, which also works during the fireworks to set up standing areas and keep walkways clear. The two reasons for using compressed air was, like the article said, to reduce smoke at launch, and to reduce the noise of them being launched. The former was achieved, but the latter seems to have turned for the worse. The fireworks do make quite a noise when they launch, but they seem to make an even louder 'boom' while bursting in the air. The residents in the surrounding neighborhoods have been complaining for years about the noise these fireworks produce, and the new series 'Disney's Imagine - A Fantasy In The Sky' was supposed to calm the burning tempers. It seems to have failed. Complaining about the fireworks at Disneyland is like complaining about living next to a railroad track. They were there when you moved in, so you must have known what you were getting yourself into. Oh, and by the way, the new firework show is quite lame. The music played has nothing to do with the fireworks that are going off, nor does it seem to 'fit in.' Okay, so maybe the music from the Lion King (The Circle Of Life) fits in, as they do launch circular fireworks, but who wants to see a hallow circle? Save your time and stress from the crowd by going to a traditional park on the 4th. It will be much more fun, I promise.
Disneyland builds/built a lot of their computer control equipment in house. My dad made a lot of it, including "Mickey's Match" - the original computer-based fireworks launch system that was programmable.
Before that, a man named Mickey (i'm not making this up, the guy's name was Mickey) physcially ran around and attempted (pretty well, from what i hear) and manually lit the fireworks to coincide with the music. Eventually, he started using electrically fired squibs. My dad's system allowed folks to pre-program sequences to launch with electrically fired squibs that would be in time with the music.
Since you didn't run to Fry's in the mid 80's to pick up a Pentium III to run Star Tours ride control (actually, Star Tours runs on a 486 for its ride control, with one redundant computer for each simulator), a ton of the hardware for ride control, gate counters, etc. have all be built by hand by the Disneyland Sound department and WED.
Many of the rides at Disneyland have my dad's name on the circuit boards in them.
Just about every system, even to this day - are Z80 based. Its simple, its cheap, and they are bulletproof.
Some of the Disneyland items he's made...
- 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
- Real-time population counter for Disneyland. Even went to the president's office and installed the LED display on his desk (prior to the popularization of "computer networks")
- Completed the transition of all of Disneyland's audio and attraction control tapes to solid-state ROMs for playback. They used to have rooms FULL of huge tape bins with 1" wide magtapes that would spool into a big 1" x 40" x 20" bins and be one big long lopp track - literally. This took a long time becuase back in the early 90's when they did it, they needed to send out the tapes to special subcontractors that could digitize it.
Its neet to see Disneyland, and how its starting to come back a bit after the 90's trashing by Eisner (ptooey!) now that he's been emasculated a bit. Things are getting better, and he's still making all kinds of neat stuff.
I need to get to Disneyland more often now.. i haven' been in years.. and i used to go 3 times a month when i was a kid.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Leave it to Disney to severely edit yet another Asian product...
Are you refering to Mulan? If so, Disney didn't edit it, they pretty much wrote a new work *loosely* based on the original poem (which I've read in what I'm told is a good translation into Esperanto). I found particularly funny one line in the poems that mentions Mulan leaving "little brother" behind, in the Disney movie that's her dog's name.
Still, all in all, it's probably one of my favorite Disney movies, its heroic, has a good message (particularly for little girls: you can do anything a man can do) and balances well a G rating with the harshness of war (that scene when they go into the recently hun-plundered village makes me gasp every time).
The big news is not in the compressed air:
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'.
Its nice to see a company using patents correctly, and donating them to an organization who oversees the pyrotechnic industry.
http://ayup.co.uk/shuttup/shuttup2-0.html
Falklands Island war between the UK and Argentina - the Sheffield was sunk by an Exocet SSM whose explosive payload did not detonate. The damage (and subsequent sinking) was caused by the rocket fuel.
More likely, he's referring to the fact that The Lion King is almost entirely ripped-off from a 60s Japanese TV cartoon called "Kimba the White Lion." (Even the name Simba sounds like the name of the hero from the Japanese series!)
See this page for more details about this.
To my knowledge, Mulan is 'in the clear' copyright wise, but The Lion King is obviously in violation.
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