Selling in the Blue Yonder

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(From Page 1) message to his brother about the sudden death of their father. He) didn’t know where his brother was staying but he said he wa3 reasonably sure he would be op the beach 3 p.m. The Tomalino crew quickly assembled a message, “Guy, Please Call Home (phone number),’’ and flew it along the Wildwood bech. The next day Tomalino received another phone call and he was advised the brother did, in fact, see the message and immediately returned to Canada. Then there was the concerned animal owner whor apparently without'success, spent over $1,000 in advertising trying to find a lost cat and offered another $1,000 to anyone who returned the Siamese to him. A mother, worried about her runaway daughter, advertised "Kathy-Ann, Please come Home.’’ As if personal expressions weren’t enough, a husband took to the air route to tell his wife how he felt about her. He paid for a banner message that said: “Mary, I Love You.” The company, which has over 60 accounts fhis summer charges $110 for one run on one beach and an extra $14 for every additional beach its planes fly over. For the entire season the cost is $500 a run. THE REAL FASCINATION of this

unusual business is not in the air, but in the behind-the-scenes story of getting the messages and the planes into the air Three women begin the process in a room of a large South Jersey Airways hangar at the Cape May County Airport Louise Lemmon, her daughter. Beverly Pfaff, and Pat Herman, all of North Cape May. are the seamstresses who cut. hem and lay out the letters made but of nylon sail cloth They are anywhert^ from three to seven feet high and are colored black and red Mrs Lemmon has been doing this for 14 years and. as a testimonial to her •work, more than 3,000 letters are in storage, ready for use in the air Meanwhile, out in the hangar a crew of hfgh school students apply the appropriate letters to the-banners which extend 350 feet from the airplane to the banner's tail They are under the supervision of Kim Lawrence, a senior at Middle Township High School, who is a sky proofreader, of sorts She makes sure all the words art* spelled correctly < the other day she caught a misspelling of “shrimp" > and is the caretaker of the banners until they are ready for the trip aloft Her father. George, has flown for Paramount and now owns Ag Air. Inc which sprays farms ONCE THE BANNERS are completed on the ground, the scene shifts to two acres of land, a few miles away, on Weeks landing Road, adjacent to the Garden State Parkway It is here on this dirt road, virtually concealed from the parkway, that one of the most interesting free entertainments of Cape May County can be seen It is reminiscent of the aerial barnstorming shows that thrive between World

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J . • 1 ' . 4. - £*. Wars I and II Next to a spacious lima bean farm, a crew of students spreads out the banners on the ground A Piper cub approaches the field At the back of the plane is a long steel tubing pole with a hook on the end of it The pifbt zeroes in on . the banner while a workman holds the end of the banner firm ly At the precise time, the workman lets go i he better of he'll go for a ride. tool, the hook catches onto the banner and the message goes off into the wild blue yonder At no time does the plane touch the ground The closest it comes is 50 feet On the return trip, the banner is released from inside the plane and is dropped on an adjacent field where Ihe workers pick it up Tomalino said the- pilots are given a minimum of 10 hours training before they begin their aerial acrobatics He believes that his company's system of pickup is the safest 'because the planes; can achieve

altitude quicker in a shorter space Without •touching ground He said he got the idea to use this system from his days in the glider corps which employed the same principle Mrs Tomalino. who is president of the corporation, also is a pilot ' I only learned to fly in IWH becaft.se the airplanes happened to tie there." she said Mr and Mrs Tomalino are originally from Upper Darby. Fa They now reside in Wildwood They have four children and in grandchildren Tomalino is vice president of Ihe firm and their daughter. Barbara Dahlen of Rio Grande, is secretary treasurer She is in charge of sales and ffromotinn their business op}>rntes from the middle ‘ of May to the end of .Scptvml>er "After that we go down to the Florida Keys and float around in a boat for the Winter. Torpalmo said In the water and in Ihe air. Ihe Tnthalinos are very successful

(Photos hv Doris Wartti ANDRE TOMALINO AND wife, Lois, take respite from busy summer schedule at the side of one of their II airplanes used to advertise messages in the sky.

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