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Even Walt’s personal plane was not able to land on the runway. In 2003, WDW was declared a no-fly zone and flight operations are legally prohibited. In the picture below, Mickey welcomes some of the first guests to land on the runway.īy the 1980s, all passenger service was discontinued, largely due to extensions of the monorail on either sides.
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When landing, the grooves (like on the side of the highway) played “When you wish upon a star” when driven on at about 45 miles per hour. The runway at the STOL airport had a surprise for guests who would travel there. This idea never came to fruition itself either. The airport was only in use for about two years, before closing in favor of a vision for a larger, full-service airport within Walt Disney World itself, similar to Walt’s original vision. The Lake Buena Vista STOLport was the final destination for guests traveling to Disney, with the Jetport at McCoy a short layover. When Walt Disney World opened, the Orlando airport was called Orlando Jetport at McCoy and was a civil-military joint operation that shared the ground with McCoy Air Force Base. The airport we fly into today, Orlando International Airport, did not exist. Why did Disney need an airport? Orlando was relatively undeveloped at the time. For reference in the photo below, look at the Contemporary in the top right corner. No hangar space to house the planes was ever built. The airport was not large, and only had enough ramp space at the passenger terminal to accommodate four aircrafts at a time. This airport had scheduled passenger airline service to Orlando International Airport and Tampa International Airport, provided by Shawnee Airlines.