If You Had Wings

If You Had Wings (June 5, 1972 to June 1, 1987)

Introduction

If You Had Wings opened to the public in June 1972, when Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom was eight months old. It was the first new attraction that wasn't merely delayed a few weeks from the October 1971 grand opening. For fifteen years, If You Had Wings hosted millions of Magic Kingdom visitors - spinning them through a loud and happening tour of various vacation spots serviced by Eastern Airlines, the attraction's sponsor and the official airline of WDW from 1970 to 1987. The ride accomplished its task free of charge (during an era when, until 1980, most Kingdom rides required separate admission tickets) and often with less than a minute's wait.

In June 1987, If You Had Wings saw its last guests. Eastern had withdrawn its WDW sponsorship due to financial problems, which called for several changes to the attraction. Its next incarnation, called If You Could Fly, opened later that month. If You Could Fly was just an "alternate" version of its former self ... the ride was physically much the same but the old music and references to Eastern were missing. The song lacked the charm of the original and invited disappointing comparisons. If You Could Fly closed in January 1989. After that, almost everything visually inherent to If You Had Wings and If You Could Fly was destroyed and removed from the building's interior as trash. By the time Dreamflight (sponsored by Delta Airlines) opened there in June 1989, If You Had Wings was a memory with another attraction built around its track. A funhouse of excitement, warmth and innocence was lost to the unrelenting march of progress. If that sounds melodramatic, spare yourself further irritation and find another website!

When that final version of the rode closed, I was an Operations host in the Magic Kingdom East department, working mostly at 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.  During my breaks I would often go down into the tunnel below the park, walk a few hundred feet, ascend a stairwell and arrive in the middle of If You Could Fly. That's how I ended up walking through the attraction as it was being dismantled. I could not believe the beautiful set pieces were being hacked apart just to expedite their removal. My If You Had Wings "collection" began at that time, thanks in part to some of the debris lying around on the floor. I also started writing about the attraction, tongue partly in cheek, and interviewing friends for their recollections of it while the memories were still fresh. Years later, I'm still learning things about the ride and finding new photographs, audio recordings and home movie images thanks to others who have found this page and offered to help.

help.



The If You Had Wings load area c. 1972


Almost everyone I meet who remembers If You Had Wings says they loved it, and I believe most of them. During its heyday, If You Had Wings was sometimes derided as "second rate" by people with little appreciation for weirdness in general, and some people like the ride more now in hindsight. But I'm not the judge of who loved a ride and who didn't, I'm just saying that it was dated from the offset and very silly but to me that's what made it great.  It had a compromised track layout and its theme was basically "four-minute airline commercial" and it did amazing things in spite of both parameters. It didn't overreach or ask its riders to buy into anything as unfathomable for the early 1970s as being launched into space - as did its early neighbor, Flight To The Moon. It simply asked you to pretend that you were visiting a few vacation spots not that far removed from Florida, encountering both locals and other tourists who were having a great time dancing, singing, fishing and all sorts of other stuff.  Whether regarded as a classic or not, lots of people can still sing If You Had Wings' theme song as if they had just stepped off the ride, which no one has done for almost 30 years.  The Magic Kingdom has operated much longer without If You Had Wings than it did with it.  And whereas in the late 1980s its loss felt very personal, now it has become of one many things I loved as a child that are revisited online with great affection by thousands of people.

What follows is a personal effort to keep memories of the ride alive for those who miss it and to perpetuate an unofficial record of what it was all about for everyone else. It was the first WDW attraction for which I did a web page and this page - although it has changed layouts and hosts several times - is also the oldest early/extinct WDW attraction page on the internet. AND... it turns out there's no prize for that.



The first projected image in the ride was of seagulls,
which transformed into jet airplanes as they flew

The If You Had Wings Story

Sponsorships have been a big part of the Disney theme park experience from the moment Disneyland opened its gates in July 1955.  At that time, "lessees" (as the company originally called them) were as varied as The Upjohn Company, Swift, and Kaiser Aluminum who sponsored, respectively, Main Street USA's Pharmacy and Market House and Tomorrowland's Hall of Aluminum Fame.  Their financial contributions helped make the construction of the park possible, and their presence in the park's shops and exhibits put their corporate logos and/or services in plain view of millions of potential customers every year.

