science

If You Had Wings

If You Had Wings is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand If You Had Wings rather than just read about it. In short: If You Had Wings was an attraction at Walt Disney World. It was a two-person Omnimover dark ride in Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom, sponsored by Eastern Air Lines.

Key takeaways

If You Had Wings belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect If You Had Wings to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of If You Had Wings from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

If You Had Wings was an attraction at Walt Disney World. It was a two-person Omnimover dark ride in Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom, sponsored by Eastern Air Lines. It featured travel destinations throughout the Caribbean and elsewhere, all of which were served by Eastern. It had an eponymous theme song by Buddy Baker.

Overview Guests passed through a series of colorful theater-like sets with rear-projected short scenes of straw-hat markets, fishermen, limbo dancers, and steel drum bands. Locations featured various Eastern destinations, like Mexico, Bermuda, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Trinidad, and New Orleans. Then, the vehicles reclined into a room with projected snippets of flights taking off on an ovoid-shaped surface. Next, film of snow-covered mountains reflected on floor-to-ceiling mirrors. As guests disembarked to an area containing an Eastern Air Lines reservation desk, an agent stood ready to assist riders with travel arrangements. Diorama windows allowed the Mexico, Jamaica, and Trinidad scenes to be visible from the WEDWay PeopleMover. In 1987, Eastern withdrew its sponsorship and the attraction closed on June 1 of that year. Eastern itself went out of business four years later.

Successors After the closing of the original attraction, new attractions were created to inhabit the same space.

If You Could Fly Disney removed all references to Eastern, changed the name of the ride to If You Could Fly, and re-opened it on June 6, 1987. The sets and films were intact, but the theme music had been replaced. On January 4, 1989, If You Could Fly was permanently closed.

Delta Dreamflight Soon after, Delta Air Lines took over sponsorship and made plans to update and remodel the attraction. The replacement was Delta Dreamflight, which made use of the same ride system and floor layout, but all-new scenery and music.

Take Flight Delta dropped its sponsorship in June 1996. WDW removed all references to Delta and renamed the attraction Take Flight. The ride lasted two years, closing in January 1998. Unlike the musical change from If You Had Wings to If You Could Fly, Take Flight's music was the same as Dreamflight's except for minor alterations to the lyrics.

Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin Disney now uses the space for the attraction Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, where riders can control the rotation of their vehicle via joysticks, and are armed with laser cannons to shoot at targets stationed throughout the attraction. Many of the elements in this attraction are similar to If You Had Wings, including the speed tunnel with the projections on the walls, and the loading and unloading areas. Buzz Lightyear sign above the door is in the shape of a cloud and was painted over after the attraction was renamed.

See also Magic Kingdom attraction and entertainment history

References

External links Widen Your World Fan site including photos of the attraction Claude Coats An official appreciation of the late Disney animator and Imagineer Claude Coats. Photo of the attraction's exterior.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with If You Had Wings

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what If You Had Wings claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to If You Had Wings before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about If You Had Wings ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of If You Had Wings

In research: If You Had Wings appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses If You Had Wings in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: If You Had Wings is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1972 establishments in Florida, 1989 disestablishments in Florida, Amusement rides closed in 1987, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for If You Had Wings outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study If You Had Wings in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what If You Had Wings means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain If You Had Wings out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is If You Had Wings in simple terms?

If You Had Wings was an attraction at Walt Disney World. It was a two-person Omnimover dark ride in Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom, sponsored by Eastern Air Lines.

Why does If You Had Wings matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study If You Had Wings?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on If You Had Wings.