 The
Pilot
Suzanne
Asbury-Oliverr
Asbury-Oliver, a brown-eyed blonde, began flying gliders
at age 14 while attending junior high school near Portland, Oregon.
At 15, she soled and by 18, she was certified as a flight instructor.
She also holds an ATP rating and has logged over 5,500 flying
hours. Her most enjoyable flying hours have been spent in the
1929 open cockpit Travel Air Pepsi Skywriter biplane. "I fell
in love with the open cockpit flying," says Asbury-Oliver. "Most
pilots stare out at the sky through two layers of dirty Plexiglas.
But in the open cockpit, there is just the sky, the wind, the
cold, the ground, and me." She is the nation's only female professional
skywriter, and her aerial artistry -- painted on a canvas some
10,000 feet high -- dazzles many. Millions have met Suzanne through
national media attention such as the Today Show, US Magazine,
People Magazine, and front page coverage in the Wall Street Journal.
It's all in a day's work to Suzanne Asbury-Oliver.
The
Planes
 "Nancy"
They call her "Nancy." The 1929 Travel Air D4D open
cockpit biplane flown by Suzanne has a history as spectacular
as its red, white and blue paint job. It was collectively designed
by three notable aviaition experts: Clyde Cessna, Walter Beech
and Lloyd Stearman. The Travel Air D4D was the racing model of
the Travel Air because of its shorter, thinner wings. Today, the
plane cruises the skies at 100 mph powered by a 350 horsepower
Wright Whirlwind engine. It is still essentially the same plane
that flew in 1929, with an old-fashioned stick control and open
cockpit. "A lot of these antique planes," says Suzanne, "flew
a few years when they were new, then they were put in a barn somewhere.
In the last 10 years, somebody has restored them. But this airplane
has been working as a skywriter since 1931, and has been licensed
to fly every year of its life."
 It's
SkyMagic!
Utilizing the best of modern technology, SkyMagic was custom
built to perform this very "magical" skywriting act.
 About
Skywriting
Skywriting is an aviation technique created by
vaporizing fluid in the plane's exhaust system to form letters
in the sky. Each letter is about one-mile high, and the average
message is written across a 10-mile slate of sky. The Pepsi Skywriter
writes nearly 500 messages over some 150 cities each year. On
a clear day, each letter can be seen for up to 30 miles in any
direction from the ground. That's over 2,800 square miles for
each PEPSI or AIRSHOW message written. As the wind drifts the
skywritten words, even more people see them!
Find
out more about Suzanne, "Nancy" and skywriting...Visit
Our Website and view our Press Kit page for complete biographical
and historical articles about this "trio."
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