WEBVTT - How Skywriting Works 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:04.480 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:13.160 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:16.239 There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's over there. Who's 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:19.119 the only well one of the three of us, which 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:23.000 is crazy pray. Uh, you and I are both sick 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:25.279 at the same time. Yeah, I'm getting over mine and 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:28.120 you're in it sounds like in the throes of yours. 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:31.120 I am, yes, in the flummy thickness of it. And 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:33.479 this is stuff you should know. That's right. It is 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:39.720 written in the sky. It is we're in the stars. Uh. Yeah, well, 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:43.680 now you can't do that at night, No, but you could. 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:46.000 They tried to make it so yeah glow in the dark. 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:49.120 Yeah you saw that too, spoiler. Yeah. So we're talking 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:52.960 about skywriting, right. Uh. And I was trying to think back, Chuck, 0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:55.720 if I have ever seen something written in the sky. 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:57.959 I'm like, surely I have. You've never seen the scar 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:01.440 writing message I have like in in I've seen pictures 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:03.840 of them are plenty, Like you weren't, Like, what is this. 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:08.040 I'm trying to remember back towards childhood, which is you 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:10.560 know when I probably would have seen uh, and I 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:13.440 just can't quite place it. But I have a vague recollection, 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:18.800 um and nothing. It's me standing and there's grass. But 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:20.800 then I'm like, look up, dummy, look up, what's in 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:24.240 the sky. I just walk off and need a dandelion. 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:28.639 This was this was actually my idea as an article, 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:32.720 like we're flooding the website with new material now, which 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:36.640 is great. Man. And uh, I pitched this like five 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:40.160 weeks ago, not even bam, and here it is, whoomp, 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:44.320 here it is. I thought you knew, Uh, this is 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:46.560 a good idea, Chuck, thank you. I found this fascinating. 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:48.120 Did you know much about it when you pitched it? 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:51.880 Or had you seen a sky written message recently? Um? 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:55.240 I think I got the idea from the great comedian 0:01:55.320 --> 0:02:00.080 Kurt Brauno or um did a Kickstarter in may you 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:04.480 do a skywriting message? And I think his quote was, 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:08.160 it's so stupid and I love doing stupid things. And 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:11.240 thank god the Internet loves stupid too, because they funded it. 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:14.360 And he let people vote on what to do, and 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:17.360 they chose how do I land? And he had that 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:20.240 written above the skies of Los Angeles and got some 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:22.320 attention for it, and it was a funny little gag 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:25.520 and Kurt's a great guy and a friend of the show. So, um, 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:27.560 that's where I got the idea because I started wondering, 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:30.320 how in the world do they do that? Like I've 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:33.520 seen him before, but I thought, you know, when you're 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:34.919 up there in the plane, it's got to be pretty 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:39.399 tough spell something out to like massage the clouds over 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:42.320 into to beat them into letters. Right, that's how they 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:44.000 do it. Correct, that's not how they do it. No, 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:46.600 that isn't how they do it. They use a certain 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:49.800 type of oil and some high horsepowered planes and it 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:52.880 takes a tremendous amount of skill, which is why it's 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:57.360 not much of a surprise, um that it finds. It's uh, 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:03.640 it's origins among War One flying asis. Apparently the Royal 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:08.800 Air Force. There was a guy named John Clifford Savage, who, um, 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:13.919 I guess invented skywriting for military purposes. Yeah, and back 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:16.320 then I think there were several things they did with 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:19.400 it in the military. One was to give messages when 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:21.640 you know you're out of like radio control, because I 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:25.840 think you can you can see messages for like hundred 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:29.040 square miles. Yeah, there's a little tricky math to it, 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:32.919 but there. They say that on a clear day, if 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:35.760 you're standing on say the Great Planes or something, okay, 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:39.440 you could you can see a skywritten message for something 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:41.480 like thirty miles. And if you take into account all 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:44.080 the thirty miles and multiplian, it's what did you say, 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:49.040 like square miles, that's a that's a lot of exposure. Yeah, 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:51.080 and if you're in World War One, your walkie talkie 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:53.480 back then might not have gone that far. So they 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:56.320 would send messages and apparently they would also use it 0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:59.720 to um cloak ships, I guess, fly around and just 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:04.160 close them in cloudy smoke because detection, because what you're 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:09.040 doing when you're writing is a sky message is basically, um, 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:13.840 I guess you're you're basically just flying parallel to the ground, right, Well, 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:17.120 I mean it's aerial acrobatics. You're you're spelling with your plane. 