Skywriters are aerial sign painters who paint their messages in the sky. Many people think it is an art form. It is, but it is also a skill that combines science with artistry.
An article on the history of Skywriting can be found here:
A blog about the products used to learn this art can be found here:
The writer of this blog has been a licensed skywriter for over 24 years and has painted over 100,000 sky messages.
When you are a child, nothing seems more magical than writing in the sky. As an adult, I am still impressed by the skill and precision it takes to write in the sky, even when I know how it is done.
I have followed this art form for over 36 years and have researched its history, interviewed skydivers who have written in the skies, collected memorabilia from this unique genre of advertising and personal expression. I have talked with artists on both sides of the Atlantic.
The history of Skywriting is brief but colorful. It was started about 1920 in France by a man named Arthur Batut who was a pilot during World War I. He used to go up and fly around his name in smoke as he flew over his field at home outside Paris. This all took place before air to ground communications, so he could only be seen by people within sight of his plane as he flew by.
The first commercial skywriter was a man named Leo Valentin who flew out of Chicago in 1927. His name was LEO and he used to fly loops over Lake Michigan spelling out his name. The idea caught on quickly across America and many regular “skywriters” began flying their names around various cities across America.
New York City outlawed Skywriting after
If you’re a pilot and would like to learn to skywrite, you might be wondering just how this art came about. Most people think it was started by pilots seeking new ways to market their products. That’s not exactly the case. In fact, skywriting is an art that was started by one man who was trying to bring comfort and hope to a nation in mourning: Charles Peace.
Toward the end of World War I, the nations of Europe were devastated by the loss of millions of young men who had been killed on the battlefields of war-torn France and Belgium. Families were left without their sons; girlfriends and wives were left without their boyfriends or husbands; and mothers were left without their sons. These losses were devastating to all who knew these young men and seeing “The Fallen” as they came to be called, back in their hometowns, only heightened the pain of this loss. How could families deal with this?
By 1919, two years had passed since America had entered World War I. The public still had no idea what was going on over there because most American newspapers favored Germany over England at that time. It was difficult for Americans to understand why we needed to get involved in this war. Why should we care about a place so
The Skywriters began as a group of friends who would write messages on the sky at parties. The first documented skywriting flight was in June of 1921 by Allen Roy Hardcastle, who flew a loop around New York City, writing the message “Howdy doody, you know me Al.”
The first commercial flights took place during the 1920s and 1930s, when companies used smokeless engines to advertise their products.
In the late 1930s and into the 1940s, the Skywriters were contracted to write slogans for the war effort. As a result of this work, they were sometimes mistaken for enemy aircraft and attacked.
The modern era of Skywriting began in 1929 with pilot Charles “Speed” Holman, who created his own smoke engine. He wrote “Hello” across Los Angeles in an hour. In 1932, he traveled to Australia to perform for Prince George, becoming the first person ever to skywrite outside of California. Holman’s business partner was well-known air racer Art Goebel, who eventually bought out Holman’s interest. This company eventually became Modern Air Sign Incorporated (MASI). World War II brought in new government contracts for the Skywriters that lasted until 1947 when the war ended. The company continued to use its existing
If you know anything about the art of skywriting, you must have heard about the Skywriter’s Manual published by The International Skywriting Association. This is a book that is considered an expert on all things related to skywriting.
The History of Skywriting
Skywriting has a history that spans more than 100 years. It was first observed by a man named Samuel Langley who was an aviation enthusiast and a writer for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. In 1891 he saw two men flying in the skies above him and noticed their contrail. He wrote about what he saw in his journal and called it “Chromatic Writing”.
When two or more aircraft fly in close formation they leave behind a line of condensed air known as a contrail (condensation trail). Contrails are similar to the trails made by rockets and missiles when they leave behind a condensed cloud of smoke. Contrails are basically ice crystals formed when super-heated air from jet engines mixes with atmospheric moisture. Contrails can be produced at any altitude and are most common at cruising altitudes (usually around 10,000 to 20,000 feet) when an aircraft’s engine exhaust mixes with the surrounding air that is below the dew point (partially saturated with water vapor).
In 1911, a pilot named John J. Montgomery decided to use his Curtiss biplane to draw a message in the sky over Santa Rosa, California. He had been inspired by a story he’d read about an ancient general who had sent a messenger up a tall tower while his men held colored flags beneath him. The messenger would write a message on a flag, then raise it up and hold it open until the wind tore the flag to pieces and carried the message away.
Trying to recreate this event in the late 1910s proved difficult: The wind was not as cooperative as it had been for the medieval general, so Montgomery found that it was easier to draw his messages using smoke from a fire than with flags. He and his friend Charles E. Taylor soon developed a system of drawing skywriting messages by burning smoke-producing chemicals on sheets of tin, which they then hung out of their planes’ windows or suspended from their wings.
Montgomery wrote “This is writing without pen or ink” in the sky above San Francisco on April 17, 1912. On June 15, 1913 he wrote “Hello Atlantic” over Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island. He continued to experiment with different techniques for creating smoke trails that would stay up for long periods of time and
The first use of skywriting in the United States was in 1915 by Samuel Langley and his secretary/assistant, Charles Chandler. They successfully wrote “Langley” in the skies over Baltimore, Maryland.
During World War I, American aviators used the technique to write messages to each other, such as “Meet you at 3:00 at the Clermont.” These messages could be understood by all pilots within a 25-mile (40 km) radius of the intended receiver.
Since skywriting can only be seen fleetingly from certain angles and locations, a number of methods have been developed to aid the audience in determining when and where to view such displays. For example, during a mass skywriting display for an airshow audience, individual aircraft may be assigned positions at the cardinal points of an imaginary clock face in the sky; when viewed from a particular location, the letters will appear to form words that can be read by all observers located within a certain range of azimuths around the display plane.
Skywriters commonly make use of colorful smokeless fuels that are relatively safe to handle and easy to extinguish. However, most countries have banned skywriting because of its effect on the ozone layer. This has led to its being replaced by
