The History and Making of Special Shapes
The History and Making of Special Shapes
However simple it may have been, Golli was to spawn what continues today to be the fastest growing segment of hot air ballooning, special shapes. If you doubt the success of and demand for special shape balloons, consider this. In 1989, at the first Albuquerque Special Shapes Rodeo, a mere two dozen shapes participated. This year, more than 100 are likely to appear. And if Don Cameron launched the special shape balloon, Albuquerque certainly launched the first true celebration of this unique art form. Today there is hardly a balloon festival to be found that does not at least have special shapes in attendance, and many have copied Fiesta’s famous rodeo, with their own special events for special shapes.
Close on Cameron’s heels was his long-time competitor Per Lindstrand, now of Lindstrand balloons, then of Thunder & Colt. It was also in 1976 when the first T&C shape took to the skies; it was a golf ball built for the Volvo Open Golf Championships. Like Golli the golf ball was primarily a round balloon shape creating the "ball" with an elongated skirt that created a "tee."
What few people realize is that Adams Balloons, before Cameron and Golli, build the first special shape in the mid-1970s. The Kentucky Fried Chicken balloon was designed by Tarp Head and Mike Adams. It too was a regular shape balloon with appendages to look like a chicken.
The Balloon Works soon delivered to Greg and Edna Thompson of Oklahoma Ballooner Sooner, a replica of a University of Oklahoma football player. The balloon was a football helmet complete with inflated face mask and facial features to provide a 3-D image. Like its European counterparts, a standard shape balloon with inflatable appendages.
It was this style of engineering that would be predominant in all of the early shapes, a standard balloon shape to provide the necessary lift, combined with various appendages to create the shape. (In fact, this is the basic principle behind all shapes and continues today as one of the most popular ways to create a "shape.") Although this was especially true of one of the first family of shapes to come to America from Don Cameron there was one notable exception.
Raven, in 1979, built the Westinghouse Flight Bulb. The nautral shape of the light bulb lent itself well to be converted into a flying shape.
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Soukup/Thomas and Forbes
For special shape history buffs the El Camino Cafe on 4th street in Albuquerque,
New Mexico is a special place, for it was here in 1981, over chili and beer, that longtime
friends and balloonist Jacques Soukup and Kirk Thomas were to dream up the first of
their family of special shape balloons-Chic-I-Boom.
"We had been ballooning together since 1979," recalled Thomas in an earlier interview with Balloon Life, "and were of the opinion that most balloonists took themselves entirely too seriously and that maybe what they needed was something to help them lighten up." That something would be a hot air version of the movie star Carmen Miranda.
While today’s shapes are developed by long hours spent with a PC and a CAD (computer assisted drawing) program, in those early days it was pencil and paper and a lot of experimentation. And sometimes, one had to improvise.
"Don Cameron sent us some artwork that was totally absurd in terms of the size of the fruit, it was too small, way too small," recalled Thomas. "Bananas are as long as a face is roughly," he explains, "but we just couldn’t convince Don of this. So, we flew to England and Tucker (Comstock of Cameron USA) flew to England and we went to the local grocer and bought bananas and oranges and apples. They didn’t have grapes so we substituted small chocolates for them. Then we found an old dirty t-shirt and wrapped this around Tucker’s head and put this fruit on her and that’s how we convinced Don that the fruit had to be much larger!"
Chic-I-Boom would debut at the 1983 Albuquerque Fiesta and has delighted
spectators by the thousands ever since. Two years later, at the 1985 Fiesta, Chic-I-
Boom’s "boyfriend" Uncle Sam debuted. And in true Soukup/Thomas
fashion, he had been designed over Chinese food at a restaurant in London. In the
ensuing years to come, the Soukup/Thomas fleet would continue to grow with the
addition of a Halloween witch, a Marine bulldog and a Russian doll.
Along the way, both Soukup and Thomas discovered their special shapes brought an undeniable joy to people wherever they flew and that flying the balloons themselves was infectious. "It is infectious," says Thomas, "but it’s more than that, it’s like a rock that starts rolling downhill and it just goes faster and faster. Somewhere we’ve got a list of forty or fifty ideas so that if we want to keep going we can."
