10 Things You May Not Know About the Barnstormer

1. Happy Birthday Mickey!

To celebrate Mickey Mouse’s 60th birthday in 1988, a new area was created in the Magic Kingdom next to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in Fantasyland. The new land, called Mickey’s Birthdayland, opened on June 18th. Mickey’s Birthdayland was all in good fun, but the new area was absent an actual attraction. That changed in 1996 when the area was closed for an extensive renovation (having undergone several name changes in the meantime, including Mickey’s Starland and Mickey’s Toyland). The location was renamed Mickey’s Toontown Fair and was rethemed as the home of some of your favorite Disney characters. The most significant change was the removal of Grandma Duck’s Farm, and in its place was an all-new attraction, the first Disney roller coaster designed specifically for kids, the Barnstormer at Goofy’s Wildacre Farm.

2. Storybook Circus Comes To Town

Eventually, Toontown Fair closed in 2011 to make way for the New Fantasyland expansion. The Barnstormer would be rethemed, with the new version featuring the aerial exploits of the Great Goofini to fit in with the theme of Storybook Circus. To commemorate the last flights of Goofy’s Flying School, young aviators were handed souvenir Frequent Flyer cards, much like the monorail co-pilot license cards that little ones could once receive when riding the front cab of the monorail.

3. Getting Around

The Barnstormer track is 679 feet long. By comparison, Test Track is nearly eight times longer, but you do go a bit higher on the Barnstormer, all the way up to a lofty 30 feet.

4. A Short Trip?

Your Barnstormer ride lasts for 1 minute and 3 seconds. That might seem short, but it’s only 20 seconds shorter than the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, though you can at least see where you’re going on the Barnstormer.

5. Not Quite Space Mountain, But Pretty Close!

The Barnstormer reaches a top speed of 25 miles per hour. That predictably makes it the slowest of all the Disney coasters – much slower than the 35 miles per hour you reach on the nearby Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. However, the Barnstormer is almost as fast as its bigger cousin Space Mountain, which reaches a top speed of only 27 mph (albeit in the dark!).

6. Climb Aboard!

Each train consists of eight planes which can accommodate 16 Guests. That’s assuming everyone can fit. Taller riders may have some trouble scrunching into the seats!

7. Goofy’s Blueprints…

Talk about precision; the height of the plane’s tail is 6.6792 feet. That’s according to Goofy’s old blueprints that you once found in his barn. We’re pretty sure today’s Imagineers didn’t need to be so precise! Goofy was a stickler for details; he also indicated that the wingspan was precisely 10.87765 feet. For those of you with an eye toward scientific detail, that’s within the accuracy of less than a millionth an inch, or about 7500 times the width of an average human hair. And even with that, it’s still baffling why he can’t avoid that water tower!

8. …and a Few Modifications

Goofy’s blueprints looked normal enough, but upon closer inspection, you would discover that the planes were equipped with a pollution-free power source (which looked suspiciously like Dale in a hamster wheel). If that power source failed, there was no need to fear; plans were in place to use a slingshot as a backup. Steering was controlled by a two-handed yoke and seemed to work perfectly, apart from the fact that you could steer left, right, and up, but not down.

9. Well That Doesn’t Help

That wouldn’t be so bad if you had an Emergency Escape Parachute, but unfortunately, Goofy cut it for budgetary reasons. You could even find a photo of Goofy himself off on a wild adventure in the air, though it seems like he’s about to rely on his backup braking system, the soles of his shoes.

10. Haven’t We Seen Those Chickens Before?

In the original version at Wiseacre Farm, you could spot several chickens in the queue. If they seemed familiar, that’s because there were taken from the former Epcot attraction World of Motion. When World of Motion closed its doors in 1996 to make way for Test Track, the chickens were whisked away and took up new residence in Goofy’s barn.

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