Delta Dreamflight

Delta Dreamflight
Magic Kingdom
Area	Tomorrowland
Coordinates	28.418267°N 81.579595°W
Status	Closed
Opening date	June 23, 1989
Closing date	January 5, 1998
Replaced	If You Had Wings/If You Could Fly
Replaced by	Take Flight; Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin
General statistics
Attraction type	Dark ride
Manufacturer	Arrow Development
Designer	WED Enterprises
Theme	Flight
Music	The Dreamflight Song by Edo Guidotti
Vehicle type	Omnimover
Riders per vehicle	2-3

Delta Dreamflight was an attraction located in Tomorrowland at the Magic Kingdom inside the Walt Disney World Resort, and was sponsored by Delta Air Lines. Dreamflight replaced an attraction called If You Could Fly (originally If You Had Wings), sponsored by Eastern Air Lines.

Overview

Dreamflight used the same basic Omnimover ride system that other Disney rides utilize today. It was a pop-up book version of the history of flight using simplistic sets, some Audio-Animatronics and projection effects. Riders passed through scenes of barnstormers, an M-130, Tokyo and Paris in the 1930s, the jet age, and the future of air travel, and appeared to enter a working jet engine.

Scrapped Disneyland plan

After Delta Dreamflight at Magic Kingdom closed in 1998 to be replaced by Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin which opened in November of that same year . Disney was making the plan of replacing the Circle-Vision 360° theater which was showing American Journeys at the time and Disney hoping for their new ride to be an Omnimover dark ride like the Haunted Mansion in New Orleans Square and due to Delta Dreamflight just meeting the space requirements for it. But the plan was scrapped due to multiple reasons such as not being to able to make a plan with Delta and changes with the Tomorrowland 2055 plan. This was mainly due to a new ride that Walt Disney Imagineering was making for the new Tomorrowland overhaul known as Tomorrowland 2055, which would involve using the Circle-Vision 360° Theater and the old PeopleMover track for a new thrill ride known as Rocket Rods.

Ride description

Guests entered the building into a small queue designed to look like an airport boarding terminal. The front-end nose and cockpit of an actual Delta 767 was situated on the left entering the queue, "passengers" appearing as though they were actually boarding a jetliner. The Delta jet was marked as "The Spirit of Delta" in bright gold. As guests made their way into the queue opposite the jet, they entered a terminal gate with posters on the wall that included many exciting and exotic destinations of the world. Eventually, the guests would make their way back up the terminal gate and enter the side of the jet into a mirrored hallway with bright blue, green, red and yellow neon lights. As guests walked up a ramp they entered the boarding area which was set up in a very similar fashion to the Haunted Mansion. As the bright blue "cars" rode past one would walk onto a moving escalator ramp and "board" the "flight".

Guests first encountered a giant mural depicting the golden era of aviation in America, adorning the wall in the first room. The next room that guests entered on the attraction had a giant, pop-up book style spinning room which had a hot air balloon and other flying contraptions spinning by them as the "Dreamflight" song played. Then guests entered the second room of the "flight" which was designed to look as though they were in a giant crop field of the American mid-west in the roaring 1920s. Biplanes, stunt planes and barnstormers were flying all over the ceiling above a flying circus air show. The pilot of a plane had crashed through a barn and was stuck in the rafters on the ceiling of the barn. The third room was just a big screen with a film clip of an aerial stuntman standing on top of a prop plane while it performed dizzying stunts in the air.

Next came the era of air travel, where commercial flights started taking passengers all over the world. Passing by a sign with a rotating globe that advertised air travel, guests would hear an announcer notifying them that their Dreamflight was about embark for the era of air travel and that their flight would span the world, making brief stops in Tokyo, Japan, and Paris, France. Guests would then ride out onto a dock and into the fuselage of Boeing 314 Flying Boat. Inside, they could briefly see the elegant first-class dining area. Then, guests would find themselves in Tokyo, where a gentleman in a suit stood on the guest's left in a garden where he was being greeted by the Japanese locals. Coming up on the right hand side below the guests were the rooftops and the skyline of Paris, France. Guests "flew" past the rooftops of a Paris street and could see quaint little shops and tourists sitting below on the patio of a French cafe. As the guests moved ahead, they would encounter a rotating sign saying, "Jet Age". and a male or female voice said, "Ladies and Gentlemen. Your Dreamflight will depart immediately for the future. Please prepare for supersonic takeoff". To the immediate left on the wall was a giant painting of a jetliner taking off towards the sky.

As the guests made their way forward, a giant spinning light along with fog and fans gave the impression that they were about to actually enter the inside of a turbo jet engine and quite literally entering the Jet Age. The sounds of an engine roaring to life and taking off then blasted out over the sound system. As guests entered a gigantic film projection room, they saw footage of a plane taking off a runway to simulate their flight's departure, eventually lifting off and flying through the clouds in the sky. The next room was another film clip on the right which showed computer-generated clips of the guests above the earth, flying in a canyon above water and eventually flying in a futuristic city with fireworks exploding all around them; the first theatrical-format 70mm computer animations ever produced. The final room of the attraction was a giant pop-up book with destinations spread out on huge pages, while a little projection of a Delta jet flew by above the display into the clouds. As guest rode past, the book's pages would turn to show off different destinations.

The exit area was a room with the Delta logo painted on the wall and with more posters of destinations from around the world to visit.

Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover dioramas

If You Had Wings had diorama windows that allowed riders on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover to look down into the ride. When If You Had Wings was replaced with Delta Dreamflight, the dioramas on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover changed. One diorama window was removed in the process:

The first window was replaced with backlit panels depicting the ride's barnstormer scene.
The second window looked into the Parisian Excursion scene, from a viewpoint which heavily distorted the tableau's forced perspective.
The third window would have had riders looking directly into an extremely bright light and so was completely obscured with plywood and black fabric.

Sponsorship ends

Delta sponsored the ride from its opening in 1989 through the end of 1995. The decision not to continue sponsorship was made in part due to the costs of sponsoring the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.[1] From January 1, 1996 to June 4, 1996 the attraction was renamed simply "Dreamflight" while its future was being determined. On June 5, 1996 it reopened as Take Flight. It was only a slight refurbishment; all references to Delta were removed and the attraction's popular theme songs were rerecorded. Take Flight closed its doors for good in January 1998, ending the dynasty of flight-based attractions to occupy the space. It was replaced by the interactive dark ride Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, which was inspired by Disney/Pixar's Toy Story films.

Attraction facts