At the same time that Jacques Soukup and Kirk Thomas were discovering the infectious nature of special shapes, another American aeronaut was taking this infection to all points of the globe. By the early 1980’s Malcolm Forbes had already made quite a name for himself in ballooning circles. He had crossed the United States by balloon, survived a near fatal attempt to cross the Atlantic by balloon, and opened the world’s first ballooning museum at his Chateau de Balleroy in the Normandy region of France. His first special shape, a replica of the Chateau itself with its square corners, chimneys and steeply angled roof line, was one of the first revolutionary shapes to go beyond the round shape with inflatable appendages.
A motorcyclist as well as a balloonist, Forbes was to take ballooning and special shapes to new heights internationally with his series of "Friendship Trips" to China, Pakistan, Thailand, Russia, Germany and elsewhere. On the trip to China in 1982 Forbes took along a special balloon that featured the crossed flags of the US and China. It was an astounding success. During the trip the Forbes entourage received an invitation to visit Pakistan. In planning for that visit the success of the balloon in China led to discussion of how to salute Pakistan with a balloon was more than crossed flags of friendship. The result of these discussions was the Minar, a replica of Pakistan’s Freedom Monument. Future trips would see the Sphinx for Egypt, the Golden Temple for Japan, a bust of Beethoven for Germany, the Santa Maria for Spain and others.
In 1989, in what would be one of his last interviews about ballooning, Forbes talked with this reporter about how he selected the subjects for each of these special balloons. "Sometimes it’s very hard," he said, "like in the case of Japan, Mount Fuji is the perfect symbol, but it’s an upside down shape for a balloon. And you’ve got to be careful of satire, for example, a beer stein in Germany. At the same time you’ve got the avoid religious connotations. Indeed, we had some concerns about flying the Golden Temple in Japan, we were afraid some people might take offense, but it was warmly greeted there. We look for what compliments the country.
"It has to be something that, when somebody sees it, they instantly associate the country with it because they (the Forbes’ shapes) also fly in other parts of the world," Forbes explained. At the time of that interview Forbes was preparing for yet another Friendship trip, this time to Brazil. Unfortunately his untimely death in early 1990 forced cancellation of the trip, but his hot air tribute to that South American country, a beautiful red, blue and yellow Macaw, would debut a few months later at the 15th Rassemblement International de Ballons at Chateau de Balleroy.
With the death of Malcolm Forbes Sr. came the end of the Friendship Trips and the last of the Forbes special shapes built to honor international neighbors. (A new Chateau de Balleroy balloon to replace the original Forbes shape was completed later.) Of course one must wonder with Malcolm Forbes Jr. (Steve) now a candidate for President, can a flying White House be far off?
Commercial Appeal
The selling ability of a hot air balloon has long been proven. Unlike billboards and
other outdoor signs often linked to visual pollution, everyone (almost) loves balloons.
More than one survey has shown that some commercial balloons make impressions on
those who see them that can last for two or three years. And how many people do you
know who will stop to take a picture of a billboard? Put the same advertising message
on a balloon and camera shutters are sure to start clicking.
It should come as no surprise then that special shapes rank especially high when it comes to commercial appeal. With the ability to duplicate a client’s product exactly, build it sometimes tens-hundreds-even thousands of times larger than the real thing, and then place this object in the sky where it can be seen by the masses, it’s easy to understand the quantum leap in value that can be attributed to a special shape versus a standard hot air balloon.
While they can deliver much more bang for the buck, it’s no secret that shapes cost considerably more than a standard balloon, usually three or four times as much. A large percentage of that cost is wrapped up in the design and engineering because after all, most shapes are truly one-of-a-kind creations and largely still hand made.
Both of these factors, cost and commercial appeal, have combined to create a marketplace wherein most early special shapes were advertising vehicles for one corporation, product or service. Today that continues to be true. For example, there’s Planters Mr. Peanut, Kellogg’s Tony the Tiger, the Porter Paint Can, the Kodak Film Canister, the Ray-O- Vac battery, the Famous Footwear running shoe, the Pepsi and Mountain Dew cans, the United Van Lines moving van, and the list could go on and on.
Many of these balloons carry larger than life logos of the companies and products they represent. Others can deliver the same commercial impact by the mere strength of their icon’s identity...
