El restaurado avión 'Mickey Mouse One' de Walt Disney ahora en exhibición en Palm Springs

Walt Disney's personal company plane, affectionately known as 'Mickey Mouse One' or simply 'The Mouse,' has been fully restored to its 1960s glory after years of neglect in the Florida heat and humidity. The Grumman Gulfstream I, which once carried Disney and his family, as well as celebrities and U.S.

presidents, now resides at the Palm Springs Air Museum in California.

The restoration was a collaborative effort spanning three years. The exterior was reverentially restored by Walt Disney Imagineering and the Disney Archives, first displayed at the 2022 D23 fan convention in Anaheim.

The interior, which had been gutted and left to rot, was meticulously rebuilt by the Palm Springs Air Museum with assistance from Georgia-based Phoenix Air Group.

The 15-passenger plane originally featured a galley kitchen, two couches, two tables, a drop-down desk, and two restrooms—one for passengers and crew, and a private one for Walt Disney himself. The interior was decorated in a rust, orange, brown, and gold color scheme popular in the 1960s, with a clear divider filled with leaves and grasses from the Disney family backyard separating Walt's private space.

Disney purchased the Gulfstream in late 1963 after becoming disillusioned with commercial air travel. The plane was outfitted with custom interior furnishings, cockpit avionics, and the orange and black livery of the Walt Disney Productions logo.

The registration number N234MM featured 'MM' to honor Mickey Mouse.

After Disney's death in 1966, the plane continued to serve company business for 28 years, logging 20,000 flight hours and transporting 83,000 passengers, including stars Julie Andrews and Annette Funicello, and Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. It was decommissioned in 1992 and placed on the backlot tour at Disney's Hollywood Studios until 2014.

Following the attraction's closure, the plane was left in a fenced-off field behind Disney's Animal Kingdom, its interior damaged by Florida's heat and humidity. The twin Rolls Royce engines and cockpit equipment were sold.

The aircraft was eventually offered to Florida museums with no takers before the Palm Springs Air Museum agreed to become its new home.

Starting in 2019, Disney Imagineering cleaned the plane, replaced windows, sealed the fuselage, added new wing edges, and repainted the exterior with the original 1960s livery. The plane was disassembled and transported on four flat-bed trucks to California for the D23 Expo, then reassembled in Palm Springs.

The restored interior now reflects the look of the plane as it appeared in the 1960s, complete with a customized instrument panel that allowed Disney to monitor flight conditions from his favorite seat. A telephone handset gave him direct communication with the pilot.

The flight crew always kept a Mickey Mouse matchbook next to the ashtray for the boss, a lifelong smoker.

Former Disney CEO Bob Chapek remarked at the D23 Expo, 'This little beauty has been basking in the Florida sun for about the last 40 years. Three years ago, I got a call from Imagineering saying that this thing was in mothballs and it was just a shame that something of its historical relevance and importance to the company's history was sitting out in the heat and humidity of Florida.'

Today, 'Mickey Mouse One' stands as a restored testament to Walt Disney's vision and legacy, preserved for future generations at the Palm Springs Air Museum.