Disney Goes Boom!

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.

Looks Great, Less Smogging

[ackthpt]

I'm not sure the launch charge contributes too much smoke, as I've found the charge which distributes the firework to create more -- usually evidenced by a series of greyish clouds carried away by higher winds. Grand Finales have had so much smoke at heights to obscure some of the fireworks themselves. Then there's the matter of where I live having a chronic fog/marine layer problem which has rendered the most fantastic displays only so many noisy, colorful blurs. Even they cute smiley ones, like the mouse pattern Disney is so fond of.

The air in the Los Angeles/San Bernardino area can be pretty awful, which probably has a lot more to do with their efforts to decrease smoke. I visited the Grand Canyon years ago and heard sometimes the visibility, in the summer is so poor you can't see across the canyon, thanks to smog from San Diego and Los Angeles/San Bernardino, hundreds of miles to the west. (Fortunately I was there in winter, which I highly recommend (South Rim open only), with 200+ miles of visibility.)

A word of advice: Try to avoid a down-wind position for fireworks as sulpherous ash may drift down into your eyes and it burns like H2S.

Beer-can mortars anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know Im not the only kid who did this, the best ones were with a propane air mixture and a spark plug to ignite the gas electrically.

Re:Change is Bad! Very Bad!

[QuantumRiff]

No powder used to lift the shell, means much more explosive powder that can be used in the shell. If you used 25% of the weight of the shell to lift it before, (I'm making numbers up.. anyone know the real numbers, please correct me) then now you can have a 25% bigger boom.. (roughly).. which makes me happy, i like to see big explosions..

odd timing on this...

[wintermute1000]

I just find it amusing that Disney released all this news about their revolutionary, wonderful new launch system and then proceeded to roll out a new pyrotechnic show at Disneyland that, by all accounts, is disappointing at best compared to the one it replaced. Sure, it may be less polluting, but it's also a lot less fun.

Sure, there are other factors that caused the switch in shows, but the timing was unfortunate. They basically managed to associate environmentally friendly fireworks with totally boring fireworks, which, by an inspection of their description of the new launch technique, really isn't the case at all.

Re:Wait...

[LinuxInDallas]

Considering that they have decided to donate the patents on this invention to a non-profit group I would say that we should all like/respect Disney at least a tad. That's a great move.

Slashdot is not a hive-mind

[That's Unpossible!]

Obligatory response pointing out that Slashdot is comprised of many people, some of which like Disney, some of which don't.

One thing we all agree on, though, is that the "Do we hate ________ today?" joke is fucking tired.

Sincerely,

TU

Saw it July 4th, first day they revealed it.

[The Panther!]

I took my wife and kids to Disneyland in Anaheim to check out the display. I have some video of it that isn't quite ready for web display (or should I say, I'm too busy :-), but suffice it to say it's a different show. They actually had two displays on July 4th, with slightly different timings and effects.

After seeing the same sort of fireworks for decades, I think it was more interesting than the old fire up and go boom. The most noticeable change is they can do much higher quality synchronized launches. One effect (a little overused) fired off a bunch of streamers in sequence at different angles, and because the flaming bits are not powered after launch, they have a nice regular parabolic trajectory. Nice effect.

However, they have a great Grand Finale either way. It's also nice to know my $150 worth of tickets went to something donated to the public (patents).

Re:LIES, LIES, LIES

[Sylver Dragon]

Up till a month ago I worked in Rancho Cucamonga (just north of Ontario). I don't remeber any days where there were smog alerts (1999-2004). Though, I do remember plenty of days where I couldn't see the mountains through the smog, and I was only about 5 miles south of Mt. Baldy. Driving down from Apple Valley, I was often horrified that I would have to breate that crap for the next 9 hours or so. The Inland Empire area has some really nasty smog in the summer months.

Re:Change is Bad! Very Bad!

[Long-EZ]

...people who've moved in since that time knew exactly what they were buying...a house/condo near a theme park renowned for its fireworks displays

There is a big difference between what's right, and the results of the US legal system.

Example: Small airports were built all over the country. Decades later, the land around them was made into housing developments. Then people sued to have the noisy airports restricted to the point they were no longer viable, or shut down altogether. They consistently win, because there are 100 irate homeowners vs. 30 people who want to preserve the pre-existing airport. Bye-bye airport. The ultimate irony is when the runway becomes the main street through the new subdivision that's built where the airport was, and all the subdivision streets have names like Blue Sky Place and Lindbergh Drive.

It's similar to developers leveling a beautiful stand of trees to pack as many little vinyl houses as possible into a congested suburban hell, and naming the subdivision Aspen Acres. I guess Fugly Houses Estates doesn't sound very good.

Maybe I'm getting even more cynical in my old age, but there seem to be fewer and fewer instances where Right and Reality coincide.