By the time planning for Walt Disney World was underway in the late 1960s, Disneyland had developed a more mature and far-reaching "participation program" for its growing roster of major corporate sponsors. Concurrent with Walt Disney Productions' new relationship with 1964-1965 New York World's Fair partners (Ford Motor Co., General Electric and Pepsi-Cola), they had also in 1964 secured United Airlines as a ten-year sponsor of Disneyland's new Enchanted Tiki Room attraction.

Six years later, there was little doubt that a major airline would be solicited for a similar relationship with Walt Disney World. In 1970, however, United was coming off a decade of diversification and, more importantly, its first year of multi-million-dollar net losses. Additionally, since WDW was under construction there was no opportunity for a company to merely assume the sponsorship of an "existing" attraction as United had done with the Tiki Room in California.  Rather Disney was now seeking the commitment of a larger sum of money to bankroll the development of an as-yet-to-be-determined attraction.


Disney's Jack Sayers, Mickey and Eastern's Thomas McFadden in 1971

The exact amount of that "larger sum" was reportedly $10 million. And the company that filled the space was Eastern Airlines, by that time a major nationwide air carrier that had dominated air traffic routes along the Atlantic coast since the 1930s.  By 1971 Eastern provided flight service to Orlando from 60 different cities.  The horrible looking photo above shows Disney's vice president of Industry Sales Jack Sayers (at left) and Eastern's senior vice president Thomas B. McFadden at the time of contract signing.

WED Enterprises (Disney's design & engineering division) set out to develop an attraction that would suit the needs of both Eastern Airlines and Magic Kingdom visitors.  Eastern was anxious to promote the variety of exotic travel destinations to which it provided service - most of them in the American Southeast and the Caribbean.  Disney wanted something to fill a vacant slot in WDW's Tomorrowland, which in 1971 was transitioning on paper from its earlier master plans to one that would not truly be completed until 1975.

This is where one of WED's brightest stars came into play. Claude Coats had been a key contributor to Disney's films and parks since 1937's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. His designs, color stylings and backdrops had shown up in many of Disneyland and WDW's key attractions (he is shown here during the construction of DL's Pirates of the Caribbean.) He pioneered the use of black light in three dimensional environments, making him a master of the dark ride format. In 1971, one of his most recent successes was a marriage of dark ride knowledge, creative setbuilding, filmed images and a new ride system called the Omnimover.


Claude Coats in 1967



Disneyland's Adventure Thru Inner Space Queue Area c. 1967

The ride was Adventure Thru Inner Space, and it is recalled by longtime DL visitors as one of their most badly missed attractions.  It was designed by WED for Monsanto and debuted in 1967 as part of DL's new Tomorrowland. In near-countless ways it served as the prototype for the ride that WED would create for Eastern. The similarities between the two rides are so numerous (see comparative lists below), few people could have experienced both and not marveled at the fundamental common elements. Yet for all the crossover devices, the combinations yielded vastly different experiences. Whereas Adventure Thru Inner Space was cool and scientific (you entered the heart of a snowflake crystal after being "shrunk" inside an oversized microscope) If You Had Wings was bright and freaky. And although Inner Space served as the basic model for the new ride, the amount of effort that went into planning If You Had Wings was still considerable.  The scope and spatial relationships of the ride's interior scenes were, despite their visual simplicity, no less sophisticated than those of many other rides that opened during WDW's first year. During the planning for If You Had Wings, the Magic Kingdom itself was nearing its opening day of October 1, 1971. Tomorrowland technically opened that same day but was very much still in development.  And If You Had Wings had yet to even really enter the construction phase aside from the building's outer framework.   

