It's a bird, it's a plane, it's - an ad floating among the clouds
The Associated Press
LEXINGTON, Ala. -- Picture the Manhattan skyline filled with Nike swooshes. Or the golden arches of McDonald's gently drifting over Los Angeles.
A special-effects entrepreneur from Alabama has come up with a way to fill the sky with foamy clouds as big as 4 feet across and shaped like corporate logos -- Flogos, as he calls them.
Francisco Guerra, a former magician, developed a machine that produces tiny bubbles filled with air and a little helium, forms the foam into shapes and pumps them into the sky.
The Walt Disney Co. will use one next month to send clouds shaped like Mickey Mouse heads into the air at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., Guerra said.
"It's a shock factor when you look up and there's a logo over your head," said Guerra, whose company, Snowmasters, also makes machines that churn out fake snow and foam for Hollywood movies and for special events.
The foam is environmentally safe because it's mostly water, air and a soapy agent that creates bubbles, Guerra says. A single Flogo can travel 30 miles at 20,000 feet, Guerra says, and a machine can produce one every 15 seconds.
