Walt’s Plane
This plane was used by Walt Disney while he was scouting out places to built Walt Disney World in Florida. This is the real deal. He loved to fly and this plane was affectionately known as “The Mouse.” Walt would carry both himself and his Imagineers from California to look at the Florida property.
The plane is a Grumman G-159 Gulfstream I twin engine turboprop. The tail number of N234MM was specially assigned to the plane by the FAA (read the story in Key to the Kingdom for the reason it was numbered this way). It is reported that by 1978, the plane had logged 4.3 million miles or 12,300 hours. Disney World became the permanent home for the aircraft in October 1992. The only way to see the plane is to take the Backlot Tour at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. If you watch carefully you will get to see it twice on the tour. In the story this is how Grayson Hawkes discovered an important clue. You have heard the phrase, “it was all started by a mouse.” In this case, the mouse could be Walt’s airplane.