IF YOU HAD WINGS

Location: Tomorrowland, Walt Disney World
Ride System: Omnimover
Ride Vehicle Color: Blue
Direction of Ride Vehicle Travel: Counter-clockwise
Ride Speed: Two feet per second
Principal Designer: Claude Coats
Previewed via Peoplemover?: Yes
Ticket Required to Ride: None
Ride Length: Four and one-half minutes
Sponsor: Eastern Airlines
Load Area Icon: Oversized globe
Song: If You Had Wings by Norman "Buddy" Baker and X. Atencio
Celebrity Voice Connection: Orson Welles
Dates of Operation: 1972-1987 (1987-1989 as If You Could Fly)
# of Years in Operation: Fifteen
# of Years in Operation without Sponsor: One and one-half
# of Rides to use Omnimover system beforehand: Three
# of Films Featuring Crazy Size-Changing Fish: One

ADVENTURE THRU INNER SPACE

Location: Tomorrowland, Disneyland
Ride System: Omnimover
Ride Vehicle Color: Blue
Direction of Ride Vehicle Travel: Counter-clockwise
Ride Speed: Two feet per second
Principal Designer: Claude Coats
Previewed via Peoplemover?: Yes
Ticket Required to Ride: None (1967 - 1974), "C" Ticket (1974 - 1980)
Ride Length: Six minutes
Sponsor: Monsanto
Load Area Icon: "Mighty microscope"
Song: Miracles from Molecules by Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman
Celebrity Voice Connection: Paul Frees
Dates of Operation: 1967-1985
# of Years in Operation: Eighteen
# of Years in Operation without Sponsor: Eight
# of Rides to use Omnimover system beforehand: None
# of Films Featuring Crazy Size-Changing Fish: None

The If You Had Wings "show building," as Disney calls the warehouses that contain their rides, was already confined to a set space of 28,000 square feet.  Like many other rides in the Kingdom, If You Had Wings was part of a larger building (in this case sharing interior walls with the pre-existing CircleVision 360 Theater structure).  It could only extend a certain length to the east without upsetting the symmetry of Tomorrowland's main entry corridor - already anchored on the north side by Flight to the Moon and the Space Port gift shop.  So the exterior boundary for If You Had Wings was already defined to the north, east and west.  Its walls, in fact, already supported portions of the WEDway Peoplemover track - four years before that ride opened!  Rather than explore the option of having the building and track trail way off to the south, Coats and his co-workers had to pack an experience into a finite space.



Blueprint of If You Had Wings

What they managed to fit in was a vibrant, kinetic and multi-dimensional experience culled together from an array of artistic disciplines that Disney had been employing for years.  Flat set pieces, sculptures, props and film projections combined in the same physical space to depict various travel destinations serviced by Eastern, primarily: Mexico, the Caribbean and New Orleans.  It also doubled as a type of simulator through the first use of a Disney-designed effect called the Speed Room (a.k.a. the Super Speed Tunnel) that projected high-speed 70mm images all around the ride vehicles.  A similar but more low-key effect employed as the ride's finale was the box-shaped Mirror Room, which elicited a sensation of being lifted gently over mountain vistas and rolling deserts.  When pieced together with lighting & sound effects, music and the versatility of the Omnimover ride system, the varied elements made for a compelling and memorable five-minute experience.



Diagram showing typical projector effects within ride

Arranging that experience in the odd-shaped building, and having all the film effects hit their targets without projectors cluttering up the scenery, required a lot of clever planning. Above is a scanned portion of a page from the ride's blueprints - an overhead depiction of four separate projector & screen positions for the Caribbean Port scene. Click on the image for a better view of how intricately one small part of the ride was configured.

Consider that the speed and directed angle of the ride vehicles only allowed guests about ten seconds to view the entire Port scene - including the four films outlined above and the props and set pieces surrounding them - during a trip that lasted four and a half minutes.  This gives you an idea of how much planning went into the ride as a whole. Additionally, the Caribbean Port scene was one of three settings within the ride that was also viewed by guests riding the WEDway Peoplemover.  They viewed the port segment of If You Had Wings from a completely different vantage point - one that also worked on its own merits and showcased the neverending stream of Omnimover vehicles snaking through the port and straw market scenes.