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:20.039 So um, you're loopti loop and you're doing all sorts 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:25.200 of crazy stuff. So after John Clifford Savage invented this, 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:29.719 like within a couple of years after inventing skywriting, somebody's like, 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:33.799 you know, who would love this company's And companies have money, 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:36.920 that's right, so let's charge the money to advertise their 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:40.520 stuff in the sky. And a dude named Captain Cyril 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:45.799 Turner was the first person, and I think to write 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:50.520 a skywritten advertisement. Yeah, and I think he was. I 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:52.520 don't know if it was his original idea, but he 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:55.600 seemed to be doing this as a proof of concept, 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:59.640 like let me let me write daily Mail the British newspaper, 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:02.520 let me right that in the air, uh, and see 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:05.039 how that works. And then later he went to the 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:07.719 United States later that same year and said hello USA 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:13.919 over time square and then Carl Vanderbilt, which is the 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:16.919 hotel phone number where he was staying, and apparently the 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:19.000 next two and a half hours he got, uh the 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:23.200 switchboard lit up literally you can say that because it 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:26.560 was the nineties and it was. They got forty seven 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:30.239 thousand phone calls in just a couple of hours. And UM, 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:32.200 I think that was his way of saying, this is 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:35.320 gonna work. Yeah exactly, this is advertising. And it got 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:39.280 the attention to some people, some companies pretty quickly. UM 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:44.240 Lucky Strikes very famously got into uh skywriting for advertising. 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:49.640 UM Snocco basically anybody who is anybody with the company 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:52.479 back then was doing skywriting because the other stuff you 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:56.800 had was the side of a barn, maybe some radio advertising, right, 0:05:57.040 --> 0:06:00.240 but skywriting, for the amount of money it costs, you 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:02.560 could get a lot of exposure in ways you you 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:06.120 just normally couldn't. And Pepsi was starting out at this 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:11.120 time and they bought into skywriting so enormously that the 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:14.120 company and skywriting are kind of, um, they go hand 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:16.479 in hand in a lot of people's minds. Yeah, in 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:19.000 the nineteen thirties they started putting they didn't have as 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:22.920 much money to advertise on the radio. So uh, from 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:26.520 the nineteen fifties, I'm sorry, from the thirties. Of the 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:32.520 nineteen fifties, they like went all over the US, Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, Canada. 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:36.240 Just that was their main form of advertising. And uh, 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:38.880 the New York Times at the time was they thought 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:42.680 the skies were going to be littered, like polluted with 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:47.040 with ads and they called it celestial vandalism, and uh 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:51.080 they predicted uh, intricate pictures and colors and glow in 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:53.440 the dark, like we said, But none of that really 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:56.600 came to fruition, No, it didn't. Um, And I mean, 0:06:56.640 --> 0:07:00.520 there's pretty good reason to kind of worry about this, Uh, 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:07.440 in alone. Pepsi alone commissioned two thousand skywriting projects and 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:09.479 um for kind of more in the history of it, 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:12.440 there's this good article called what Happened to Skywriting that 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:14.960 was in The Atlantic. That's worth ning too, by the way, 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:19.040 But um, the thing that undid skywriting. The answer to 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:24.120 that question is television period. Television advertising came in and 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:27.960 thanks to our friends at the Nielsen Company, you could 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:32.000 uh really kind of target and taylor your ad in 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:35.920 ways that you couldn't before with radio. And it was 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:40.240 for the amount of exposure you got. It was definitely 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:45.880 worthwhile to save your money for television advertising and funnel 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:49.680 away money from your skywriting budget. You know, well it 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:51.800 seems silly now, but it was like a legit form 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:54.720 back then of advertising. Um. And like it points out 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:57.560 in this article, uh, you have to have ideal conditions 0:07:57.560 --> 0:07:59.200 as well. It's got to be a clear sky, can't 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:02.680 be cloudy, can't be rainy, um, can't be too windy. 