PRODUCT INFORMATION
The airplane design is inspired after a Zivko Edge single seat airplane, which is used in the Red Bull Air Race World Championships. These racing aircrafts are highly decorated with colorful high-end advertisers and sponsorships. The size is just right for this illusion. Mike builds each aircraft by hand and is not using any old aircraft parts or shells.
We don’t have a video of the appearance from our first airplane client and want him to retain his production ideas. We can make it in any color but our first client needed white for his story line. He received this illusion a few months before the shutdown due to coronavirus and now we all are waiting to get back to work.
This was Mike's first airplane production. It is different than any other airplane appearances ever made. This is a surrounded, no black art appearance.
Mike’s idea for this effect is to have the lift on stage but it’s not really identified that it has anything to do with aircraft.
Mike’s vision for this appearance is:
After the 4-sided cloths are lifted up, a small boy runs on stage with a small toy airplane on an end of a 3-foot stick with a small sparkler trailing a little bit of smoke. He flies his airplane around then darts in the covered area and a projection takes over on the front of the cloths spread across the front. We would love to provide a projection of the small airplane flying while the plane is skywriting the magician’s name fully across the front. Then the airplane does a large loop to loop and a large smoke burst fills the center area. All cloths are dropped and the skywriting airplane has appeared, too. This whole presentation helps with time. You can make the production faster but it could be awkward just to lift up covers and wait for the appearance. We know a great production story is much better than just an empty space that gets filled with an emotionless production item. Estimated production (pure airplane appearance) time is approximately 20 seconds. If the aircraft call letters, colors or decorations are some sort of prediction on the airplane, it would make it a better story than just the item itself.
As you see in these photos, this airplane appears raised on an aviation scissor lift for moving airplanes from hanger to hanger. You are able to see through the scissor’s mechanisms. The lift has a 12-volt lighting system and air pressure system. Without giving away all the secrets of Mike’s work, we know that a lot goes into having this airplane appear assemble on top of the lift with the wheels just balancing on the outer edge of the lift. It also overhangs the front of the lift about 30 inches and has a tail wheel stand for the back end of the airplane to appear and rest on.
The lift measures approximately 9.8 feet long and 6 feet wide and 32 inches tall.
The aircraft appears at a top height of 10 feet (propeller tip) and length of 23 feet and wingspan of near 24 feet. A 4-sided large tall cloths on 10 foot poles create an enclosed shape where the airplane appears. You can have your audience surround this lift if you want on stage. You do need some assistants to help this aircraft get into shape. It’s not entirely automatic.
But if the surrounded appearance would be too slow or expensive for you, let’s do a quicker less expensive one using our other methods.
We can adapt our tooling to create a black-art production and help you create your own vision, but this one pictured is the surrounded one.
Unfortunately, you can not have anyone inside the airplane when it appears due to some space issues.