Many of the films used in the ride were shot in real-life locations.  Shooting took place in settings as diverse as Acapulco, Jamaica, New Orleans, California's Imperial Valley and Canada's Laurentian Mountains.  Over two dozen staged production shots were put together as well.  These ranged from a full-blown Mexican fiesta with authentically costumed dancers to a far more casual (and dated via polyester) round of limbo dancing on a false beach.  To work the films into the ride, If You Had Wings would ultimately hold 41 16mm projectors, three 70mm projectors (one for the Speed Room and two for the Mirror Room), 40 special lighting effects projectors and one 35mm projector.

If You Had Wings projectors at MAPO warehouse in California

Above is a photo of room at Disney's MAPO division (where much of WED's engineering and assembling took place) that housed IYHW's battalion of 16mm projectors prior to their Florida move.  The tall rectangular cabinets mounted to the side of each projector stand are the mechanisms that allowed the films to continuously spool through the projectors during a working day that could span up to sixteen hours in summer months.  Looking at this picture it's easy to understand how the ride was filled with the sound of these machines running nonstop.  This is one of the reasons why the attraction was so loud, because the music had to overcome the noise of so many projectors that was bouncing around inside the fully enclosed structure.

Music for the attraction was recorded under the supervision of Norman "Buddy" Baker, who composed the ride's title theme along with lyricist X. Atencio.  A  demo recording that revealed the intended range of song treatments tailored to each show scene was put together to offer a preview of how the ride would sound.  Baker also adapted a piece of music - the "Airbus" theme - from Eastern Airlines commercials of that same time period.  The instrumental he came up with provided the background for both IYHW's Holding Area and Mirror Room scenes.

WED's sound effects department provided additional audio for the attraction.  The sounds of foot traffic in the Bahamas and of a jet takeoff were two of the most predominant recordings.  Less overt effects, such as fireworks, seagull calls and native Aztec musical instruments were brought in for additional authenticity.

Blueprint for Tropical Rain Forest Scenery

By late March, 1972 the blueprints for the ride's interior sets were completed and If You Had Wings was being pieced together at a frantic pace to be ready for the summer crowds.  The show's set pieces were designed in California by WED and installed on site by another division of the company, PICO West. The majority of the sets were constructed of 1/4" plywood with 1" framing. When assembled they often formed simple three-dimensional structures or spaces such as the Aztec pyramid or the New Orleans courtyard. Props and artifacts typical of the locations depicted (Mexican pottery, Caribbean straw goods, fishing gear) were added to the sets as a final measure of third-dimensionality.



Construction Workers in the Mexico City scene

The ride opened to the public on June 5, 1972. Eastern Airlines and Walt Disney Productions officials formally unveiled the attraction during a dedication ceremony the following month, on July 2.


If You Had Wings dedication ceremony

If You Had Wings would be the last Omnimover ride Disney would build for over ten years.  The next would be General Motors' World of Motion attraction which opened with EPCOT Center in October 1982.  That ride and its neighbor, El Rio del Tiempo at the World Showcase Mexico Pavilion, would both draw heavily from the same technologies used at length in If You Had Wings.  The similarities will be outlined later in this text.

In spite of the extensive borrowing by those latter attractions, If You Had Wings was largely overlooked in terms of receiving post-opening promotion from the company. Pictorial souvenirs produced between 1972 and 1987 only featured a photo of the ride once, in 1986. The attraction was not represented on postcards, view-master reels, 16mm films or even latter-day VHS tapes that offered Magic Kingdom overviews.  Even the more outdated and arguably less interesting Mission To Mars had a higher level of coverage throughout the 1970s and 1980s.    

But If You Had Wings persevered from the standpoint of popularity.  Even after the A-E ticket system was disbanded in 1980, it remained one of those rides that people would visit repeatedly during the same day.  Some former E ticket attractions didn't get THAT much love. If You Had Wings was just too fun to ride only once.