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:06.040 So there was a lot of things that that radio 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:09.120 and television offered, like it doesn't matter what the weather 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:12.360 is like basically, I mean, your reception is still gonna suck. 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:16.200 People can still probably hear what you're trying to say 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:19.680 that's a that's a good point. And actually Pepsi um 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:22.840 as I guess it's fiftieth anniversary or something like that. 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:28.160 They commissioned one of their their former skywriting pilots to 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:32.720 go find some plane the type of plane that was 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:35.960 used for skywriting. And this guy found like the plane, 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:39.000 one of the main planes that Pepsi used for its 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:42.480 skywriting campaigns because it was so deep into it it 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:47.160 maintained its own aerial fleet, and this guy found it 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:51.640 and they started another skywriting campaign for another like twenty 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:54.280 something years, I believe. Yeah, it started in the seventies 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:57.160 with the Marry Me Sue commercial? Did you happen to 0:08:57.160 --> 0:08:59.679 watch that? No? I didn't get a chance, did you? Like? Yeah, 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:01.600 I mean I remembered it when I saw it, which 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:04.720 was from nine. So that was the first startling thing 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:08.199 that happened to me today. And you know how a 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:11.360 commercial spectator just so like cam fisted, Like it's this 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:15.600 cowboy at a barn trying to proposed to sue his wife, 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:18.600 of course, and she's you know, you know, it's all 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:21.640 acted out, but it's got music over it, so she's like, 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:24.480 what are you doing? And he's like, oh, just wait, 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:27.400 and she sees the word mary and she's like hmmm. 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:30.600 And then she sees marry me and she's like whoa. 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:33.440 And then she sees her name Sue, and she's like 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:37.880 what yes, of course, and then they kiss and the 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:42.960 barn catches fire. Now they're outside the barn. The barn, oh, 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:45.600 I think he said bar. I'm a little stuffed up, gotcha. 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:49.240 But uh, it's great seventies commercial fun. I recommend watching 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:51.280 it on the YouTube. It would have been great had 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:54.320 the Wicked Witch of the West flown in and written 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:58.840 surrender Dorothy over marry me, Sue, because that showed up. 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:02.960 Remember she sky wrote with her room. Really yeah, I 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:07.200 don't remember that it was in uh. I guess it 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:12.880 was shortly after which was about the gold standard um, 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:15.840 but it was I think shortly after she discovered her 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:18.520 sister had been smushed by Dorothy and that Dorothy was 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:21.600 in oz and she jumps on her broom and flies 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:25.880 up and surrender Dorothy with it and black smoke. Well, 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:31.520 she like farting that out. She's squeezing flying monkeys. That 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:34.560 that broom exhaust that we all know about. So let's 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:50.120 talk about how to sky right, all right after the chuck. Um, 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:53.440 they say in this article, but I probably they in 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:57.200 general that skywriting is a lost art. It takes a 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:03.080 tremendous amount of skill, and it's been so underfunded over 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:06.360 the last few decades that like, there's literally a handful 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:09.880 of people, maybe four or five. How many people fit 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:12.440 into a hand Well, it says in here four people. 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:15.920 I found that hard to believe. But uh. The article 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:19.680 also points out that it's a lost art because it's 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:22.720 you can't learn it unless you learn from someone who 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:25.360 does it, and so few people do it these days. 