The Barnstormer
| The Barnstormer | |
|---|---|
| Park | Magic Kingdom |
| Land / area | Fantasyland (Storybook Circus) |
| Type | Junior roller coaster |
| Opened | October 1, 1996 |
| Designer | Walt Disney Imagineering |
| Height req. | 35 in (89 cm) |
| Status | Operating |
The Barnstormer, formally presented as The Barnstormer featuring Goofy as the Great Goofini, is a junior steel roller coaster in Storybook Circus, part of Fantasyland at Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Florida. Manufactured by Vekoma and designed as many children's first roller coaster, it casts Goofy as a daredevil stunt pilot whose homemade airplane takes guests on a short, swooping flight above the circus grounds.
History
The coaster's site was first occupied by Grandma Duck's Petting Farm, a petting zoo that opened in 1988 in Mickey's Birthdayland and was best known for Minnie Moo, a Holstein cow with a Mickey-shaped spot. When the petting zoo closed in early 1996, its barn was retained and incorporated into a new attraction.
That attraction, The Barnstormer at Goofy's Wiseacre Farm, opened on October 1, 1996, in Mickey's Toontown Fair. Its premise was a flying school run by Goofy: guests boarded his homemade biplane, careened around the farm, and crashed at speed through the barn, where three Audio-Animatronic chickens — reused from the former World of Motion attraction at Epcot — reacted to the intrusion. The name Barnstormer, a nod to the itinerant stunt pilots of the early twentieth century, had previously been used at the defunct Opryland USA park in Nashville, Tennessee.
Mickey's Toontown Fair closed permanently on February 12, 2011, as part of the major expansion of Fantasyland. Rather than demolish the coaster, Disney retained its track and trains and rethemed the ride to fit the new Storybook Circus area. In its new story, Goofy is reimagined as the Great Goofini, a circus stunt flyer. The crash-through barn element was removed in the retheme, though a deliberate homage survives: jumbled red letters on the back of the entrance sign can be rearranged to spell "Wiseacre Farm." The rethemed Barnstormer relaunched on March 12, 2012, among the first elements of the expansion to open, alongside the relocated Dumbo the Flying Elephant.
Experience
The queue winds through Storybook Circus among props for Goofy's act, including posters, crates, and the remains of his previous stunts, before guests reach the loading platform near the Fantasyland station of the Walt Disney World Railroad.
Riders board one of two trains, each with eight cars seating two guests across in a single row, for a capacity of sixteen riders per train. A chain lift carries the train to a height of 30 feet (9.1 m), after which the train descends into a compact course of twists, turns, and small elevation changes totaling 679 feet (207 m) of track. The ride reaches a top speed of 25 miles per hour (40.2 km/h) and lasts under a minute.
With a height requirement of just 35 inches (89 cm) — among the lowest for any coaster at Walt Disney World — The Barnstormer is widely used as an introduction to roller coasters for young children. Its thrills are deliberately modest: there are no inversions and no large drops, only quick, banked turns and the sensation of flight promised by its stunt-pilot theme.