Most of the time a ride's successful ability to draw visitors ensures its long-term prospects, in other instances it has no bearing at all.  In the case of a sponsor-dominated attraction like If You Had Wings, the solvency of Eastern Airlines became the governing factor in the ride's destiny. When Frank Lorenzo bought Eastern in 1986, the company was in dire financial straits. On the eve of bankruptcy and dissolution, Eastern opted not to renew its fifteen-year sponsorship of If You Had Wings and continue its status as the official airline of WDW. Disney was faced with the decision to either keep the attraction down for the busy summer season while developing a replacement or to come up with a temporary fix that would keep the ride running and buy time to court another sponsor. They went with the second option, which turned out to be the best choice given that the summer of 1987 saw record highs - both in Central Florida temperatures and in park attendance.

If You Had Wings closed on the first of June 1987. Five days later it reopened as If You Could Fly.  On paper the changes look slight, but in practice they made for a genuinely a different attraction. In addition to the name change reflected in the exterior signage, the Eastern logo was replaced by the stylized image of a seagull.  Seagulls already figured prominently in the attraction, so it was an easy icon to fall back on.

If You Could Fly exterior c. 1988 (source unknown)

In the load area, the orchestral background music was replaced by an instrumental version of the new If You Could Fly song and the boarding announcements were silenced. The Eastern jet was, of course, pulled from the side of the globe. At the beginning of the ride, the change in music became even more apparent. Where a chorus once sang "If You Had Wings" there were new voices, reminiscent of the queue area duet at EPCOT Center's Horizons. The lyrics - "If you could fly on seabird wings, and feel the joy that freedom brings, those dreams you had when you could fly will soon be realized through seabird eyes..." weren't very interesting and the production wasn't silly enough to fit the ride. Similarly, each successive scene's music had been replaced with something foreign and, contrasted with the original segments, lacking. Only the sound effects (voices of the couple in the straw market, bursting fireworks, etc.) were retained.

The If You Could Fly icon that replaced the Eastern Airlines logo in 1987

If You Could Fly was still a visually rich experience, but difficult to enjoy for anyone who loved If You Had Wings. Without the song, Eastern or the voice at the end of the ride ("You do have wings"), the soul of the original was gone and what remained felt hollow. This sad fact made the transition from If You Could Fly to Dreamflight just a little more tolerable. If You Could Fly closed January 4, 1989. In the months that followed, just about everything surrounding the tracks was broken down into pieces small enough to be carted out of the ride in portable grey waste bins. As the summer approached, a new ride began taking shape where If You Had Wings once stood.



Dreamflight construction wall, suggesting a kind of "Mr. Toad" feel

Dreamflight, sponsored by Delta Airlines as the new official airline of WDW, opened to the public on the 23rd of June. An overview of the changes: the once open Holding and Load areas were subdivided into three different sections replicating a neon-laden airport boarding area with a plane section visible through the glass. The sections of the ride from the globe up to Mexico City became three-dimensional scenes rendered in pop-up book style referencing the early days of flight. The massive room that had once encompassed Mexico, the Caribbean and Puerto Rico was now sectioned off into three chambers, the first being the pop-up book cartoons. The second was literally just a big room with a single screen upon which was projected a film of a stuntman riding atop a biplane. The third was where the mannequin phase of the ride began. It started in San Francisco where a global clipper sat in the harbor. A couple on the dock looked out across the water and the plane's captain sat at his dining table inside. In what was once the Puerto Rican fort, large dioramas of a Japanese countryside and Paris held more mannequins, albeit with some attractive scenery. New Orleans was replaced by a jet engine through which the cars passed on their way to the held-over Speed Room. The seven original films were replaced by a computerized "future runway" scene that was shortly removed in favor of some flight-through-the clouds footage. The Mirror Room remained as well, but the mirrors were taken out. Now the cars faced off to the right where another movie screen showed even more computer-generated vistas. The Descending Flight scene was now where a huge pop-up book bounced back and forth between recreations of London and New York. All the music had changed as well, with a new theme song permeating the entire ride.

View of Delta jet from Dreamflight queue area

Dreamflight, although visually disjointed, drew plenty of visitors and operate until June 1996, six months after Delta dropped its sponsorship of the attraction. Then the name changed to Take Flight. It was exactly the same as Dreamflight save for the removal of some Delta logos and some extremely minor changes in two pieces of music. That would have been a replay of what happened with If You Had Wings and If You Could Fly if not for the fact that the changes to Dreamflight didn't make the ride feel lacking. In January 1998, Take Flight closed and the attraction was made over as Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, which opened in October of that same year. Buzz Lightyear used the same ride vehicles with some new additions (laser guns), the same track and the same overall room structure.