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:27.839 It's just a closely guarded secret. And back in the 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:31.280 day they wouldn't tell anyone because competition among pilots. They 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:34.080 would keep their little secrets to themselves. So there's really 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:36.600 you can't get on the internet and learn how to skywrite. Yeah, 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:39.280 there's not a handbook or anything like that. Um, and 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:42.200 we should say we're talking skywriting. There's something separate called 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:46.800 sky typing, which more people are involved with, but for 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:51.320 for free hand skywriting, there's seriously possibly four to six 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:53.320 people in the world that know how to do it. Yeah, 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:55.560 well these days too. Um. I looked at a couple 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:57.959 of the skywriding websites. I think there's probably only two, 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:01.360 and it's it's sky riding in banner towing, which is 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:05.320 the big things. So you got skywriting dot com and 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:09.120 skywriting dot net. That would have made and that's what 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:10.720 you see more of these days. If you want an 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:14.680 ad or marry me, Josh, you're gonna you're gonna attach 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:17.800 it to a banner and pull it behind your plane. Yeah, 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:20.720 instead of that stupid smoke stunt. And actually, one of 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:24.280 the people interviewed one of the very few people who 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:28.200 know how to freehand skywrite, which is kind of redundant. 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:33.800 It's skywriting is freehand. Um. She met her husband who 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:36.959 was a banner tower and taught him how to skywrite. 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:42.080 She was a pepsi smoke writer. Um and uh. When 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:44.040 she got ahold of her husband, he was just some 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:49.120 backwards banner tower. She's like, I'm gonna teach you a skill. Friend. 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:50.880 He's like, but all you do is hook it up 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:54.520 here and fly right, And she said, oh my, just wait, 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:58.079 oh you're talking about the Yeah, he thought banner towing 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:00.480 was like the different cult. Yeah, because he was crop 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:05.720 dusting before that. But Suzanne Asbury Oliver and her husband, 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:10.520 Steve Oliver. I believe um are two of there, possibly 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:13.000 half of the total number of people who know how 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:16.240 to sky right, is that crazy? And they're married. It's 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:20.319 all in the family. Yeah, the secrets in the family. 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:23.240 So these planes are going about a hundred and fifty 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:26.520 miles an hour. It's pretty fast. And in order to 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:29.440 if you've ever seen a skywritten message, it's it looks 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:33.079 a little like a child has drawn it because they're 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:35.440 riding it with a plane, And it's just very difficult 0:13:35.480 --> 0:13:39.360 to do. Um. And in fact, the word pepsi itself 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:44.559 apparently takes seventeen different maneuvers and I think like fourteen 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:48.520 smoke releases just to make those five letters. Yeah, that's 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:52.440 just pretty tricky, right. Um. Even before that, though, you 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:55.080 have to have perfect conditions, Like you were saying, the 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:57.880 whole thing starts at about ten thousand feet up because 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:01.840 up there it's cold enough sometimes it's human enough, um 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:05.880 that the smoke will stay together, so it'll last as 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:09.000 long as like twenty minutes under ideal conditions. Plus it 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:11.920 can't be cloudy or else. Your stuff just kind of 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:17.640 blends in with everything else, right exactly, So you you 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:20.240 have to have ideal conditions first, and then after that 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:24.440 you have to get in your little uh air acrobatic plane. 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:27.360 So they used to use UM. I think the Pepsi 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:32.160 plane was a Traveler, that's what it was called. That 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:34.840 was the company that made it. UM and it's now 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:38.800 in the National Air and Space Museum by Dullus, which 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:43.480 is well worth the visit. Yeah, there's a space shuttle there, 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:47.520 there's a s R. Seventy one Blackbird. There's a lot 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:50.680 of really great stuff there, and apparently there's the Pepsi 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:54.720 plane too, but UM. Suzanne Asbury Oliver says that she 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:58.920 uses a Chipmunk now, which is a small light, very 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:04.480 highly maneuverable plane with a high horsepower. That's another key, sure, 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:07.720 because with high horse power you can generate a lot 0:15:07.720 --> 0:15:09.960 of heat. And you're gonna have to generate a lot 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:12.440 of heat up there because you need to burn off 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:17.680 your oil. Yeah, it's a paraffin oil UM liquid paraffin basically, 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:21.040 and it needs to in order to reach that smoke point, 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:24.520 needs to hit the engine at fift degrees and then 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:29.280 it is just spit out through the exhaust. And I 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:33.120 think the letters themselves always wonder from the ground like 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:36.200 how big they are. Apparently the letters are about a 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:40.080 mile high and once the smoke expands about seventy five 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:43.400 ft wide, which is bigger than I thought. Yeah, I 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:47.640 had no idea they were mile high letters. And pepsi 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:50.400 can be the word pepsi. It can be up to 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:54.320 about five miles across. Yeah, and um, so when you're 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:57.600 doing this you have no frame of reference. Um, like, 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:00.320 you can't see what you're doing, is the author of 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:03.920 this article points out. Julia Layton says, it's basically like 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:08.800 drawing a picture in the dark. Yeah, Um, backwards and backwards. 