By Ken Storey
Remember those pictures of the dragon shaped ultralight that Disney was testing out an a rural airstrip in California a few months ago? The ones that the local paper in the town leaked? While at the time many hypothesized that it was for Avatarland coming to Animal Kingdom or for the opening of the new Disneyland being built in Shanghai it now looks like we may be seeing these flying dragons much sooner than either of those openings.
Yesterday Disney's social media managing editor Gary Buchanan suddenly announced his love for dragons in a post over at Disney's official theme park blog. There is also a video in the post where Buchanan confesses this love of dragons (the video does have a very corporate feel to it, with him using a large odd pad to show the video in the video, something that I've never seen a vlogger use before). In the video he shares a video from Youtube of a dragon spotted flying. The dragon features in the dragon video looks very similar to the one that Disney was testing back a few months ago.
The post and video on the Disney Park's blog led to a Tumblr named 'DisneyDragons' that is dedicated to this passion of his of dragons (it also features a picture of Buchanan with Figment). On the Tumblr blog there are three posts, all with 'BelieveinFantasy' and 'NewFantasyland.' On the Tumblr blog there is a video to the Youtube channel featuring the mystery dragon video is named 'BelieveinFantasy2012.'
Back on the Tumblr blog the very first entry mentions NewFantasyland.
"Something strange has been going on recently in the Magic Kingdom. More specifically, in the section they’re referring to as ‘New Fantasyland’. And it’s not just my imagination. There are stories going around. Strange sightings. Weird noises. And flames!"
Inside the Magic speculates that this new dragon may be part of the show named 'Believe in Fantasy.' This new show could be a possible replacement to the current fireworks show named 'Wishes.' There has been much speculation and chatter on Twitter using the hashtag # BelieveinFantasy, which the first use of was from Walt Disney World's official twitter account referencing the Gary Buchanan Disney Parks Blog post. Some of the speculation has led to some believing the dragon may be used for evening flights over New Fantasyland or will it only be used in the grand opening happening December 6th.
If the dragon was used at Magic Kingdom it would need a runway to takeoff and land on. Magic Kingdom happens to have one of these literally at it's front gate. Way back when Magic Kingdom first opened there wasn't much to Orlando so Disney built it's own airstrip at near the front gate and had daily flights from Florida's more popular tourist destinations such as Daytona Beach and West Palm Beach, they also had flights directly from Orlando International, back then named McCoy JetPort, a much cooler name than OIA any day.
The airstrip at Disney, really a STOLport, had it's last scheduled flight on December 28th, 1972. The area surrounding Magic Kingdom now has a FAA no-fly zone imposed, much due to Disney's own wishes. The no-fly zone was imposed after 9/11. Since it would be Disney flying an ultralight on it's own property there is a possibility the no-fly zone could remain while also allowing this dragon ultralight to use the airstrip. The airstrip is currently used as a bus staging area and is visible if you are taking the monorail between EPCOT and Magic Kingdom.
If the dragon ultralight does use the airstrip this means it would also be visible from the Magic Kingdom resorts (Grand Floridian, Poly, and Contemporary with Wilderness also a possible viewing area). With these areas allowing for visibility of the aircraft it could also be used in the Electric Water Pageant that takes place each evening in Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake. This could add a much needed update to the water pageant.
No matter how often the dragon may be used I for one am placing my bets that we will see some sort of dragon within New Fantasyland, either at opening only or in a regular show, but we will be witnessing 'The Year of the Dragon' in a whole new way here in Orlando very soon.
