Disney announces new Christmas drone show to light up the skies this winter
The entertainment giant is using 300 drones capable of BILLIONS of different light combinations
DISNEY will send 300 drones into the air every night over Orlando this winter to create a spectacular Christmas-themed light show in the night skies.
The entertainment giant is using 300 Shooting Star drones, specially designed to fly in unison with others, for its new attraction.
The drones - which will replace part of the traditional fireworks show - will all be controlled by a single operator.
Tech giant Intel unveiled the tiny drone earlier this month after a flying 500 simultaneously in Germany breaking the Guinness Book of World Records for most drones operated one person.
And now that the Federal Aviation Administration has given Disney the green light to fly the machines at night - normally illegal in the US.
The show will take place every night at Disney Springs - formerly Downtown Disney - in the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida.
If one of the unmanned aircraft does fail, Natalie Cheung, director of drones marketing at Intel, says the pilot has the ability to select any individual drone to turn it off or make it fly home.
And for the Disney light show, the drone fleet is flying over a lake, so any drone that stopped working in midair would just fall into the water.
Intel hasn’t yet announced how the Shooting Star is going to come to market beyond the Disney light show.
But it believes the sky really is the limit for its new flying machine.
“We can see the multiple drones per pilot technology being implemented not just in light shows, but also in commercial applications,” said Cheung.
“If you inspect a bridge, if you can have more than one drone to do it, you have a faster way of inspecting the bridge. If you were doing search and rescue and you have one drone out there searching for you, it’s much better to have a fleet of drones searching.”
Disney’s drone show will fly twice a night this Winter at their Disney Springs resort in Orlando.
Each Shooting Star is capable of four billion light combinations, can travel at around 22 miles per hour and fly in light rain.