We've all watched those dramatic movie scenes where someone spells out a heartfelt declaration across the heavens. The real story behind skywriting, though, couldn't be further from romance — it actually grew out of sheer military necessity.

The First Skywriters

It was the British Royal Air Force that originally pioneered skywriting. Their pilots figured out that pumping smoke through their exhaust systems allowed them to craft messages and patterns high above the ground. The technique quickly proved its worth as a tool for communicating with troops stationed in distant fields or for generating a smoke screen.

Skywriting As Advertisement

The transition from military tool to public spectacle happened in 1922, when RAF pilots Cyril Turner and John Savage hatched a plan to break into the advertising world. Their target? George Hill, president of the American Tobacco Company.

The scheme was cleverly coordinated: Savage kept Hill company on the ground while Turner took to the skies overhead. The message blazing across the heavens wasn't some poetic slogan — it simply read, "VANDERBILT 7200," Hill's hotel phone number.

And did it ever pay off. Within the next three hours, a flood of 47,000 calls poured in, requiring eight switchboard operators to manage the deluge.

Before long, Allan j. Cameron and Leroy Van Patten founded the Skywriting Corporation of America. They patented the writing gas — which turned out to be nothing more exotic than light paraffin oil channeled through the exhaust. Their company dominated the market for years, only losing its grip once television emerged as the undisputed champion of advertising.

Skywriting Today

Many people regard skywriting as a lost art, yet you can still hire a skywriter if the mood strikes. Perhaps the most memorable modern example came courtesy of Yoko Ono, who in 1989 commissioned an airborne birthday tribute to husband John Lennon and son Sean. The phrase "Happy Birthday John & Sean – Love Yoko" streaked across the sky a total of nine times.

Fun Facts:

  • Major Jack Savage was a former British Royal Air Force pilot and a prolific writer for Flight magazine. He owned a successful skywriting fleet of Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5 aircraft operating in England.
  • Did you know that the skywriting corporation purchased a fleet of surplus World War II planes and proceeded to design a new skywriting process called "dot matrix skywriting," also known as sky typing?
  • One of the first mega companies to use skywriting was Pepsi-Cola which used the services from Skywriting Corporation of America to reach a mass market. The company contracted a whopping 2,225 flights in 1940.