Omnimover cars passing through Dreamflight

If You Had Wings, having evolved from Adventure Thru Inner Space, also passed on a few things to other Disney attractions. The first was the Speed Room / Super Speed Tunnel, idea, which landed on the second floor of Disneyland's America Sings in 1977 as an addition to the Peoplemover (which ran through the Carousel Theater building's second floor). This application went on to feature scenes from the company's 1982 film, TRON. The Peoplemover closed in 1995, however, and its replacement, the also-now-closed Rocket Rods, did not make use of the Speed Room.

When Epcot opened in 1982 (as EPCOT Center), many of its attractions could be likened to If You Had Wings in terms of their ride systems, pacing and sponsorship agreements. Two rides in particular borrowed directly - General Motors' World of Motion and Mexico's El Rio del Tiempo.
World of Motion began in a manner very similar to If You Had Wings: a large, open holding area leading to a load platform where guests boarded blue Omnimover cars that slowly approached a dark, semi-foreboding portal.  World of Motion also had not one, not two, but THREE Speed Rooms near the end of the ride.  The first was almost identical to If You Had Wings' version - their films were extremely similar. For example, one World of Motion scene was of bobsleds shooting down an icy run. Another was a fast-paced underwater sequence. The second Speed Room featured swirling light effects and a fiery inferno, the third was footage from TRON, just as in Disneyland's Peoplemover.  If only Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin used some TRON images as a tribute to early computer-generated imagery, the circle would be complete!



World of Motion vehicles seen entering the show building

World of Motion closed in January 1996 and its replacement, GM's Test Track, did not include the Speed Room components or Omnimover cars.

The other Epcot attraction that pulled from If You Had Wings was the Mexico Pavilion's boat ride, El Rio del Tiempo, which operated in its original form until January 2007. It reopened in April 2007 as the Gran Fiesta Tour, which introduced the title characters from Disney The Three Cabelleros film to the ride. The ties to If You Had Wings here were more numerous before the ride's reworking but several echoes remain. First, the boat ride incorporates a large early Mexican pyramid, as did If You Had Wings. Secondly, the floating gardens of Lake Xochilmilco are kind of recreated in El Rio del Tiempo. Both rides contain depictions of downtown Mexico City. And they both rely heavily on the use of projected images to achieve motion. Another strong connection was that If You Had Wings and El Rio del Tiempo both had infectious theme songs created for the rides that could easily echo in vistor's heads for hours after exiting. Gran Fiesta now uses the Three Caballeros theme to a similar effect.

What really tied the two rides together, though, were some of the original filmed scenes. Mexico's attraction had footage of people cavorting on beaches just as If You Had Wings did. Mexico had street merchants trying to pass off handcrafted wares to guests passing by, just as If You Had Wings had merchants pushing goods in the Caribbean Straw Market. And If You Had Wings had a projection of cliff divers plunging in Acapulco, just as Gran Fiesta still does in a modified form. The merchant footage in El Rio del Tiempo was removed when Gran Fiesta came in and the beach depictions are significantly changed. As long as Gran Fiesta exists, however, WDW visitors can still get a taste of what If You Had Wings was all about. That's a good thing.

If You Had Wings ID sign c. 1972

An If You Had Wings Overview

Some of what follows will reiterate information from above for the purpose of giving a "comprehensive" look at what If You Had Wings was all about.

If You Had Wings occupied the space in Tomorrowland that as of 2015 was the home of Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. As with some of its neighbors from years past, such as CircleVision 360 and Mission To Mars, If You Had Wings had a relatively unremarkable exterior. It consisted of an identifying sign pylon, white concrete walls and a dark blue angular portal that framed the glass door entryway. Seen below to the left in a Spring 1972 photo, IYHW had a WEDway track above its entrance a full three years before the WEDway Peoplemover opened (July 1975). IYHW's doorway was flanked by a set of wall signs, dimensional letters and Eastern logos that changed slightly over the ride's years of operation. The entrance was usually staffed by a cast member known as a "greeter."

