#D23 EXPO 2021 UPGRADE#

#D23 EXPO 2021 UPGRADE#

The upgrade and improved comfort meant that Disney was able to do business while in transit. The plane was taken to Pacific Airmotive Corporation, an outfitter, and turned into a custom interior with 15 seats, three couches, two bathrooms, a fully functional galley with an oven and a cockpit with all-weather flight instruments. In his podcast interview, Malone said that the aircraft, a transcontinental plane with long-range tanks, could easily fly from Burbank to New York or Burbank to Orlando.

The 1963 Gulfstream was pressurized and had 10 hours of fuel on board. The plane was affectionately known as “The Mouse” or “Mickey Mouse One”. This meant that the aircraft was not a converted airliner or a previous Second World War plane.

He said that Disney chose this specific aircraft because it was Grumman’s first purpose-built business aircraft. Mark himself flew for Disney for a number of years. The Gulfstream was able to cruise at 350 mph at up to 30,000 feet. This time, they chose a 1963 Gulfstream, an upgrade from the Beechcraft Queen Air Model 80. It was not long before Disney and his partners realized that they needed a bigger aircraft to go to The New York World’s Fair in 1964 so that they could promote Walt Disney Productions. Mark Malone, a former Disney pilot and one of the three generations of the Malone family who flew for Walt Disney, revealed during an Aviation Week podcast episode that when communicating with pilots, air controllers would actually say something along the lines of, “Hey, Queen Air 234 Mickey Mouse, climb to 3000.” 1963 Gulfstream by Grumman Aircraft According to Waymarking, a website that locates and marks landmarks and objects worldwide, MM stood for “Mickey Mouse.”

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) assigned the aircraft a tail number of N123MM. It had a top speed of 247 mph, and a list price of $135,000. In February 1963, Disney ordered an eight passenger Beechcraft Queen Air Model 80. One of Disney’s grandchildren saw the plane and asked him why he did not have one of his own. In a December 2022 Palm Springs Life Magazine feature, American theme park designer Bob Gurr recalled that during one of Disney’s trips to Palm Springs, he saw a LearJet 50, belonging to Frank Sinatra, parked on the tarmac. It was in 1963 when Walt Disney finally made his own dream come true by purchasing his first aircraft. Later on, Disney reportedly said: “But 50 francs I had saved up made a French aviation mechanic wink at the law, and I had my thirst to fly satisfied for the first time.”Īlthough that moment was remarkable for Disney, it was not until decades later that he went on to purchase his own aircraft. He wanted to take a flight, but the officers told him it was only for French military personnel. The blog noted that Ed Ovalle, Senior Archivist at Walt Disney Archives, said that several years later, at the end of the First World War, Disney was in Paris and spotted a French military aircraft sitting in a field while touring the town. In 1911, Disney and his brother Roy ran two miles to see Calbraith Perry Rodgers land the Vin Fiz Wright Flyer EX in Swope Park in Kansas City during its first transcontinental flight.

D23 expo 2021