Weight Shift Control Advertising

Weight control aircraft get a bad rap with many in the public. Whether it is complaints about the lack of a tail and control surfaces to statements about flying lawn chairs. Those of us who fly these aircraft know they are safe stable aircraft when flown within their flight envelops and it is the inexperienced or overbearing pilots who often have problems. The problem has been one of perception by those who take one look and draw a series of conclusions. It is a fundamental problem of advertising. How to present these aircraft to the public and potential converts in a manner that creates a positive perception. Since the adoption of WSC aircraft into the light sport category by the FAA there has been an increase in general aviation pilots who have transitioned into this category suggesting that government (FAA) recognition adds legitimacy. But I believe there needs to be additional forms of government advertising for WSC aircraft.

To that end I would suggest that we adopt a stamp as an additional form of advertising.

The 9 cent airmail stamp issued in 1971 shows what is purported to represent a Jet Silhouette. Well, I would suggest that the stamp shows a top down view of a weight shift control aircraft in flight. Compare the 2 photographs below. One of the 9 cent airmail stamp and the other of a top down view of a trike. Clearly the stamp shows a WSC wing in flight and not a silhouette of a jet. I believe that this 9 cent stamp can be co-opted by the trike community and used to promote the sport.

The question then becomes are there other symbols whether stamps or any government advertising that can be co-opted to promote the sport?






Photograph courtesy of Lyn Freeman

Spinoffs - The Enthusiast

I have run across "The Enthusiast" an advertisement, several times on the web. Someone has taken the idea of the Sky Gypsies and reformatted it for their own purposes. In this case an advertisement for E TRADE. When the creation of an idea and it's implementation focuses solely on people and not the concept it is subject to vagaries of human nature and the probability of success diminishes. But when the concept itself is promoted in new and different ways, the probability of success increases. That is not to say promoting people is not important, but people should come second to the concept. A concept can be manipulated and formed into what ever shape works best in the effort to get the message across. Trying to promote an idea by focusing on the people involved results in misunderstandings, and that will not be as successful.

So keep it about the concept, in this case weight shift control aircraft, flex wing microlights, and ultralight trikes and not the people involved. The idea will grow and spread with others adding to the concept as they find a role in the promotion of the idea.

Prehistoric Advertising

Advertising is all around us with people trying to sell everything under the sun using all sorts of tools to get the viewers attention. But tools and resources for advertising can be expensive. Here in the Sky Gypsies advertising department there are no tools or resources to promote weight shift control light sport aviation. Everything is created from scratch and there is a constant effort to create new ideas and methods to provide visitors with a diversity of interesting material supporting the notion that "what can be done on the ground is more fun in the air". But what about cultures from the past? How did they promote their ideas and products to one another? Has anything really changed or do people use the same advertising methods today that were used thousands of years ago?

Here are the results from a Google search of “advertising nested bowls“. A review images returned with this search term all show similar presentations all the products, essentially a set of nested stacked bowls. When this search is expanded to include images of cultural material from the past, the search term becomes “archaeology nested bowls” and returns these images.

Even partially uncovered it is obvious the pottery bowls were displayed stacked and nested. Nothing has changed in the presentation of bowls in thousands of years. While it can be argued this presentation style was driven by function rather than form the fact remains the same, the style of presentation has not changed.

To extend this idea the advertising department created a set of nesting bowls of it’s own using only rocks. No metal or electric tools were used to create these stone bowls. They are reproduced in the style of stone bowls found at sites around the southwest and presented in the same format that has been used for thousands of years one bowl in another. Hand pecked, created by banging one rock on another, the presentation style of these stone bowls is indicative that the same old advertising approaches don’t always work and new methods of presentation are required to get people’s attention.

Stacked stone bowls in a metate.

Nested stone bowls

If weight shift control light sport aviation is to move ahead in an increasingly competitive market and move beyond being a "novelty in a niche market" new advertising approaches that will attract peoples attention are required. I would suggest that banging rocks together in an attempt to create the same old advertising does not work.