Plane Landing

Plane Landing

Mir's vision centers on the creation of a purpose-designed helium balloon in the shape and size of a passenger jet plane. Suspended above the ground in a permanent state of landing, the plane will have its world premiere at Compton Verney against a quintessentially English backdrop, before embarking on a global tour to other 'picture postcard' destinations. Plane Landing is an event: the production of the balloon, its travel to new destinations, the inflation, its 'landing' and the documentation of all these parts constitute the artwork.

Michael Stanley, commissioner, Compton Verney, UK, 2003.

Plane Landing is based on a simple conceit, where the primitive technologies of balloon travel masquerade as a high-tech jet plane, yet its engineering presents more than one fundamental paradox: how to make a balloon, using material that is lighter than air, in the shape of an object which was originally designed to carry over 400 tonnes of steel; how to balance a balloon in the form of a cross, when the perfect shape to sustain the elements is a sphere; how to tether the plane firmly to the ground, when its perfect aerodynamic shape will want it to fly. These are challenges faced by leading balloon manufacturers Cameron Balloons of Bristol and as such have taken the project out of the realm of aesthetics and into the fields of science, aeronautics, engineering and design.

Length = 20.8 meters
Wing span = 15 meters
Volume = about 100 cubic meters
4 different fabrics = white gas fabric (white gas fabric with overlaid
silver), black hyper last for the go-faster stripe, black window
fabric and red doorframe artwork fabric.
Approximately = 1 km of thread and heat sealed seams

May, 2003. Aleksandra Mir, Proposal for Compton Verney, collage, 2003.

May, 2003. Aleksandra Mir, collage, 2003.

May, 2003. Aleksandra Mir, Proposal for Santis, collage, 2003.

Despite scary storm warnings all week, the virgin landing on the evening of Saturday the 19th of July and the following two inflations,
at dawn and on the evening of Sunday the 20th, were ultimately blessed events. Seven hundred and fifty people attended the first inflation with picnics, patiently waiting for the wind to calm down. As the Cameron crew finally gave their start signal, the inflation began. At various stages the plane looked like an animal, a seal maybe, with its floppy wings being the last to inflate, and then slowly took the proud profile of a jet liner made out of steel. A gentle breeze made the plane wobble nicely, and just as the one-hour inflation ended with the wings lifting off the ground, the sun came out from behind the clouds, cheered and applauded by the audience spread all around the Compton Verney grounds.

On the following Sunday morning, which was scheduled as a photo op on the front side of the Compton Verney estate, the crew, photographers, Compton Verney staff and a small audience gathered at 5am for the most still and picture-perfect inflation. Shooting from across the fishpond, the photographers got their best images at sunrise, when the balloon's full reflection in the water created an image that literally replicated one of the initial collages proposed for the project.

See more Plane Landing collages.

Don Cameron was a leading member of the small team that in 1966 built the first modern hot-air balloons in Western Europe. In 1971 he founded Cameron Balloons Ltd. in Bristol, UK. The company is the world’s largest manufacturer of hot-air balloons and Bristol has become the undisputed ballooning capital of the world.

A vastly experienced pilot, he studied aeronautical engineering at Glasgow University and Cornell University, USA, and has received the gold, silver and bronze medals of the British Royal Aero Club for his ballooning achievements. Don was the first man to cross the Sahara by hot-air balloon, as well as the Alps, and in 1980 made the first balloon flight between the UK and what was then the USSR. In 1992 he flew a balloon of his own design from Bangor, Maine, USA, to Portugal and took second place in the first ever transatlantic balloon race.

Cameron Balloons builds, on average, one balloon a day.

Cameron balloons built the first round-the-world balloon, the Breitling Orbiter III, in 1999 and are also the manufacturers of Steve Fosset’s Cameron R-550 Roziere, which completed the first solo round-the-world flight in 2002.

Following these feats, Aleksandra’s proposal came in to the factory at a perfect time for Don Cameron to take on a new challenge. The development of Plane Landing required a completely new set of tools and great creativity and sensitivity to numerous factors to successfully merge art and science.

www.cameronballoons.co.uk