Forgotten Disney

If you had Wings

Originally published in May 30th 2015

If you had wings
Lost Disneyworld attraction

If You Had Wings was an attraction in Tomorrowland at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, prominently sponsored by Eastern Air Lines. Guests would ride in an Omnimover vehicle through Eastern Air Lines destinations throughout the world. The attraction ran from June 5, 1972 until June 1, 1987.

After viewing a preshow about Eastern Air Lines, guests boarded their vehicles and entered past a small view of a globe with a cutaway. Then, you experienced "take-off" where your vehicle went on an inclined plane up past silhouette images of birds and other planes. The track sent people going past different 70 mm movies of different world locations Eastern flew to. Even the attractions theme song, "If You Had Wings" respectively, couldn't mask the hum of the projectors. You did get to go through a "Super-speed tunnel" at one point where different transportation modes were projected all around you. This technology wasn't flawless; the images were quite fuzzy. The technology was improved upon for the incarnations on PeopleMover and World of Motion. Once you finished seeing the "world," you were told to disembark.

Eastern Air Lines ended their sponsorship in 1987. The title was changed to "If You Could Fly" and all references of Eastern were removed, from the preshow to the song. This upset many enthusiasts of the attraction at the removal of the preshow. It was replaced with images of flying birds. This version was closed quickly closed.

The whole ride, stages, projectors, and sets sat useless for many years until Delta Air Lines took over sponsorship. The ride was retooled to Delta Dreamflight, one of the most remembered versions of the ride. It used most of the If You Could Fly sets, but had many overhauls in the theme and scenery. Delta did drop their sponsorship in 1996, but instead of finding a new sponsor for the failing attraction, the Disney executives removed all references to Delta except the triangle at the exit, and the "Delta Dreamflight" theme was altered with minor retools, and "Disney's Take Flight!" was incarnated. It closed in 1998.

The entire ride system and stages sat useless for years, like before the transformation into Delta Dreamflight. The Disney executives were looking for a way to advertise the Pixar movie hit Toy Story at the WDW park. They then remembered the old If You Had Wings track. So, they sent a crew of Imagineers to completely strip out the Disney's Take Flight! remains and create an arcade-style shooter themed to Toy Story. The end results were Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. This shooter-style game is the first to utilize the experimental free-rotating Omnimover. In it, guests have the ability to move their vehicle around by turning a crank in the center of the car. The new ride still utilizes the If You Had Wings track but in a reversed fashion.

Thank you DisneyWorldInfoQueen for the requst.

Thanks for reading!

Source: Disney wiki

February-28-2020 Update: Updated and changed chapter with added information.