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:11.040 It's a very good point, which I didn't understand why 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:13.040 they had to do it that way, because the way 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:17.080 you're flying, the ground is below you, but the people 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:21.800 looking up at the message, this guy is above them. 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:23.920 Oh yeah, sure, I guess that makes sense. So when 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:28.440 you're writing pepsi like this, if you were beneath it 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:31.800 would be backwards to you. So since you were doing 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:33.400 it for the benefit of the people on the ground, 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:36.840 you the skywriter, has to write the whole thing backwards. 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:39.080 They probably learned that the hard way a couple of times. Yeah, 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:42.720 I would guess. So they're like, hello USA, backwards. What 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:44.800 does that say? Yeah, apparently there was one guy I 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:46.960 read in the Atlantic story in New York in the 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:49.720 early days that did such a bad job. He landed 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:51.800 and went back up and put a drew a line 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:55.040 through his message and started over. Yeah. I like that though, Yeah, 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:56.920 I mean it makes sense. I was wondering if there 0:16:57.000 --> 0:16:59.920 was a technique for like flying through your old letter 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:01.600 or whatever to break them up and start over. But 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:04.560 the line will do it too, because I never thought 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:08.119 about that. It's a good idea. But um, so to 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:11.160 to make these letters, you're using, um, the ground. Any 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:13.160 anything you can on the ground is like a frame 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:17.560 of reference, like streets um in some cities, or form 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:20.760 a grid like pattern. So in an article I read, 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:25.639 they basically said that's kind of like using lined paper. Um. 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:28.000 You also can use the shadow on the ground that's 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:31.320 reflected by the clouds to kind of show yourself like, Okay, 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:32.879 that that letter looks good, I can move on to 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:37.359 the next one. But you're also using timing too, so like, 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:41.280 for example, to make the upright in a ffort a 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:44.119 P or an L or something like that, you're gonna 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:47.800 hold your smoke trigger for like a fifteen count or 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:49.920 something like that, right, and you'll know what that's gonna 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:52.320 look like. I mean a lot of practice goes into 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:56.480 this too, for sure, because that's just one streak when 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:58.240 you have to go make the rest of the P 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:02.400 or an R or something that's very difficult. And Suzanne 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:08.280 Hasbury Oliver points out writing Chinese extraordinarily difficult, like in 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:12.000 the sky. I wasn't sure what she meant by that. 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:14.840 I think she met in this guy really yeah, man, 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:17.360 I thought you were just equating it with writing Chinese 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:19.760 on paper or something. I don't know. She's the best around, 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:23.160 all right. So once you have written this message, if 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:25.680 it is on a good day and it's not super windy, 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:29.000 you might get twenty minutes out of it. Um usually 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:31.280 less than that. I've seen anywhere from like eight to 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:34.600 ten before it starts to dissipate, and you can see it, 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:36.600 you know, for a while too once it dissipates. But 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:39.160 on a on a good day, what you're paying for 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:43.000 is not a lot of time, exposure time. So that's 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:44.560 why back in the day they used to do over 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:47.760 things like Times Square or sporting events. Of course, is 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:51.880 where they do the banners now. The same idea back then. Um, 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:54.199 And like we said, Chuck, they use a paraffin based 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:58.280 oil and they have a reservoir tank that usually holds 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:01.040 something like thirty gallons. This is a hundred and fourteen 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:04.040 leaders for our friends outside of the US and Liberia. 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:09.159 And um, that's enough typically to to write about twelve letters. 