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From Today's Toronto Star....
Visitors to the Canadian International Air Show at this year's CNE will see the world's biggest video game â †a three-hour display of stunt flying performed from the ground.
Custom-built, super-sized Jumbotron screens will be erected on barges moored offshore at Exhibition Place, said Rolo Pilaf, the brain behind the new-look air show. The "pilots" will be housed in the Horse Pavilion at the Ex, sitting at arcade-quality flight simulators.
"Doing it this way is environmentally friendly and saves the expense of rescue helicopters and boats on standby," said CNE spokesperson Apollo Fir.
While a single video-gamer could fly a full-formation team, Pilaf promises it will be one plane per operator. "The real-life Snowbirds have nine planes. So we'll have nine people, each in control of a machine. We'll have giant home-theatre surround-sound speakers so as a jet flies off-screen, the crowd will hear it roar overhead. But people living downtown won't be disturbed by low-flying aircraft.
Criticism has been levelled at the real Snowbirds for their aging Tutor jets. An unnamed source who hangs around the Playdium entertainment complex in Mississauga, where the video-Snowbirds are rehearsing after hours, said the team will switch planes throughout the 20-minute routine.
"Each manoeuvre will be in a different type of aircraft," the source said. "They'll start in Wright Brothers biplanes and finish in space shuttles."
Past air shows have featured wing-walkers. The new format, Pilaf said, offers scope for formation dancing "every bit as dazzling as the sequences in the old Fred Astaire movie musical Flying Down to Rio."
According to the secret source, adapting the video games to wing-waltzing is proving tricky. "They'll likely just use a colourized version of the Flying Down to Rio dancing and hope no one in the crowd has seen the film."
As the chairborne flyers perform, assistants will stand by with buckets full of toonies.
"We haven't been able to make the machines work without cash," said Pilaf, heir to the rice family fortune. "So we're wiring in a red light that flashes, giving five seconds to shove another coin in the slot. We don't want the Jumbotrons going blank."
Setting up the screens, speakers and video games will be almost as costly as a real air show, Fir admitted. "But Rolo is giving us all the toonies from the machines. And if there's enough demand, we can do several shows a day or even reruns."
The mountain of loose change will allow the CNE to bring back two popular attractions â †the "Flyer" wooden rollercoaster and "Alpine Way" cable-car ride, both torn down in the '90s.
"We won't be rebuilding them," said Fir. "Rolo is setting up simulators that he swears are so good, you'll hardly know you're sitting in the dark in the Better Living Centre."
Visitors to the Canadian International Air Show at this year's CNE will see the world's biggest video game â †a three-hour display of stunt flying performed from the ground.
Custom-built, super-sized Jumbotron screens will be erected on barges moored offshore at Exhibition Place, said Rolo Pilaf, the brain behind the new-look air show. The "pilots" will be housed in the Horse Pavilion at the Ex, sitting at arcade-quality flight simulators.
"Doing it this way is environmentally friendly and saves the expense of rescue helicopters and boats on standby," said CNE spokesperson Apollo Fir.
While a single video-gamer could fly a full-formation team, Pilaf promises it will be one plane per operator. "The real-life Snowbirds have nine planes. So we'll have nine people, each in control of a machine. We'll have giant home-theatre surround-sound speakers so as a jet flies off-screen, the crowd will hear it roar overhead. But people living downtown won't be disturbed by low-flying aircraft.
Criticism has been levelled at the real Snowbirds for their aging Tutor jets. An unnamed source who hangs around the Playdium entertainment complex in Mississauga, where the video-Snowbirds are rehearsing after hours, said the team will switch planes throughout the 20-minute routine.
"Each manoeuvre will be in a different type of aircraft," the source said. "They'll start in Wright Brothers biplanes and finish in space shuttles."
Past air shows have featured wing-walkers. The new format, Pilaf said, offers scope for formation dancing "every bit as dazzling as the sequences in the old Fred Astaire movie musical Flying Down to Rio."
According to the secret source, adapting the video games to wing-waltzing is proving tricky. "They'll likely just use a colourized version of the Flying Down to Rio dancing and hope no one in the crowd has seen the film."
As the chairborne flyers perform, assistants will stand by with buckets full of toonies.
"We haven't been able to make the machines work without cash," said Pilaf, heir to the rice family fortune. "So we're wiring in a red light that flashes, giving five seconds to shove another coin in the slot. We don't want the Jumbotrons going blank."
Setting up the screens, speakers and video games will be almost as costly as a real air show, Fir admitted. "But Rolo is giving us all the toonies from the machines. And if there's enough demand, we can do several shows a day or even reruns."
The mountain of loose change will allow the CNE to bring back two popular attractions â †the "Flyer" wooden rollercoaster and "Alpine Way" cable-car ride, both torn down in the '90s.
"We won't be rebuilding them," said Fir. "Rolo is setting up simulators that he swears are so good, you'll hardly know you're sitting in the dark in the Better Living Centre."