It was in 1956 when a new souvenir made its first appearance at Disneyland. This new child’s toy was a simple helium balloon with large round ears. More than 20 million of these Mickey Mouse balloons would be sold over the next 30 years. In 1985, Stan Starr, a senior designer at Disney World wondered why not a Mickey Mouse hot air balloon? After constructing a model to show his superiors, Starr presented the idea to management and eventually to Don Cameron. Mickey’s succeeded beyond everyone’s imagination. So much so, that a second Mickey, Birthday Mickey was built, along with Donald Duck and eventually Snow White’s Castle in the Sky. Both Mickey and Donald are so universally recognized it would have been overkill to label them with the Disney name. While some might say the same of Snow White’s castle, that balloon was built with the specific purpose or marketing Disney’s various theme parks, so it base of puffy cumulus clouds was built to accommodate banners for each of the Disney properties.
But these dramatic shapes were not created without some consternation. "We had trouble with Mickey," explained Tucker Comstock of Cameron US. "His mouth and nose, and especially his grin, were difficult to duplicate." The difficulty was in trying to faithfully duplicate such an internationally recognized icon, while still achieving the desired end result, a balloon that will fly. It is an age old problem for designers.
Reality vs. Realism
Customers order special shape balloons for very good reasons. While a few
individuals are wealthy enough to bring their individual fantasies to life, most shapes, as
we have discussed, are commercially oriented. Product replicas that duplicate the
packaging so familiar to the consumer are in high demand. Of course, each shape is
built to order. You could hardly expect a manufacturer to build and keep a Kentucky
Fried Chicken bucket on the shelf just in case the Colonel or one of his PR people
should drop by one day thinking a balloon might be a good idea. Still, when the
customer arrives, drawing or model in hand, realism is at the top of their priority list.
For today’s structural engineers this presents a challenge as Cameron structural
engineer Steve Wallace recently explained to the British ballooning publication,
Balloons and Airships.
"To the structural balloon designer the special shape hot air balloon is above all an aircraft and as such it must be certified as safe to fly. The structural integrity of the balloon is therefore the designer’s main priority. The customer’s priority, however, is for the balloon to look stunning.
"The balloon must [also] obey the laws of physics, and although there are some ‘tricks of the trade’ that can be applied, some shapes cannot be supported by hot air and pressure. Sometimes, compromises may have to be considered."
Of course not every special shape is bound by such rigorous design criteria. Some, such as Arky, voted the most popular shape at Fiesta in 1994 and considered by many the most complex shape ever built, is an example. Arky was the dream of Ron Peterson, a minister from Centralia, Illinois. As a fantasy brought to life, both the graphic designers and structural engineers at Aerostar, who built the balloon, were free from the constraints required to duplicate a product or package. But, other design factors demanded their attention. For example, the angle and placement of each of the animals on the ark.
First was the selection of exactly which animals to place on the ark. With a world tour in the future plans for the balloon, Peterson wanted to be certain at least one animal from every continent on the globe was included. While computer programs assisted in the design of Arky, Aerostar’s graphic designers also sculpted clay models of each animal. These miniatures helped not only in the sizing and placement of each animal, but also assisted the designers in meeting on of Peterson’s top priorities, that each of the animals not be staring off into space, but that they be smiling and looking down on the children and spectators below.
In other cases engineers and designers are confronted with less critical but perhaps no less important a problem. When Frank Prell designed his clown shape he wanted the clown to be able to wave its upraised arm at the crowds of spectators. So, the engineers at Thunder & Colt designed a simple rope and pulley system to accomplished this feat.
For other shapes necessity is often the mother of invention. Such was the case with the Forbes Macaw. The basket of this balloon is below the main body of the Macaw while its tail hangs many feet below. On its first flight in France the pilots found that on approach to landing the tail could (and did!) drag through the trees and be ripped. Again a rope and pulley was added to allow the pilots to raise the tail just prior to landing to avoid continually fraying the Macaw’s feathers.
