TWA Moonliner
Encyclopedia
From 1955 through 1962, the TWA Moonliner was part of the first futuristic exhibit located in Disneyland's Tomorrowland
Tomorrowland
- Tomorrowland 1955–1967 :The first Tomorrowland opened at Disneyland on July 18, 1955, with only several of its planned attractions open, due to budget cuts. The construction of the park was rushed, so Tomorrowland was the last land to be finished. It became something of a corporate showcase,...

. It was also an early example of modern product placement
Product placement
Product placement, or embedded marketing, is a form of advertisement, where branded goods or services are placed in a context usually devoid of ads, such as movies, music videos, the story line of television shows, or news programs. The product placement is often not disclosed at the time that the...

 advertising by TWA
Twa
The Twa are any of several hunting peoples of Africa who live interdependently with agricultural Bantu populations, and generally hold a socially subordinate position: They provide the farming population with game in exchange for agricultural products....

's Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world...

 teaming up with Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

 as the Moonliner's sponsor.

At 76 feet (23.2 m) tall, it was the tallest structure in the theme park, 8 feet (2.4 m) taller than the Sleeping Beauty Castle
Sleeping Beauty Castle
Sleeping Beauty Castle is the fairy tale structure castle at the center of Disneyland Park and Hong Kong Disneyland. It is based on the late-19th century Neuschwanstein Castle,with some French inspirations .-Disneyland version:Opened July 17, 1955, the castle is the oldest of all Disney castles...

. Adjoining the rocket was the "Flight to the Moon" attraction, which later became "Mission To Mars" in 1975.

The Moonliner was designed by John Hench
John Hench
John Hench was an employee of The Walt Disney Company for more than sixty-five years, an exceptionally long tenure which saw the rise of nearly every Disney animated feature and theme park....

, one of the original Disney Imagineers, with the help of German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun
Wernher von Braun
Wernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun was a German rocket scientist, aerospace engineer, space architect, and one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany during World War II and in the United States after that.A former member of the Nazi party,...

. It resembled von Braun's V-2 rocket design but depicted what a commercial spaceliner might look like for traveling to the Moon in the faraway year of 1986.

The Moonliner's retracting landing leg covers were said to resemble the fuselage shape on TWA's elegant Lockheed Constellation
Lockheed Constellation
The Lockheed Constellation was a propeller-driven airliner powered by four 18-cylinder radial Wright R-3350 engines. It was built by Lockheed between 1943 and 1958 at its Burbank, California, USA, facility. A total of 856 aircraft were produced in numerous models, all distinguished by a...

 airliner; the rocket also featured portholes, a raised cockpit area, and a boarding ramp. A real Moonliner was envisioned to be powered by an atomic reactor and actually be more than 200 feet (61 m) tall; the theme park's Moonliner was roughly a one-third scale model.

After Hughes sold his interest in TWA, the airline dropped their corporate sponsorship; the rocket then became the Douglas Moonliner when the Douglas Aircraft Company
Douglas Aircraft Company
The Douglas Aircraft Company was an American aerospace manufacturer, based in Long Beach, California. It was founded in 1921 by Donald Wills Douglas, Sr. and later merged with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967 to form McDonnell Douglas...

 became its sponsor. This new Moonliner looked the same as the original, but it now sported a brand new paint scheme of overall white, with blue stripes and a red, vertically stacked Douglas logo running down the rocket's fuselage; the famous all-red TWA logo and stripes on the nose and landing legs were gone forever.

The Douglas Moonliner stayed at the theme park for five more years, until 1967, when it was removed for the mod NEW Tomorrowland
Tomorrowland
- Tomorrowland 1955–1967 :The first Tomorrowland opened at Disneyland on July 18, 1955, with only several of its planned attractions open, due to budget cuts. The construction of the park was rushed, so Tomorrowland was the last land to be finished. It became something of a corporate showcase,...

, making way for the Carousel of Progress
Carousel of Progress
The Carousel of Progress is an attraction located at the Magic Kingdom Park at the Walt Disney World Resort, currently operating under the name Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress...

 and other attractions. The fuselage was stored in a "boneyard" at the northwest corner of the property and seen as late as 1981. In 1998 a new, scaled-down Moonliner was added as part of the New Tomorrowland, complete with the familiar red stripes of the now defunct TWA. Today the smaller Moonliner is used to promote Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...

 "Delivering Refreshment to a Thirsty Galaxy"; it sits next to the building that once housed the "Flight to the Moon" attraction, which is now Redd Rockett's Pizza Port.

TWA Moonliner II

In 1956 Hughes added a 22 feet (6.7 m) version of the Disneyland Moonliner, known as the TWA Moonliner II, atop the southwest corner of the TWA Corporate Headquarters' Building
TWA Corporate Headquarters' Building
The TWA Corporate Headquarters' Building was the corporate headquarters of Trans World Airlines until 1964, when the airline moved its headquarters to New York City; the building is located at 1735 Baltimore Avenue in downtown Kansas City, Missouri....

, located at 18th Street and Baltimore, near downtown Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

. When Hughes and Disney ended their business partnership in 1962 after Hughes sold TWA, the airline's management removed the Moonliner II from its roof and sold it to a local travel-trailer company called SpaceCraft.

When SpaceCraft moved to Concordia, MO in 1970, the now all-white Moonliner landed on the south side of Interstate 70, between Kansas City and St. Louis, where SpaceCraft operated a campground; it slowly rusted on that spot for more than 25 years. In 1997 a Columbia, MO lawyer, who collected Disney memorabilia, bought the deteriorating Moonliner II and then began a long, careful restoration process, eventually bringing it back to its 1956 condition and sporting its original red and white TWA paint scheme. The rocket is currently on loan to the National Airline History Museum at the Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport, in Kansas City, Missouri, where it stands very near an original, fully restored to flight status, TWA Super "G" Constellation airliner; the Moonliner II is located about five miles from its original TWA rooftop location.

Moonliner II replica

In early 2005, the Nicholson Group, a Kansas City, Missouri urban development firm, hired local architectural firm, el dorado inc, to design and oversee the historic restoration of the TWA corporate headquarters building complete with a replica Moonliner II. The Bratton Corporation was contracted in early 2006 to fabricate a brand new TWA Moonliner II replica for the building's roof. This new, fully illuminated rocket was completed and then installed on September 29 of that year at the very same southwest corner roof location as the original Moonliner II. The TWA building was then leased to Kansas City-based advertising agency Barkley, Inc., and the agency moved in on November 14, 2006. The area surrounding the TWA building is known as Kansas City's Crossroads Arts District
Crossroads Arts District
The Crossroads is a historic neighborhood near Downtown Kansas City, Missouri. It is centered at approximately 19th Street and Baltimore Avenue, directly south of the downtown loop and north of Crown Center. It is the city's main art gallery district and center for the visual arts...

.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK