Skywriting
Encyclopedia
Aircraft
An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air, or, in general, the atmosphere of a planet. An aircraft counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines.Although...
, able to expel special smoke
Smoke
Smoke is a collection of airborne solid and liquid particulates and gases emitted when a material undergoes combustion or pyrolysis, together with the quantity of air that is entrained or otherwise mixed into the mass. It is commonly an unwanted by-product of fires , but may also be used for pest...
during flight, to fly in certain patterns to create writing
Writing
Writing is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and non-symbolic preservation of language via non-textual media, such as magnetic tape audio.Writing most likely...
readable by someone on the ground. The message can be a frivolous or generally meaningless greeting or phrase, an advertisement aimed at everyone in the vicinity, a general public display of celebration or goodwill, or a personal message such as a marriage proposal or birthday wish.
Description
The typical smoke generator consists of a pressurized container holding a low viscosityViscosity
Viscosity is a measure of the resistance of a fluid which is being deformed by either shear or tensile stress. In everyday terms , viscosity is "thickness" or "internal friction". Thus, water is "thin", having a lower viscosity, while honey is "thick", having a higher viscosity...
oil such as Chevron/Texaco "Canopus 13" (formerly "Corvus Oil"). The oil is injected into the hot exhaust manifold
Exhaust manifold
In automotive engineering, an exhaust manifold collects the exhaust gases from multiple cylinders into one pipe. The word manifold comes from the Old English word manigfeald and refers to the folding together of multiple inputs and outputs.In contrast, an inlet manifold is the part of an engine...
causing it to vaporize into a huge amount of dense white smoke.
Wind
Wind
Wind is the flow of gases on a large scale. On Earth, wind consists of the bulk movement of air. In outer space, solar wind is the movement of gases or charged particles from the sun through space, while planetary wind is the outgassing of light chemical elements from a planet's atmosphere into space...
and dispersal of the smoke cause the writing to blur, usually within a few minutes. However special "skytyping" techniques have been developed to write in the sky in a dot-matrix fashion, and are legible for longer despite the inevitable blurring effect caused by wind.
In a 1926 letter to The New York Times one Albert T. Reid wrote:
- A newspaper paragraph says skywriting was perfected in England in 1919 and used in the United States the next year. Art SmithArt Smith (pilot)Art Smith was an American pilot. He grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Fort Wayne's Smith Field is named after him. In 1910, his parents mortgaged their home for $1,800 so that he could build a plane, on which he spent six months; however, he crashed it on his first flight, destroying everything...
, who succeeded BeacheyLincoln BeacheyLincoln J. Beachey was a pioneer American aviator and barnstormer. He became famous and wealthy from flying exhibitions, staging aerial stunts, helping invent aerobatics, and setting aviation records....
in flying exhibitions at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco in 1915, after the latter had been killed, did skywriting, always ending his breathtaking stunts by writing "Good night." This was not a trial exhibition but a part of every flight, and was always witnessed by thousands.
A technique was developed by Jack Savage, former RAF pilot and writer for Flight
Flight International
Flight International is a global aerospace weekly publication produced in the UK. Founded in 1909, it is the world's oldest continuously published aviation news magazine...
magazine, after the First World War and he had a successful skywriting fleet.
Satellite navigation is now used in modern skywriting aircraft, so that the message can be programmed beforehand, resulting in greater accuracy.
The first use of skywriting for advertising purposes was in 1922.
Popular culture
The Wicked Witch of the West skywrites "SURRENDER DOROTHY" in the motion picture version of The Wizard of OzThe Wizard of Oz (1939 film)
The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...
.