Comments on: Skywriting: Who Says a Flying Job Can’t be Fun?

By: Candice Chatterton

Candice Chatterton — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 19:17:06 +0000

Here is something that has Jet appeal and a little more cost affective. Hope you enjoy their website as much as I do. They seem to have something new that they are adding to their website.

By: Mal Gormley

Mal Gormley — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:36:43 +0000

Thanks for the reminder about skywriting, which used to fascinate me as a kid living just north of LGA. Many summer weekends used to include that squadron of SNJ’s doing their thing overhead (sans laptops & wireless, I must point out–so how’d they do it then???)

Colored smoke seems like a no-brainer. Don’t the French AF & the RCAF teams use it?

By: Ron

Ron — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 04:10:44 +0000

They used to use SNJ-5s (like a T-6 but with a very large fuel capacity) out here, but the fuel cost was prohibitive, so they are now being used by the east coast Skytypers team (which also does formation airshow stuff). We use Grummans out here nowadays. If I recall correctly, the Skytypers SNJ-5 fleet are the only -5 series airplanes remaining in the world.

Regarding the typo, that’s a good question. The thing is, I have no idea what the signs say! The guys in the lead aircraft have a laptop computer and they just input whatever they want the message to say. Then, via a wireless network, it tells the smoke system in each airplane when to turn on and off. So unless I ask them what the signs say, it’s a total mystery to me. :) My job is just to fly a tight formation and hold station.

But I bet somewhere along the line a typo has been made once or twice over the years!

Skytypers is experimenting with colored smoke for better visibility. On days with high cirrus layers way up the stratosphere, the white clouds mix with white smoke and obscure the signs. The business is very sensitive to weather conditions. High winds can break up the signs too quickly, etc.

By: Robert Mark

Robert Mark — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 01:42:36 +0000

Smoke Surfing! What a life this must be Ron. Are you the guys that use the T-6s?

OK, so tell the truth. Did you ever make a typo?

By: Ron

Ron — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 01:01:46 +0000

Yeah, I think skytyping is a lot of fun. I fly with Skytypers’ west coast team, which is based out of Chino (KCNO). Andy Stinis’ son, Greg, runs the operation and flies the #1 aircraft. Still a family operation after all those years. :)

We usually write messages at 10-12,000 feet AGL and the messages themselves can be several miles long.

One of the neatest things I’ve done with them is called “smoke surfing”. When we’re enroute and bored, sometimes one of the aircraft will drop back 250′ or so and the airplane in front will turn on their smoke for a few seconds. The smoke gets into the wingtip vortices and starts to curl around. By the time it get a couple hundred feet back, it’s turned into a tunnel of smoke you can fly through.

I sort of feel bad about doing it now that I know what a barrel of smoke oil costs (nearly $1,000!), but it sure is fun. :)

–Ron