More recently Cameron’s engineers faced a more common problem. With many special shapes, especially the long, tall shapes like bottles, the balloon tends to inflate and rise from its middle, bending in half until, once the bottom half is upright, heat rises to the top bringing the shape to its final upright position. This was a problem deemed unacceptable for the recently completed Space Shuttle. With the balloon designed to cold inflate as if in a 3-point landing stance, the desire was for it to "lift off" in a natural way-nose first. A series of interior fabric panels serve to both reinforce the fuselage of the shuttle while channeling the heat to the nose of the aircraft creating a lift off even NASA can be proud of. In fact, the shuttle, according to Cameron, has more fabric inside the balloon than outside.
While the design and structural engineering of a special shape is a constant tug of war between reality and realism, every manufacturer contacted for this report acknowledged that their seamstresses were the unsung heroes of shape construction. Surrounded by yards and yards of fabric it is incomprehensible to all but those who perform such tasks how they do it.
Taking Flight
In the life of every special shape there comes that first inflation, the moment when
everyone finds out if this newest bag of fabric will fly. For the designer it can be an
excruciating moment, as Cameron’s Steve Wallace recently attested to.
"It’s very difficult to explain the feeling one gets on the first inflation of a special shape balloon. As the fan is turned on and the fabric begins to take shape, a million thoughts go racing through your mind. Is it too late now to worry about whether certain parts will be strong enough, or whether they have enough hot air or pressure to support their own weight.
Often the final rigging of rip-lines and turning vents is completed with the balloon partially inflated, and this just prolongs the agony..."
Special shapes, by regulation, must not require any special flying skills. However, it is not unusual for pilots to find that their new shape may exhibit some special flying characteristics.
Kirk Thomas recalled how turbulence would rock Chick-I-Boom’s basket in a rapid ascent or descent. He blamed the phenomena on wind rolling off her bananas. Balloon Hilda on the other hand would do a quick 180-degree turn whenever flying through a wind shear; her broom acting just like a rudder.
Like the Macaw, the Klondike polar bear had a basket that was not the lowest point of the balloon, its paws were. On a flight with pilot Jim Schiller in Sacramento, California a few years ago he related to me the need to be especially careful in selecting landing sites. At the last moment, should the bear turn, the pilot’s field of vision could suddenly be blocked by a huge leg and paw. Now where was that tree?
A similar problem with the Motorola flip phone was related by its pilot, Peter Mason. Here again design functionality required the flip microphone portion of the phone to hang below the balloon’s basket, blocking the pilot's view in one direction. The result? the balloon is often flown with two pilots on board, one to fly and steer the balloon, the other to continually operate the turning vents keeping the balloon turned so the pilot’s field of view remains unobstructed.
New for ’95
In the early years special shapes were largely the venue of first Cameron Balloons
and then Thunder & Colt. However, today virtually every manufacturer offers special
shape capability (although Cameron ranks as the largest builder of special shapes in
the world with almost 300 built and delivered). Many also have a variety of generic
shapes already type-certified and ready to be adapted to a customer’s demands. For
example, Joel Blom, Marketing and communications Director for The Balloon Works
lists a can, cube, sphere, cylinder, bucket, bottle, truck and light bulb among their
"stock" shapes.
As the largest gathering of special shapes in the US, Albuquerque is a shape watcher's haven. Among the many shapes sure to be seen keep a careful watch for the following, all new for ’95 and many planning to attend Fiesta:
The Balloon Works:
Tony the Tiger
Loch Ness Monster
Humpty Dumpty (upside down, i.e. falling)
The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe
Lindstrand Balloons:
Humpty Dumpty (right side up sitting on a brick wall)
Cameron Balloons:
Nassau Bay, Texas Space Shuttle
American Eagle (a replacement for the one destroyed by fire earlier this year in
Australia)
King’s Family Restaurant Ice Cream Tub (this is also the newest Charly Markert
creation)
Light Bulb
Illusion Bunny (rabbit rising from an inverted top hat)
Aerostar:
Brut Cologne Bottle
Wehrenberg Popcorn Bag
Special shapes were also the subject of some recent discussion among the ballooning news group on the Internet. Offered were a variety of ideas for new special shapes. One suggestion, a balloon flying sideways so that upon landing (when the balloon lays over of course) the pilot could always boast a stand-up landing. It took only a short time for Alan Noble of Cameron to chime in with news that they just test flew an upside down balloon shape. It would seem that Malcolm Forbes Jr. did not call Don Cameron the Michaelangelo of hot air for nothing!