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:13.080 Not much no, so these messages are are typically fairly short, 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:15.840 although there was one that's way more than twelve letters 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:17.719 and I couldn't find out, but it seems to me 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:20.080 from what I've seen, it's got to be the longest 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:23.200 skywriting message ever, the one that John Lennon and Yoko 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:28.480 oh No commissioned. Uh oh, is it over Toronto? Over Toronto? 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:32.960 War is over? If you want it, Happy Xmas. They've 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:36.639 saved a few bucks there from John and Yoko. Um. 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:39.080 The only thing I can figure is they might have 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:42.680 had a couple of planes at work, maybe because that's 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:45.879 way more than twelve letters. Yeah, I mean, if the 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:48.720 thing sticks around for twenty minutes, they could be Yeah, 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:51.160 I would guess they'd have to use more than one. 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:54.800 And then uh over Austin in March of this year. 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:57.480 That had to be for south By Southwest or the 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:01.199 first several hundred digits of pie. So they must have 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:03.240 had a couple of planes over that too. Pie in 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:08.040 the sky. Um, it's gonna cost you some money. Uh. 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:10.440 In the article it says five thousand, but I saw 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:14.640 the other website. Maybe they're undercutting. Um said that they 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:18.840 started about fift bucks for the most basic message, which 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:21.960 is just an I I guess so, and it goes 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:25.360 up from there. Um, I know Kurt Brownell are raised. Um, 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:28.800 Like I said about sixty eight hundred bucks. Uh, that's 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:33.119 not bad for a lengthy message like that. Yeah, how 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:36.800 do I land? Yeah? And the Kickstarter apparently the founder 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:39.479 of Kickstarter heard about it and was in town and 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:42.040 like delayed his trip an extra day because Kurt had 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:44.800 a big party on a rooftop and um, he stayed 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:47.240 and went to the party just to I guess say, 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:50.879 like this is what my company has become. Or I 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:53.680 had something to do with this too, Yeah, probably so. Um. 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:56.600 And if you're worried about what is being used for smoke, 0:20:56.680 --> 0:21:00.000 like we said, it's paraffine oil. Um, And it's actually 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:04.840 non toxic, biodegradable, the good stuff. And if you're like, hey, 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:09.800 skywriting is polluting, but I'm cool with air shows. Well, 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:12.120 I have an eye opener for you, pal. They used 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:14.960 the same stuff at air shows. That's right. And if 0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:17.840 you are a pilot, like let's say you're a crop 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:20.280 duster and you've got a little tavil and chipmunk and 0:21:20.359 --> 0:21:22.399 you want to get into this because it seems like 0:21:22.440 --> 0:21:26.240 a good time to be getting into skywriting. Um, it's 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:28.360 also the worst time to be getting in the skywriting. 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:33.000 But um, it'll cost you anywhere from three to six 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:36.040 grand to outfit your plane to be able to do this, 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:38.520 which I mean you can make that back in a 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:41.480 couple of messages, maybe one. Yeah, that's not bad. Yeah, 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:43.840 if John Lennon hires you, yeah, I don't know if 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:46.440 that's gonna happen anytime soon. No, but Yoko still could. 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:49.239 She's still around and kicking. That's true. We saw her 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:53.159 in New York in person. Yeah, no way, what just 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:57.200 like walking No at a restaurant. Oh, that's a big one. 0:21:57.359 --> 0:22:00.879 It was a huge one. Yeah, they're neat or if 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:05.119 you're shy a La bouff. Oh yeah, yeah, you know 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:08.600 that guy, that jerk. He's not famous anymore. It bags 0:22:08.640 --> 0:22:11.919 says though he uh he did that you know, he 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:14.040 was in the ad that played Jars in Scandal earlier 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:16.080 this year. I didn't know what that was about. He 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:19.040 did some h I think, I'm not sure exactly what 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:21.760 he did, but he supposedly played giarized Daniel Clothes, a 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:25.200 graphic novel like pretty heavily and he was just killed 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:27.480 for it. For what did he have a graphic knowledge? Now? 0:22:27.560 --> 0:22:29.440 I think he did a maybe it was a play 0:22:29.520 --> 0:22:32.680 or something. I can't remember exactly, but he was called 0:22:32.680 --> 0:22:34.679 out and nobody likes that guy anyway, so people are 0:22:34.720 --> 0:22:37.960 ready to pounce on him anyway, So he did. He 0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:43.520 spent grand two higher skywriters, one that said I'm sorry, 0:22:43.960 --> 0:22:46.920 Daniel Clothes or clouds, I'm not sure I was pronounced, 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:53.399 and then another one that said stop creating because if 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:55.800 you're a creator, they're gonna come after you. I guess 0:22:57.359 --> 0:23:02.960