Everyone can write. With Tim Tibo’s team, however, the letters are 200 meters tall. Because he is skytexting – in the sky. When the five art pilots write messages in the blue, they are sure of “Ohs!” And “Ahs!”.
Traben-Trarbach / Unterwössen (dpa) – Suddenly large letters appear in the sky. An H, an A, an L, another L and then an O. And then a “TRIER” and a “STAY HEALTHY”. The scribes in the sky are five aerobatic pilots who leave their messages with white steam in the blue.
“Our letters are each around 200 by 200 meters,” says pilot Tim Tibo from the Skytexter team. The machines need a few seconds for each letter, so that the message is at a height of 3,000 meters in one and a half minutes.
And? “The people are all speechless,” says Tibo, a native of Bengel (Bernkastel-Wittlich district) on the Moselle. “We get so many positive feedback e-mails.” The pilot at a large German airline launched Skytexter 2020 with four colleagues from his job. “During the Corona period, we wrote“ Stay healthy ”many dozen times in Germany. People get excited: It’s positive news and they see something they haven’t seen before. “
Because: The Himmelsschreiber 2.0 is something new in the German sky – the idea comes from the USA. In Germany, planes are known to tow banners with messages or advertisements within sight. And those sky scribes who take off solo and write the letters in the air with a trace of paraffin. “That used to be a completely different technique,” says Achim Ochs from the German-American Glider Club (DASC) Traben-Trarbach. “It wasn’t finished at the front and then the letters at the back were already blowing away.”
“Today we use the digital possibilities,” says Tibo (44), who lives in Unterwössen in Upper Bavaria. Before the five planes take off, it is programmed which machine has to drop a cloud and when. In the air, the planes fly in a line next to each other at a distance of 20 to 30 meters, usually in a V-formation. That is “very demanding”.
And then? The machines are connected to each other via WLAN and receive the signal for use from a main control unit. Tibo flies the Leader plane in the middle of the formation. Greetings like “Moin Hamburg”, “Guude Frankfurt” or “Moien Letzebuerg” have already emerged. The reaction of a spectator: “I was completely amazed when I saw how letters and words appeared in the blue sky … A real eye-catcher!”
The letters are created by ejecting paraffin oil. “This is heated in the exhaust and evaporates in the process,” explains the pilot. It is neither harmful to the environment nor to health. If there is no wind, the letters could stay in the sky for five to ten minutes. “If it’s windy, it starts to blur after two minutes,” says Tibo, Skytexter’s managing director.
In the meantime, many companies have heard of aerial advertising. “We are very satisfied with the development,” says Tibo. The enthusiastic stunt pilots have already flown over Munich, Hamburg, Lübeck, Berlin and Frankfurt for companies. Cologne, Bonn and Düsseldorf will be added soon. As airline pilots, Corona is playing into their hands right now, as they have a lot of time due to short-time work or fewer duties. “But I would never give up my dream job.”
The Skytexter team includes a total of eight pilots, most of them from Rhineland-Palatinate – from the Moselle and Mainz. The others come from Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. “Many of us grew up flying gliders,” says Tibo. He and his colleague Manuel Lange, for example, learned to fly at the Mont Royal airfield in Traben-Trarbach. You are still a member of the German-American Gliding Club there. “Gliding is a great school for young people who are interested in flying.”
Lange and Tibo also got into gliding aerobatics on the Moselle. Tibo got the idea for Skytexting at an aerobatic show in Melbourne, Florida in 2017. “That’s when I saw it for the first time and thought it couldn’t be.” brought to Germany. For a long time it was “learning by doing”.
It was worth it. Lately he has often been asked whether the Skytexter could also write marriage proposals in the sky. Technically no problem. But: “If we then have to say that it costs a five-digit amount, the conversation is quickly over.”
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210517-99-625992 / 2
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