If You Had Wings exterior shortly before the ride's official opening

Once guests passed through the open doorway, they entered what Eastern Airlines described as "a spacious, modern airport passenger terminal." This vast room, also known as the Holding Area, had high ceilings, sparkling white walls and blue carpet (orange for the ride's first couple of years, as shown in a photo below photo). At the far side of the room was the Load area, where guests stepped onto a Speedramp and took a seat in one of 102 continuously-moving Omnimover vehicles. These ocean blue cars trailed off to the north side of the room, where they entered an oversized and elongated globe through a gaping hole. Behind the globe was a dark blue sky dotted with stars, and attached to its side for much of the ride's lifespan was a model of an Eastern jet, pointing west (we don't need to think about that one.) The sight of the cars passing into this sphere was exciting and a little ominous to me as a kid, as what lie beyond the darkness of the globe's interior was anyone's guess. From the entrance to the load point, a twisting queue area was recessed into the center of the room. Guests passed by large backlit signs for arriving and departing flights, which blinked exotic destinations such as "Bahama's 10,000 Islands" and "The Magic Kingdom." Echoing throughout the holding area was a lush orchestral arrangement based on the main theme of Eastern's "Airbus" commercials. Over the music, a man's voice announced the specifics of certain flights... "Eastern Airlines announces the departure of flight 811, Whisperliner service to the underwater reefs of Bermuda."

There are several accounts of the first voice being that of Orson Welles, confirmed once in print and twice by early IYHW cast members. In 1972 Welles was the voice of Eastern Airlines' TV commercials, which ended with "Eastern, the wings of man." By 1976, the voice had been changed to that of actor Peter Renaday, who also provided several other voices around the Magic Kingdom.

If You Had Wings Queue c. 1972

 

View of Departures board taken by flickr user Darsys

 

When guests reached the end of the queue, they were guided onto the Speedramp by a host or hostess and split into Omnimover-car sized groups, typically 2 adults per vehicle. From here on out they cruised forward at a rate of two feet per second, steadily approaching the big hole in the globe. This hole, incidentally, was situated just south of Florida, sucking guests directly into the Caribbean - the approximate center of Eastern's more celebrated vacation routes.

The ride began with guests disappearing into the globe's darkness. The black walls of the interior came alive with the white silhouettes of seagulls in flight.  The persistent whirr of the ride's 16 millimeter film projectors faded in and the ride's theme was introduced by a gleeful chorus of unseen singers. This simple song, written by Buddy Baker and X. Atencio, became a favorite for many Magic Kingdom visitors -  "If you had wings, you could do many things, you could widen your world, if you had wings...If you had wings, if you had wings, if you had wings, had wings, had wings, had wings..."  Repetitive to the point of absurdity, making it all the more memorable.

View of approach to globe (source: WDWmagic.com)

As the ride vehicles spun inside the globe, the seagulls on the wall turned into jet airplanes racing off to exciting destinations. These silhouettes faded into the background as guests approached the ride's first full scene, Mexico. The cars faced off to the right of the ride's forward motion, and the track began a climb through the room. Spread out before the guests was a vision of old Mexico, brought to life by a series of two-and-three dimensional props, film projections, lighting and sound effects. Rising from a sea of geometric cloud formations was an Aztec pyramid basking in the rays of a blazing stylized sun. In the distance were the cliffs of Acapulco, where a series of divers took the breathtaking plunge into the sea every few seconds. Then the cars swung over to the left. During the move, guests were confronted by a large stone dragon's head above them, a representation of the Aztec god Quexalcoatl.

Middle of the Mexico scene (one of very few IYHW photos I took myself)

To their left, guests faced a panorama of modern Mexico. Flower-laden boat drifted across the shimmering floating gardens of Xochilmilco, carrying dancers and a Mariachi band that blared the ride's theme from their trumpets. In the sky above, projections of pottery and other crafts rose from the horizon and flew through the sky. Further along was a main plaza of Mexico city, where the shadows of festival-goers frolicked in the distance. Closer to guests, through the open arches of a downtown building, dancers in fiesta regalia spun across the floor.

