Sky writing by the Global Stars

On the 8th May 2020 sky writing became legal in the UK.

The Global Stars are now ready to take advantage of the law change and write your message in the skies of the UK.

The first occasion the team tested the new system was in China October 2019. The word sky typed was “SICHUAN 70” Prior to this we knew the smoke controllers worked as these had been run on a simulator for many hours debugging the software.

The Global Stars team are now a fully fledge sky writing team having perfected a total new system that uses a time base rather different than the radio systems as used in the USA, where sky typing originated.

All we need is blue skies, no clouds and little wind ! Also very important is to get above the inversion layer into the smooth (non turbulent) cold air, this is usually well below 10,000ft in the UK.

15th September 1940 is commemorated as Battle of Britain day. 80 years later to the day the Global stars flew the first UK sky writing mission “REMEMBER THE FEW”.

This new system is a further development of the dotty smoke system first displayed in 2009. It was shortly after the successful launch of the dotty smoke we started to take the first concept steps for sky writing.

This totally new system works using the Worlds most accurate time base, the atomic clock. This clock sets the time of the Global Positioning System (GPS) we are all familiar with as used in “sat navs” and smart phones.

This GPS derived time is used to control each aircraft individually to supply a puff of smoke at the right moment. The GPS is not used for any navigation feature in this instance although it could be in future versions.

EASA approved and very simple to fit to any aircraft with a smoke system, all that’s required is a break in the earth line of the smoke on/ off switch.

The unit is programmed on the ground with the appropriate code for the individual aircraft concerned. Its loaded via a laptop and takes about 10 seconds to transfer the file to each unit. Approx 20,000 lines of code are used so I’m told by my boffin Q. This code is encrypted so that reverse engineering of the unit can’t take place! Clever Q.

Flying as a 5 ship team spaced 60 meters apart requires pilots with good line abreast formation skills. The middle aircraft of the formation is leader with smoke controller number 3. The aircraft are numbered with nr 1 nearest the intended viewer at the top of the letter.

With this system we are able to add as many aircraft as required to draw any symbol or logo, even Chinese characters with up to 16 aircraft.

This video below is not of the Global Stars however it’s completely indicative of the teams abilities.