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Disney Goes Boom!

Posted by michael on from the time-on-target dept.

BoomZilla writes "Reading Disney's alliteratively titled Practically Perfect Pyrotechnics introduces the latest in firework launch technology. Gone are the 'light blue touch paper and retire a safe distance' days. Shells are now launched using compressed air. No burning black powder means no smoke drifting over the residential neighborhoods, plus a safer show. Best of all the new system is more precise and can launch shells higher than black powder, enabling spectacular new effects. An additional article: The future of theme park fireworks covers some of the pros and cons of compressed air launch systems." We mentioned this earlier.

4 of 198 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Beer-can mortars anyone? by RPI+Geek · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My potato guns use a customized ignition like what you're describing. The guns themselves are PVC, and the ignition is a camera flash circuit wired through a car ignition coil, which goes into a spark plug. Hairspray shoots the potatoes a good 150 yards if you wedge them in there enough.

    Slightly more on-topic though, a friend of mine has a real nice compressed air potato gun that has an electronically triggered poppet valve. Despite the fact that his gun cost much more and is so much more complex, mine shoots more rapidly, farther, and louder. They both get a nice cloud of smoke out the barrel after the shot though. His because of the rapid decompression, and mine because of the burning hairspray. Surprisingly, we have mutual respect for each other's designs and we don't really compete with each other so much as help with design and construction problems.

    My next gun will be compressed air, and once I figure it out with PVC, I'm moving on to stainless steel to hopefully get a supersonic potato (or other projectile) gun :-)

    --

    - "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
  2. old news twice over by mrn121 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When I read this article the first time, I emailed it to a friend of mine who works in the Pyrotechnics division at Disney World, and he replied saying that he didn't know what prompted them to write that article when they did -- Disney has been using that technology for several years now. Oh well, I guess old news is still news. Maybe it was just a slow news day the first time /. had that article, and an even slower news day this time...

  3. Re:Looks Great, Less Smogging by RWerp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So what? The worst environmental hazard connected to fireworks are elements like barium needed to make those colorful flames. This Disney technology won't change it.

    --
    "Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
  4. Disney is losing. by tepples · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They've been hemoraging cash on movies though

    Darn right:

    • Disney has shut down its cel animation studios and switched to a CG format (ever noticed how Mickey and Minnie tilt their heads down when facing the camera?), under a misguided belief about how the Pixar co-productions beat Disney's recent cel-animated productions at the box office. Disney will already be bleeding by the time its animation division realizes that Pixar's movies had a plot.
    • Pixar has only two movies left with Disney, titled The Incredibles and Cars. Once these complete their theatrical and home-video runs, Disney will be bleeding even more.
    • Disney relies on its back catalog for revenue. Watch Disney start bleeding again in 2023 when the Supreme Court invokes three strikes (hinted at in the Eldred opinion) against the Chastity Bono Act and a revamped Mickey Mouse joins the supporting cast in other animation studios' films. (Trademark law potentially bars other studios from casting Mickey in a leading role.)