Hang Gliding Simulation

Fun times at the fair

Tens of thousands from around the area braved sizzling summer heat for the 76th annual Napa County Fair and parade, a turnout that organizers say appears to be slightly above last year.

Final numbers aren’t yet available since attendance records are still hand-counted, but fair officials say overall they expect to be up slightly from 2010, when more than 20,000 people attended.

“We’re very pleased with this great crowd and our new kid-friendly events,” Marketing Director Karen Spencer said. “People particularly like the kids’ area with the butterfly adventure,” a screened structure where people could walk through a cloud of the delicate winged creatures.

But the pleasure of the turnout comes against a dark background. The fair has suffered with the economic downturn, seeing revenue decline from other fairground sources and steady cuts in state aid. The cuts so far led the fair to rely heavily on volunteer labor for key jobs such as ticket selling and collection.

“Everybody’s tightening their belt, looking to neighbors to help out,” Spencer said.

On the positive side, she said, volunteers have turned out in large numbers and have seemed pleased with the experience.

“We’ve had a steady stream of people coming by saying next year they’ll bring their friends” to volunteer, she said.

The fair will need that help more than ever. The state budget, signed last month by Gov. Jerry Brown, strips all funding from state fairs for the first time since 1937. That will cost the fair about $220,000, or about 18 percent of its total budget.

The measures already in place, like the volunteer program, “help us cut and control our expenses,” said Napa County Fair CEO Carlene Moore, “making our dependency on state funding less.”

Fair managers statewide are trying to convince legislators that the state’s 76 fairgrounds deserve some support in return for the tax money they generate, which they estimate at about $100 million, said Stephen Chambers, executive director of the Western Fairs Association, of which the Napa County Fair is a member.

But given the state’s dire financial situation, it seems likely that fairs will have to make further cuts.

One possibility is trying to find corporate sponsors or private donors, but fair associations are not historically structured to raise funds like that, so they will have to scramble to learn a new skill, Spencer said.

Soarin' - Favorite Disney World Attraction For All Ages | Disney ...

The concept for Soarin' was dreamed  up by Disney Imagineer  Mark Sumner who created the prototype for the attraction with an erector set.  He was able to come up with a unique ride mechanism that ending up being very close to the final design for Soarin'.  The concept was so novel that it was granted a U.S. Patent (#6,354,954) on March 12, 2002. The ride places park guests in 3 rows of "Hang Gliders" that are raised into position in front of a projection screen.  The ride itself combines gentle movements in concert with the action on the screen to give the sensation of "gliding."  To enhance the experience there are fans generating gentle breezes and scents of pine trees and orange groves when you pass those items as part of your journey. It would not be fair to call Soarin' a thrill ride per se, but the experience is extraordinary and one to be remembered.  You are taken on a tour of California including such sights as: the Golden Gate Bridge, Yosemite National Park, Napa Valley, Lake Tahoe, PGA West Golf Course in La Quinta, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, San Diego, Malibu, Los Angeles, and Disneyland.

An absolutely tremendous ride, however, I think Disney is missing he boat by not making this ride a worldwide ride. As with the new Star Tours where each time you ride you get something new, I think a rotating film of the worlds great vistas would be great. Not only California, but the desert of Arizona, the Mississippi, the Alps, England and Stonehenge, the Moors of Scotland, Angel Falls in South America, there are many. While this ride is already in the Top 5, a revolving show would make it the top ride for a long time to come.

Proceedings of the Fifth Workshop on Neural Networks--Academic/Industrial/NASA/Defense, an international conference on computational intelligence : neural networks, fuzzy systems, evolutionary programming and virtual reality : WNN93/FNN93, November 7-10, 1993, San Francisco Airport Marriott, California

1997 International Conference on Simulation in Engineering Education (ICSEE '97), proceedings of the 1997 Western Multiconference : January 12-15, 1997, Sheraton Crescent Hotel, Phoenix, Arizona

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