By this point in the ride, If You Had Wings' maddening acoustics could be fully appreciated. The first half of the ride took place in one large room divided into different areas by three-dimensional props and low walls. This resulted in a blending of all the scenes' musical tracks and created a nice messy din. So it was kind of hard to pick apart the song lyrics for any given area. The music was a key element of the attraction, its one quick melody tying together many otherwise unrelated segments. Each area had its own background music whether guests could hear it or not. In Mexico, it was the sound of a Mariachi band.

All sense of motion in the attraction - aside from the ride vehicles - was achieved through film and effects projectors. Much of the ride's backdrops served as framing for projected images. There were no moving props or animated figures, but the ride was still very "alive" thanks to Claude Coats' gift for staging. His talents gave the ride a strong sense of warmth and atmosphere.After passing below the dragon's head, the cars descended into a Caribbean seaport. To the right was an ocean liner, inventively dubbed the "Caribbean Cruiser," preparing to set sail. Passengers lined the railings of the boarding deck, waving and throwing streamers. A steel drum band played in their midst. In the harbor below, a slew of smaller watercraft dotted the horizon. The image of a dancing couple was silhouetted against the sail of small sloop. Down in the water, divers groped through the kelp for treasure.At the water's edge, in a shack marked "Sport Fishing," a tourist posed proudly with his catch (a swordfish of indeterminate proportions) while his wife set up to snap a picture.  As the man stood there beaming, the fish hanging next to him grew larger and smaller, evidently illustrating the vast difference between what he'd caught and his own biased impression of it.The cars turned left again and entered a straw market.  In a small building decorated with all manner of hand-woven goods was another couple, who tried to make a sale (in time with the music) to passing guests.  "Wanna buy a sombrero," the man inquired, "made of real fine straw?  How about a nice handbag, for pretty mama?"  His wife sat beside him, eagerly trying to unload a hat.  The straw market scene then gave way to Puerto Rico, as the cars swung back to the right and began another slow incline.  Through tropical foliage guests viewed a group of young people doing the limbo.  Then the battlements of San Juan's Castillo San Felipe del Morro rose around the track.  Through archways guests had aerial views of the seacoast and the fort, with now-familiar seagulls passing by.  In another arch was a musical group fronted by a cheerful lady playing the maracas and putting yet another twist on the ride's theme song.The cars leveled off at the entrance to the fort, wherein another series of arches framed out scenes of the Bahamas.  A marching band stormed by with their rendition of the song, and with every other line of music their image gave way to a street traffic traveling in the opposite direction.  This motif was repeated in the next several archways, but now the street traffic alternated with a flurry of flamingos rushing down a shallow waterway. In a central arch, a Bahamian traffic cop in white knee socks and shorts had his hands full attempting to regulate this bizarre flow of events. With a whistle perched resolutely in his mouth, he pivoted to the left and right in a thankless pursuit of order.Off to the right, a new vista unfolded. Here was a stunning view of Jamaica's Dunn's River Falls and the surrounding jungle vegetation, rife with butterflies.  Making their way up to the top of the many-tiered waterfall was a large gathering of swimsuited young people.  As they reached various plateaus on their climb, they would "dance" across the water in group formations - in reality holding on to each other so as not to slip. Further along was a window looking out across a twilight lagoon in Trinidad, where more flamingos flew by every few seconds.

The next scene was New Orleans' French Quarter during Mardi Gras.  In an open courtyard to the guests' left, the shadows of a Dixieland quartet played their version of "If You Had Wings" on a vine-covered wall.  On the right, the street was blocked-off for the parade that was passing just a little further down.  Other Mardi Gras festivities (including the perplexing sight of a lady holding hands with a man wearing a huge zebra head) were viewed through the corner of a nearby building laced with wrought iron balconies.  Fireworks burst in the sky ahead, and guests moved toward them on their way into a cavernous space just around the corner.