This Week on the Central Coast…
Sand City gets ready for its Mural Festival, a new themed ride opened on Cannery Row, and an electric aircraft taxi company gets closer to becoming a reality.
Monterey
Sand City appointed a new curator for their annual Mural Festival
Talking Walls is a mural company and the newest curator of the annual Mural Festival in Sand City. Throughout their 20 years of experience, they have organized several festivals, including Sprayview Festival in San Francisco and Wabash Walls and RenARTWlk, both in Indiana. Talking Walls has already planned on organizing an “art battle” for local artists at this year's festival.
“The Sand City Mural Festival will take place Oct.16-20 and result in four to six murals in Sand City adding to the numerous displays of public art already in the city.”
Cannery Row gets its first themed ride
Ron Daniels, owner of Daniels Wood Land Shooting Gallery on Cannery Row, premiered a new amusement park-style ride themed after a time in 1818 when Monterey the “only California town to have been sacked by pirates.”
Treasure Hunt: The Ride is a kind of hybrid attraction, combining Daniels’ experience with the shooting gallery and a themed story-telling ride. “Each car on the ride is equipped with four laser blasters designed to look like flintlocks. Passengers are challenged to shoot at bottles, treasure and other items spotted along the ride to score as many points as possible.” If you’ve ever ridden on Disneyland’s Toy Story Midway Mania, this would be in the same spirit.
Neighboring businesses, such as the Harley-Davidson Apparel Shop and Candy Land, hope the new ride bring in more customers throughout the summer.
For a behind-the-scenes look at the attraction, you can check out a video by the company that created it, Sally Dark Rides.
Santa Cruz
Joby readies its electric aircraft fleet
Santa Cruz-based Joby has been working on an electric vehicle that looks like a cross between a small helicopter and a large drone for 14 years. This week, they cleared a major hurdle. An unveiling event showed off their first aircraft constructed from an assembly line certified by the Federal Aviation Administration. Joby also announced at the event that the FAA had granted them a Special Airworthiness Certificate, which allows the production line model to be used in testing. Before the certification, the company could only use its hand-made prototype.
The company plans on delivering its clean-air aircraft to the U.S. Air Force by the end of next year. This “would make it the first vehicle in the electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) industry to be delivered to a customer. Joby has a defense contract with the Air Force worth up to $131 million.” In addition to the military, they have no shortage of help, appointing the CEO and president of Toyota North America to its board of directors. Delta and Intel are also investors.
The overall plan is to create an Uber-like ride service that will take passengers to destinations a short distance away. The aircrafts will have enough room for four passengers and a driver and can reach up to 200 miles per hour while only producing 45 decibels during operation (less than the noise produced by a refrigerator).
Joby says the next step is another level of certification which would allow even more testing and the chance to prove how safe their vehicle is.
Pretty cool collection of articles! Enjoy the holiday festivities and thank you!