Skywriting and Skytyping

Описание: It is a calm, blue sky day and you notice a strange cloud forming way up in the heavens. It soon becomes clear that this is actually the start of either a marriage proposal, birthday greeting, or someone trying to sell you something.

You may be surprised how long skywriting has been around and like many aviation inventions, it came about after a major worldwide conflict. This was also the case with something that you may not have heard about, skytyping.

This video takes a brief glimpse into the history and how each one works.

#skywriting #skytyping #featheredenginefilms #ww1 #ww2 #aviationtechnology

00:00 We start with looking at skywriting
00:18 During the first world war John Savage noticed the aircraft laying down smoke cover and thought that it would be possible to use the same technique to write in the sky
00:37 As is so often the case after a war, there was many experienced and out of work pilots and lots of cheap war surplus aircraft
00:47 Savage purchased some Royal Aircraft Factory SE5 aircraft and started to train pilots in the art of skywriting
01:00 When in 1927 he wrote the words Daily Mail across the sky of London, many people thought that it may be a gas attack
01:15 Have you ever wondered how this smoke is produced. Here is a short extract from a newsreel that explains how it was done back then.
01:58 For the pilot it is not an easy task as they have to write the words back to front and upside down whilst taking into consideration things such as the position of the sun and wind direction
02:25 Savage applied for patents around the world, including one for the USA
02:40 In 1927 Savage brought skywriting to Australia and wrote words such as Shell, Minties, Lux and Read the Sun. He was hoping to sell the rights to an Australian pilot, but none took up the offer
03:07 You would think that the internet would kill skywriting, but it has actually made it more popular as now when someone writes in the sky hundreds of phones capture it and post it on social media
03:38 Another war comes along, technology improves and at the end we have a whole lot of pilots and aircraft looking for work and after WW2 skytyping was invented
03:48 You have 5 to 7 aircraft all fly parallel and there is one mother aircraft that contains the controls for the puffs of smoke which are programmed into a panel in the aircraft
04:18 The mother plane sends out a continuous sequence of tones that when altered will trigger a puff of smoke at just the right time on one or more of the aircraft
04:40 As they travel through the air the puffs of smoke will eventually form into a word
04:50 It is a lot quicker but more expensive than skywriting